As I’m sure many of this site’s readers will have realized by now from the subject matter of recent posts, a rather large number of us (myself included) headed to Shanghai over the past weekend. Almost forty percent of the entire DATE 2019 cohort, in fact.
It’s created a bit of an problem for me. After all, it doesn’t quite make sense to write about something which everyone else has already covered. Sure, there can be plenty of varying perspectives on the same experience, but let’s be honest here – most of us aren’t GP teachers who can stomach tens of essays written on the exact same topic.
On the other hand, the four day trip took up most of my week, and I haven’t really done anything else particularly interesting. So here’s my Shanghai experience, in under seventy thousand words.
Day 1
Despite having taken the high-speed rail several times, I’m still amazed by the sheer speed of the train – this real time video could pass off as a time lapse on a normal train.
Our first stop was the Happy Valley Shanghai theme park.Unfortunately, our enjoyment was often interrupted by intermittent (and sometimes rather heavy) showers.
After my friends decided to join an hour-long queue for a ride, I went around exploring the park on my own.
The Dive Coaster was the highlight of the theme park for me.
Day 2
The next day, we visited Disneyland Shanghai.
I found myself exploring the theme park by myself again after my friends joined the two-hour long queue for the TRON lightcycle.Like the previous day, the weather was rather dour. Fortunately, though, it didn’t rain.
I attended two shows: the Pirates of the Caribbean themed Eye of the Storm, and Tarzan: Call of the Jungle.While neither of the performances’ plots were particularly compelling, the effort that was put into bringing the characters and scenes to life (using plenty of acrobatics and live practical effects) was impressive.
After regrouping with my friends, we went straight for another two-hour long queue, where I took this photo.In the evening, we attended the 20-minute long finale fireworks display.
Without much lighting in front of the castle, we had to resort to more desperate measures to get our photos.
Day 3
The next day, we headed for Yu Garden (豫园).Things didn’t quite go as planned while navigating there, and we ended up at the City God Temple instead.
After the short stop at City God Temple, we headed into Yu Garden.
A word of warning to prospective tourists – the area around is really, really crowded, particularly since we went on a Saturday.We then went over to Nanjing Road, a 5 km long shopping district.Incredibly enough, this place was even more packed than Yu Garden.In the evening, we visited the Bund (外滩). As fate would have it, so did several thousand other people.
While the others were enjoying their dinner, I impulsively decided to head up Shanghai Tower.Shanghai Tower is the second tallest building in the world, and has the fastest elevator in operation.Despite being somewhat obscured by clouds, the view from the top was still rather impressive.
Day 4
We closed off our trip by journeying around central Shanghai, visiting places such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Museum.
