Padd Solutions

So, Friday was travelling home day. We decided to get the MagLev. Capable of 430km/h (268mph!!) but, alas, it was a certain time of the day - so it was restricted to a puny 187mph.

^ The MagLev station.

^ On-board the MagLev.

^ 0 km/h

^ Thats not 0 km/h...

^ ... More like it :)

^ Then on the plane on the way back. I love the translation on this wet towel. :D

Well, you wouldn't want a try turban, would you?

I’m typing this blog up on the plane from Shanghai to Xi’an. There’s a hell of a lot of turbulence (there seems to be on every Chinese domestic flight) so excuse any typos!

Woke up around 8-9 and watched some LOST. Then me and Tim set out to find some breakfast. I ended up with Cheetos and Cookies. Yum.



I’d seen earlier on google earth I was just around the corner from Asia’s largest gun museum, so me and Tim left Aya in the apartment and set off on an epicly manly adventure of looking at guns, drinking beer and arm wrestling. Okay, maybe not the last two. Well, turns out, none of those things. After getting to the gun museum we were basically told to go away.  We have no idea why, but there were some people playing badminton in the museum lobby! WTF!?

After having our manliness questioned; we had to take action. So, we decided to head to the camera shop to check out some expensive gadgets and do some bartering. Man-stuff.
It turned out the camera shop was actually an entire camera mall! Three stories of near-identical stores, all selling cameras from compacts to DSLRs. Tim fancied a DSLR after having taken a few pictures using my 400D. We were looking at the 350D, and the 1000D, but Tim reached into his bag of manliness (and wallet) and splashed out on a 450D. The shops in the mall were very strange however. They didn’t seem keen to budge on price which is strange for China. So I tried getting them to throw in extra memory cards / batteries and they still weren’t biting. At one point a guy offered us a price on camera + some extras of £476. We said we’d pay £470 – cash, there and then, and he said no! Crazy.
Then while heading up the escalator to the third floor, my lens cap fell off my camera and down the gap. I’d lost my freaking lens cap in a huge camera mall. Oh the irony. I bought a cheap non-canon replacement – but it fits like crap and will probably fall off and get lost, but at least I was in a place where a replacement was easy to find.
Tim bought his 450D, and off we trotted cameras in hand.

^ The whole mall was made of cube-shaped-outlets, each made of identical cabinets to this. Rough calculations say about 800 of these cabinets. *drool*

^ Flashes, Lenses and bodies, oh my!

^ Tim's 450D - Its tasty.

^ It takes lots of 100 notes to buy a camera :P

^ Tim with his new camera...

^ Taking a photo of me with my camera! 

We faffed around in the evening. Aya met up with one of her friends. Then upon returning to our district of Shanghai we met up with Pinky who took us back to his university dorm. He introduced us to his dorm-mates (6 guys living in a room about 5x20 meters) who were all very cool.

^ I love fast food distribution here. Restaurants that have road access are like "hub stores", these restaurants then deliver to the smaller restaurants via scooter. So, the hub stores have gangs of delivery dudes who suit up, helmet on, slap the delivery on their back, and ride out. I can't help but wanna start humming the ghost busters theme whenever I see them...

^ My new brothers! Pinky and his room-mates.

We went out and grabbed some food (very tasty) then back to the hotel for our last night in Shanghai.

^ Every meal should be washed down with a cool Tsingtao. :)

So, Tried to time it so the sun would be going down as we were up the TV tower. Started out with a few shots with the telephoto lens.

^ Building work in Shanghai. Fancy that.

^ Traffic in Shanghai. Okay; thats a little shocking. :p

^ Apparently this way is East! And in the background; the observatory where I was the day before.

^ The walkway I was in the day before. Hehehe, even with the 300mm max'd out; they looked so small.

^ The TV tower is TALL. And we were right at the top in the space module. This gives you an idea of JUST HOW HIGH the SWFC is!

^ Another shot of the SWFC, its just so pwetty.

^ I love this tripplet of buildings. It was cool to watch them change as it got darker.

^ The lower observation deck. ( The big ball near the top when ur looking at the tower. The Space Module is the tiny ball just above it. )

^ As demonstrated in this handy picture. Previous picture was taken in the 2nd "ball" from the top.

^ Shanghai at dusk. Pretty boring without its lights on.

^ Me chilling out with a few million people.

^ Inside the space module. The Space module was very small, and very quiet. Its like an extra £5 to go to the space module compared to the "standard" observation deck. Well worth it for the serenity.

^ More Shanghai at dusk. A few lights starting to come on.

^ The entrance to the space module.

^ My two favourite buildings starting to get lit up a bit more.

^ I love shots like this.

^ As it got darker, the lights INSIDE the space module started to reflect off the windows. This haz'd out a lot of my photos... and in later pics you'll see my blatent reflection. C'est la vie.

 

^ Getting darker!

^ The tripplet starting to contrast against the sky / river.

^ Shanghai really starts to come alive at night.

^ Darker still!

^ I liked the orange hue of the street lights.

^ Started playing with some long exposure pictures. There was a tiny window sill, and I had my baby tripod. I couldn't keep the camera perfectly still, as I still had to hold it a little to stop it sliding down the slanted window sill. But... hey ho. You get what you're given.

^ <3

^ Wish I could have opened the windows to get rid of the glare.

^ Shanghai looks awesome at night, no?

^ Pwetty.

^ Thats an awesome shade of blue.

^ Electric blue. I like.

^ The North-East side of the river.

The North side of the city.

^ I like this shot. Taken from the lower, standard, observation deck.

^ Lots of nice colours here.

^ and voila. Me looking exhausted from taking a gazillion photos!

Hope you enjoyed those snaps as much as I loved taking them. It's a beautiful city, I recommend it to everyone!