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Hubby and I had the opportunity to travel to Shanghai for business in October. What an amazing city!!!!

Our trip got off to a slow start after we boarded the plane. Storms hit Sydney so we sat on the plane for 2 hours before we could go anywhere. This along with delays landing in China turned a 9.5 hour flight into a 12 hour flight. Ugh, not a fun way to start a trip overseas. By the time we arrived at the hotel and checked into our room it was about 1am Sydney time so we were both exhausted. Thankfully, the service at the hotel was excellent and the staff took us straight to our room and checked us in there, rather than reception which was wonderful.

Before we left I finally bought myself one of these

I had been trying to decide on a new camera for a while and I wasn’t sure whether to go for a point and shoot or a DSLR. Seeing as I hadn’t done a lot of photography before now, I struggled to justify the extra cost of a DSLR so the G11 is a great compromise. It has lots of flexbility and most of the settings that a DSLR has but its smaller and not quite as expensive as most of the DSLRs. I love it, it’s easy to use and I have managed to take most photos so far without using the auto.

So, here are some of the photos that I took while we were away – starting with Shanghai. The rest will follow soon. Hubby took some great ones with his camera so I will try and download some of them too to share them here.

Chasing the sunset

Clouds that look like you could walk on them

Looking forward over the leading edge of the wing

Sunrise over Shanghai - that is more of a heat haze than straight pollution, although there is some pollution. What you see here is about as good as it got while we were there.

Afternoon Tea for one at the Hotel, after spending our first day at an industry exhibition. And it tasted as good as it looks.

Our second day we went on a factory tour. Unfortunately for my knees, this was the only toilet there

A rice field near the factory, about an hours drive from the centre of Shanghai. The landscape completely changed from highrise buildings, mainly apartments, to rice fields and smaller houses dotted around. Once you get out of the highrise its really beautiful.

On our third day there Hubby and R went on another factory tour and R's wife M and I went walking and exploring Shanghai. It was great to walk around and really get a better feel of what the city is like. We spent hours at the Shanghai Museum and could have spent even more time there. It was wonderful to see some snippets of the history of China. Behind the Museum is The People's Park. There was lots of people feeding the birds in this oasis of green in the middle of the city. This is one of my favourite photos from the whole trip.

Bird feeding in the People's Park

Men working on a building - I'm so glad it wasn't me suspended up there

Shangahi Theatre, just so you can see how high those men are.

No explanation necessary

This is the western end of East Nanjing Road, where the pedestrian mall starts. The whole mall was a sea of people.We were warned that pickpockets target Westerners and to be very aware of people around you and not to wear handbags on your side, to keep them at the front and zipped or closed up. The guys were told not to leave their wallets in the back pockets or they would lose them for sure. It was a bit unnerving to walk around with this many people and be on your guard.

Shanghai's Communication Tower, also known as the Pearl and other buildings on the Eastern side of the Huangpu River

There are so many more photos that I took, these are just a selection. I will be uploading them to Flickr soon, so I will post a link to them and you can look at the rest if you're interested. And a disclaimer - all of these photos are straight out of the camera and the night ones were taken without a tripod which made it difficult, but I managed to get a few good ones. Also, a lot of them were taken from inside and there is reflections off the windows - I tried to edit it out in Photoshop but it looked worse.

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3 countries in 7 days will do that to me.

Hubby and I had the opportunity to travel to China for work, so we jumped at it. We also managed to squeeze in some time in Hong Kong and Macau.

Three amazing countries, but really one. Hong Kong and Macau are both Chinese territories but they are run as Special Administrative Regions (SAR). Despite being Chinese territories, travel between them is still international, with customs and immigration to be cleared each time.

They all have so much in common, but so many differences at the same time.

We started off in Shanghai – what an amazing city that is. Words really don’t do it justice. It’s big, its loud, it’s busy and the people. OMG the people. There are 18 million people registered as living in Shanghai but there are a lot of people who work there that are registered as living elsewhere in China, which means the population can be as high as 21-2 million. That’s the whole population of Australia in one city. I struggle to really grasp the concept of so many people in one place. It is also beautiful and I am still feeling entranced by it. I would go back there in a moment if the opportunity arose again. Fingers crossed it will.

We then travelled to Hong Kong which is another amazing place. Still busy, but not nearly as many people as Shanghai and being a passenger in a taxi there isn’t nearly as scary as in Shanghai. The traffic is a little more “disciplined”. There is so much there to see and do that there is no way we could cram enough in in the time that we had there. Again, I would go back in a heartbeat. There is an amazing mix of Chinese and English culture and architecture. And possibly one of the most beautiful cities at night.

Macau is different again. It has a lot of Portugese influence, in the food (Portugese tarts to die for) and the architecture in the old part. It is also aiming to become the next Las Vegas. The casinos are amazing. Think of Las Vegas and that is what the Cotai Strip in Macau is becoming. The buildings are huge, the lighting on the building and inside is amazing and the sounds of a very flamboyant city was something to behold.

The 7 days went too fast, with so much to discover. We were busy every day and the pace was hectic. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. On top of the exhaustion from the busy schedule, we flew home overnight from Hong Kong and sleeping on planes is not something I am good at. Never have been, and I’m sure I never will be. This is where the struggling comes in. I have been feeling like a stunned mullet from the time we got off the plane on Monday and trying desperately to catch up on missed sleep and overcome the 3 hour time difference. After my first decent night’s sleep last night, I have been feeling a little better today but still struggling and very foggy-brained.

I have so many photos to share and I haven’t been able to concentrate enough to download them from the camera and upload them. I have just over 600 to go through and sort the good from the bad and the just plain ugly ones. I promise I will post them soon and more about what we did and what we saw whilst away. I can’t wait to share the photos that I took with my new toy.

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