Shanghai, PRC
So you're starting your trip to China in ShanghaiWhen you get out of the airport with your luggage and all, there will be taxis. Before you leave the airport, some drivers (or agents for drivers waiting outside with their cars) will approach you and ask where you're going. You can negotiate a price with any of these guys. Balk or actually laugh at their first price. It should be below 150 yuan. Don't feel pressured, there are more than enough taxis to choose from. Most will actually prefer to use the meter and all you have to do is make sure they don't slap the meter before you get out or do anything funny that causes the price to jump by a few hundred yuan. This has never happened to me, though one driver wasn't able to get his meter to work so we negotiated a price. At any rate, it should be between 130 and 140 yuan to get from the airport to your hostel. He should know the Pujiang Fandian (Poo-Jee-Ong Fawn-Dee-Ehn; say it quickly). If he doesn't understand, you can show him the chinese text that's featured below the English in the map key of your Lonely Planet.
Hostel
You'll get to the hostel and walk into the lobby that I was told is open 24 hours a day. Someone will hand you a form to fill out. You must fill these out for anyplace you stay in China. One lady will have you fill out the form, another woman will take your money. You'll then get in the elevator and the bellman will take it up to the appropriate floor where you'll pay your key deposit to another woman and be taken to your room. You and Sam may be on different floors, but most likely only in different rooms. In the room, you'll have a wooden locker to keep your things. There's boiled water kept in big silver thermos. This is for drinking and replaced every day. The showers are downstairs at the end of a long hallway. I think there're signs up in the hostel telling where they are. They're basically like the showers at any health club and in the middle of winter I found them quite nice.
Food
So for food, there's a lot of western food in Shanghai. You'll pay more for it, but in great need, you can always stop into a Pizza Hut or Subway. These places are fairly fancy in China. Shanghai has a lot of good restaurants, not all of which are incredibly expensive. You'll find restaurants serving food from a lot more areas of the world than you would find in the rest of China. Thai food, Tibetan food, Japanese food.
For cheap eats, look for noodles or little restaurants. We ate at a fast food noodle shop in Shanghai where a customer who spoke some english came up to the counter and helped us order. There are two types of noodles, fried noodles or noodles in soup. Fried noodles are called Chao Mian (pronounced Chow Mee-en, similar to the Chow Mein that we say in the west). Otherwise expect your noodles to come in a broth. I usually order the noodles and tell them I don't want meat. If they ask me anything about what I want in the noodles I just nod my head and agree, as long as there's no meat. Here are two ways to say you don't want meat:
Bu Yao Rou (Boo Yow Roe), which means literally, No Want Meat
or
Wo Bu Chi Rou (Woe Boo Chuh Roe), I No Eat Meat
Now, there are tones related to these words but I can't teach you those in writing. As long as you give each word a kind of neutral tone and don't try to add your own tones (for example raising your voice at the end of a sentence like you would with a question) and repeat the phrase enough times, people will understand you. Making your food needs known and then asking for advice will allow most waitresses to pick food that will be good for you. Some other key terms:
Ting Bu Dong, I don't understand
La de, Bu La de, Spicy, no Spicy
As for buying things off the street, bottles of sprite, coke or the like are 3 yuan. They may try to ask for more, but you can usually refuse to pay it and go ask the next guy selling drinks. In more popular places though (by the river or on a big expensive street), they may have enough customers to insist on a higher price. You can bring a bottle of whatever into an eatery and avoid paying 12 yuan for a drink. This is okay unless the place is pretty darn nice. You might see people selling steamed dumplings. They'll have big stacks of bamboo baskets with steam pouring out. If you ask for a Dou Sha (Doe Shah) dumpling, you'll get one with sweet red bean paste inside. If you ask for a Dou Fu (Doe Foo) you'll get a spicy tofu dumpling. These steamed dumplings are called Bao Zi (Bow Tsuh). They are a little less that 1 yuan normally, and the street vendors are common enough.
Train
To get to the train station you'll need to take the subway. From the hostel walk south across the Garden Bridge and continue south and then west on Nanjing Donglu to the Henan Zhonglu metro station, which is the closest one to you. Tickets are 1 yuan each for the inner area, I believe.
To buy train tickets, you take the north-south running subway line (you'll need to switch lines at the People's Park station, called Renmin Guangchang in chinese) up to the top station, which I believe is marked 'train station'. You stand in a square and face the big facade of the station. The ticket building is to the right and across the street from the station. You simply follow the facade to the right, past the checked luggage kiosk, and cross to the street. Inside there is a window that is marked "English Speaking Agent" or something of that nature. Just say the name of the city you want to go to, the date you'd like to travel and that you'd like to go hard sleeper as opposed to soft sleeper. The prices are something like 340 for a hard sleeper and 500 for a soft sleeper. You must pick which bunk you want to have. For the hard sleeper there's bottom, middle and top. Most people in the compartment will use the bottom bunk for a seat during the day and the top bunk is kind of cramped. Prices are also slightly cheaper for the upper bunks. My wife and I usually do a combo move of 1 upper and 1 lower. For the soft sleeper, there are only top or bottom bunks. The bottom bunks obviously sell out first. If you are really stuck with the train tickets, you can go to the travel desk of any tourist hotel and buy a plane ticket which leaves from the domestic airport that's a little bit closer to downtown Shanghai. A plane ticket could be around 900 yuan (yuan is pronounced like U.N., where the 'a' is often pronounced like an 'e' in chinese) though I've found one for 670 to Xi'an and they were much lower following the SARS epidemic. On another note, there's a Mister Donut across the plaza from the train station and you should load up before boarding your train.
Things to do and see
The Lonely Planet says the French area/concession is cool, and this is true. Coming from the west though, it may seem a bit like walking around your neighborhood. I couldn't understand Lonely Planet's description of where the different areas are, but the area between the Changshu Road metro station and the Hengshan Road metro station is cool and a bit frenchy.
Doing the Tourist tunnel is boss. A freakout China experience for sure. Taking the metro is a much cheaper way to get across the river though.
There are river cruises. That might be interesting. Like the tourist tunnel, go to the Bund area by the river and there are people in little booths selling tickets and all the rest. I don't know if these are a rip off or not, but taking the big cruise down to the confluence with the Yangzi would be cool. Shanghai changes really quickly from one neighborhood to another so most walking is fairly damn interesting. Don't be at all afraid to go wherever you want and eat wherever you want. If you try, people will reward you.
Check out a map of the Shanghai subway in the links section. Best of luck!
