Wuzhen West Scenic Area

Arriving in Shanghai

It was a great flight, with about 6h30 in the horizontal position for me across three seats.  That was most of the time between the two good meals that were served.  I slept for about 3h30 and lay or dozed for the remainder.

We landed in Shanghai at 0615, about 30 mins ahead of schedule.  With no bags and short queue for immigration, we were out landside pretty swiftly.

The plan for the day was to go to our accommodation in Wuzhen, since the intercity transportation would kill some time.  It is better than counting on being let into a Shanghai hotel early in the morning.

We made our way to the ground transportation centre and found by chance, the Shanghai Airport Link station.  This line connects Pudong Airport to Hongqiao Airport and Railway station in 40 mins, rather than the 1h30 ride on the metro that was required previously.

Solving a travel mystery

On the train ride, we chatted with Kenny, the Shanghai-based crew on our flight.  While she has only flown with Air New Zealand for a year, she previously flew with Emirates for 6 years.

Like many of the Shanghai-based crew, she spoke better English than many New Zealand crew of foreign heritage (e.g. Finnish, Belgian, German, Chinese, Japanese).

I finally managed to solve one of the great mysteries about Emirates, which is why cabin crew start counting the number of passengers from the front of the Economy cabin before the meal service and collecting in.

Basically, Emirates often uses full-sized trays which means that trolleys fill up faster than on other airlines.  The count helps crew work out where the second trolley can begin from for the start of the meal service and for collecting in.

Getting to Wuzhen

Getting to Hongqiao Terminal 2 station of the train line, it wasn’t far to walk to the Hongqiao intercity train station.  We managed to buy a ticket for the 0844 train to Tongxiang (the station closest to Wuzhen) and cancel our 1150 train at a small penalty.

The new ticket (D class train) was cheaper than the original (G class train), so overall, we were actually still paying less despite the penalty.

The D class train sped at 242 km/h on some stretches and got us to Tongxian at 0927 or 28 mins later.  The original ride on the G class train takes about the same time but may take a slightly different route as those trains go up to 350 km/h.

From the station, we took a 45 min Didi rideshare to the Blue Bird Hotel in Wuzhen.  We were very fortunate to be given our rooms at 1030 in the morning. The highly spacious room came with a huge bathtub as we walked in.

We repaid their kindness by patronising their restaurant for lunch at 1100 before resting in our room, sleeping from midday till about 1500.

Wuzhen West Scenic Area

At about 1530, we headed out to Wuzhen’s West Scenic Area a few minutes by foot from our hotel.  The tickets were pricey at about NZD50 per adult with a decent discount for Kim who was over 60 years of age.

The tickets are single use, apparently, so we timed it well as our timing allowed us to see the place in both daylight and illuminated at night.

We explored the scenic area, set on both sides of the small canal.  It was very pretty with paddle boats going through them and giant carps in one spot.

We saw a tall pagoda in the distance and made our way to it, then realised it was located beside the Grand Canal linking Hangzhou to Shanghai.

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The scenic area was even more picturesque as night fell and we stayed a while to absorb the different atmosphere.

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We grabbed a light meal of dumplings and prawn balls in seaweed soup before returning to the hotel at 2045 and retiring at 2130.

It had been a great accomplishment for our first day, especially having landed at 0615 after a night flight.

Staying inside the Scenic Area

We had opted to stay just outside the scenic area in the best value accommodation for about NZD60 per night.  Tickets into the scenic area are about NZD50 (cheaper for seniors) and single-entry only.

I later learnt that one can book accommodation inside the scenic area and have unlimited exit and re-entry until check-out on the next day.  The cheapest accommodation inside was pricier and worked out about the same as what we had paid for both of our tickets and accommodation combined.

Basically, we lost out absorbing the vibe of the scenic area whenever wandered out of our hotel.  With our limited stay of two nights and one full day, we probably would have time for only one more visit if we hadn’t had to pay for it.  So, it wasn’t a big loss.