Apparently the streets of Nanjing were quiet over the Mid-Autumn festival. 
I wasn’t there, I was in Shanghai but I think they’s all came there, the place was heaving especially in the financial district across the river. The crowds made it difficult to walk in parts (just like in Ikea the day before!). I never get tired of looking at the Shanghai skyline and whenever I am out and about having a walk I always seem to end up on The Bund.
The night before I had decided to discover the local area where my new flat is and walked so far that I ended up on Nanjing West Street, Shanghai’s equivalent to Oxford Street. The neon lights were illuminating the street, lots of street traders were selling brightly lit toys and there were so many people that the army had been enlisted to help out with crowd control. They formed a line down each side of the road, standing in the road and effectively making the pavement double width. Road crossings were impressive. The soldiers did a kind of “left wheel” manouevre and blocked off the road from traffic and then did the same in reverse blocking the walkway and letting the traffic through.
I tried to find something edible to eat but as often happens in such cases I gave up and went to Costa Coffee. I couldn’t cross the road because of the human barracades which was frustrating as I was making my way to the subway so I could get home. I eventually found a station but the barriers were put across stopping anyone going down. Of course the sign was in Chinese only. I stared at it for some time and as far as I could make out it was stopping passengers using lines 2 and 10 after 4pm for the next 5 days. I assumed it was because of the train crash on line 10 last week (see earlier blog entry). So I had to walk all the way to The Bund. There I managed to read the bus timetables and found the 927 going to the north square of the train station and took that.
So the next day I thought I would take a look at the financial district. When I got to the Bund I decided to take the “Sightseeing Tunnel” across the river. That’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one. How can a tunnel ever be considered a sightseeing trip! However, they had done their best by projecting weird lights and pictures over the walls and put spooky music on and human-like figures in the tunnel make the journey surreal.
Over the river there were so many people onthe walk way near the Oriental Pearl Tower that it was difficult to walk. However, I wanted to take a closer look at the spectacular buildings you can see from the other side. And they didn’t disappoint. They are magnificent close up. Taking advantage of the lovely toilets in the World Finacial Centre I made my way home.