Xi'an

 Xi'an is one of my must-go list in China because I wanted to see the Terra Cotta Warriors at least once in my life so this 4 day holiday presented itself perfectly. I bought the 1.5hr flight for 1300 yuan, which was considered okay for this peak travelling period.

I stayed in a hostel "Han Tang" which was quite nice and cosy and the staff were very helpful. No plans beforehand, I went out with an Irish lady I met on the first day, Terra Cotta warriors on the second day, climbed Hua Shan on the third day and visited the Shaanxi Museum on the forth before returning to Shanghai.

It was a nice cultural town, very touristy but very convenient because most of the economy depends on tourism. The government actually does a really good job taking care of tourist in Xi'an e.g. airport express buses, cheap official safe transport to attractions etc. Winter is the off-peak season so tickets were off-peak prices, saved me a lot of money.

One of the famous mutton dishes. Its all halal in Xi'an!

The City Wall

Big Goose Pagoda

The Halal Food Street

Its like attending a small China history lesson, learning about the Qin dynasty. The Terra Cotta pits that were exhibited were actually only small part of the guard post for Qinshihuang's tomb and the rest of the tomb is actually still intact, underground which is many times bigger than the pits we seen.

They said of mercury river which symbolises the seas and oceans and mechanical traps that protects the tomb. The tomb has actually very good feng shui, mountains and rivers, jade and gold (mining in the mountains), that's why he chose that place. There is also clay musicians, a zoo, acrobats, the other palace officials etc buried with him.

The famous kneeling archer

Pit no. 1

Yeah its crazy huge

So I went mountain climbing on the first day of the year

This part is crazy steep. You can't even see the bottom. I had to climb like climbing a ladder.

They named this Gold Monster but i think its really exquisite

Overall it was a really educational trip! One tick off my must-go list!

Zhu Jia Jiao

My friends were here for the weekend so I brought them to Zhu Jia Jiao, a bus ride away from Shanghai

Here's how to go from Wikipedia:

The most affordable way to get to Zhujiajiao is to take a bus from the bus station at the Puanlu（Chinese: 普安路）bus station near People's Square.
Be aware, People's Square is a very large metro station with twenty different exits! To get to the bus stop at Puanlu, exit the metro from Exit #1 and follow the street (Xizang South Rd.) toward the Yan'an Elevated Road. Cross the street going under the elevated road and turn right. Walk underneath the elevated road as it runs along a park (housing the Shanghai Concert Hall) on the left side. At the first street crossing, you should see bus stops on your left. The bus to Zhujiajiao is one of the first ones on the left after crossing the street. Make sure you take the bus line called Hùzhū Gāosù Kuàixiàn (Chinese: 沪朱高速快线) - they usually use pink buses.

This should take around 1 hour and the fare is about 12 yuan. The buses each way leave every 15-30 minutes. There are other bus lines, but they can sometimes take up to 2 hours. These cheaper options do not take the main highway, are much more crowded at peak hours and stop at every stop, filling the bus to absolute standing capacity. Don't worry about where to get off, Zhujiajiao is the end terminal. Also, make sure you don't miss the last bus back to Puanlu, which departs at about 9 PM.

you actually don't need a ticket to get into the town (unlike Xitang), but u could get enterances to some attractions with the purchase of tickets.

The Qing Dynasty post office looks vey interesting.

Using dianping app, we found a restaurant for lunch.
Most restaurant sells the same stuff, seafood.. meat.. vege.. etc. so its just a matter of taste and price.

We walked around the ancient river town, its very similar to xitang but the river is much closer to the walkways and its smaller.
Its really a lot like venice (athough I haven't been to venice before) with the river by the side and some riverside dining or coffee sipping would be perfect in this weather.

You can see these everywhere, most of the shops sell the same old things but we didn't buy it because it looks too fattening.

you actually need less than 5 hours to finish the entire town so it could be a half-day trip and then head back to shanghai for more exploring.

Xitang

Xitang is an ancient river town 1hour bus ride away from Shanghai.

It is well known because Mission Impossible 3 was filmed here. Remember the scene where Tom Cruise was running along the river?

Yeah, they were proud of it that they put up pictures of Tom Cruise in most of the attractions in the town.

In the morning we took a 1 hour bus ride from Shanghai North Bus Station for 32rmb to arrive somewhere near the town.

Entrance fee was originally 100rmb, but you could get a lot of discounts from external vendors like YHA (youth hostel association) in Xitang.
We got ours for 60rmb from one of the hostels.

In a nutshell, the place was very beautiful and well preserved.

There are a lot of places to eat, you can use dianping app to see how the restaurants are rated.

One of the highly popular cafe in the town is the Postcard cafe called 猫的天空之城 where you could purchase all kinds of postcards and get them to keep it to whichever date and they will send it to you on that date. its pretty cool, its like receiving a postcard from the past.

I had a cheesecake pudding and their signature milk tea for 40rmb. just average, nothing special.

Most of the shops in the ancient town were selling the same things, mostly food.
But the famous snacks are the ones opposite the postcard cafe, as you notice with queues.

It takes an avereage of 5 hours to check the whole place out (including eating).

Most people would recommend staying a night there for bar-hopping but I didn't have time to stay, perhaps another time then.

Shanghai Metro

Since I am taking the metro to work everyday, I shall give an introduction to the metro lines in Shanghai.

The public transport system is very developed in Shanghai, the metro has a total of 11 lines and you could actually explore whole of Shanghai taking the metro.

I think line 2 is the best and most convenient because it goes everywhere, including the major shopping areas, the bund, financial district, domestic and international airport and high speed train stations. Staying near line 2 indeed has its perks.

Fares
From wikipedia,
The base fare is 3 yuan (US$0.45) for journeys under 6 km, then 1 yuan for each additional 10 km. As of April 2010, the highest fare is 10 yuan (US$1.5).

Single-ride tickets can be purchased from ticket vending machines, and at some stations, at a ticket window. Single-ride tickets are embedded with RFID contactless chips. When entering the system you tap the ticket against a scanner above the turnstile, and on exit you insert the ticket into a slot where it is stored and recycled.

In addition to a Single-Ride ticket, fare can be paid using a Shanghai public transpot card. This RFID-embedded card can be purchased at selected banks, convenience stores and metro stations with a 20-yuan deposit. This card can be loaded at ticket booths, Service Centers at the metro stations as well as many small convenience stores and banks throughout the city. The Shanghai Public Transportation Card can also be used to pay for other forms of transportation, such as taxi or bus.

Before the ride
I'm always amused by the security checks. Yes, before entering the gantry there'll be an x-ray machine for the bags and security will prompt you for a bag check.
I heard from my colleagues that they had it set up for the World Expo in 2011 because of the high influx of tourists but it has became a norm now.

The catch is, although they raise their arms to stop you and say 宝宝检查 (bag check) , many people just ignored them and moved on. Occasionally, they will stop you if you have a large bag.
It always cracks me up to see their helpless expressions and restless voices but everyone just ignores them, sometimes I feel so sorry for them.

The metro system is really modern, the train comes very frequently and I haven't met a train fault/delay before. Especially during peak hours, the train comes almost every 30 seconds, which is really amazing. I was reading twitter feeds everyday about Singapore's MRT delays and faults so somehow I was glad I was here.

Train manners like queueing up behind the gates to get into the train, letting people alight before boarding is a norm here. Occasionally someone will rush into the train the moment the door opens, not allowing passengers to alight first and you will realise that it's probably some rude tourist from the North. When that happens, I will forcefully push my way out of the train. They really need to learn some logical train manners.  

In the train

The underground metro is relative clean, and you could actually eat and drink on the train. I always have my breakfast on the go. The announcements are made in Mandarin and English, so there's no problem understanding.

Don't be surprised if you hear loud music coming from one end of the cabin, its probably some beggers on train trying to get some loose change. They will stop the music once the train door opens to avoid being chased out and blast them once it closes. Its kinda irritating and locals usually ignore them.

Oh one more thing! During peak hours, suspicious old people will be standing around the stations, around the escalator area and platform. They are actually collecting newspapers from the commuters who bought/took newspapers, but the market is always too saturated for popular stations like Lujiazui that you will feel kinda sad for the ageing population here.

Other than that, I'm glad that smoking is prohibited in stations, rubbish bins are everywhere and restrooms are on the platforms.

Out of the station
Some big stations has Family Mart, which will be populated in the morning for a quick breakfast. Illegal taxi drivers/motobikes will be waiting for you at the end of the escalators so beware and take god care of your belongings.