renting accomodation | Shanghai | Jul 22, 2011 02:04
i live in the u.k. with my chinese wife , we had planned a holiday and shanghai would be our base , it would be somewhere to leave our heavier luggage while travelling onto other destinations , so i started looking on the internet for an apartment and i finally stumbled on one that was advertised on the move and stay website , the apartment building was called Shanghai Metro Garden Serviced apartments and the address given was no,1 lane 78 ,Gonghexin road , Shanghai , i paid Move and Stay $180 deposit and my booking was confirmed at that apartment name and address , the balance would be paid in full in yuan/RMB on arrival at the apartment about 7000yuan + 2000yuan deposit .
we arrived in shanghai on 28th june at about 9am and after 12 hours flying we were quite tired and wanted to get to our apartment , i had originally planned to get my currency from the bank at the airport but the exchange rate was to low so we got a taxi to a city bank of china and got a much better rate there, we got the money and made our way to the apartment , we had been sent the address of the apartment by the agent in shanghai -Olivia Han , she is chinese but speaks good english .
we were taken to an apartment building that i can only describe as a dump , it was dirty looking , shabbly , there were people loittering outside , the area outside looked unsafe and i had noticed a massage parlour down the road .
this was definately not the apartment that i had pre-booked , there was no name on the apartment building and it looked totally different from the photos that had been advertised on the Move and Stay website .
i refused to even enter the building , my wife contacted the agent -olivia han , she was adamant that i had booked that apartment but i was in no mood to be conned .
we walked away from that apartment and stayed in hotel rooms which actually turned out to be a lot better .
so my advice is not to pre-book any apartment in advance , you can pre-book a hotel room for a couple of nights and arrange the rest of your accomodation while in shanghai itself , there will always be accomodation available

shanghai travel tips | Shanghai | Jul 22, 2011 01:33
i am not aware of all the tourist traps in shanghai , only the ones that myself and my chinese wife encountered .
i would discourage people from joining tours , in my opinion they are rip-offs , you pay to visit a certain area but half the day is spent visiting expensive shops such as jewellers, tea shops , silk shops and the budhist temple .
we took one tour in shanghai to visit a famous water village , we hada tour guide and a comfortable air conditioned coach , our first stop was a budhist temple ( address not known ) my wife is not a budhist but respects the religion as i do and will pray and give small donations and will normally advise me not to give too much .
but on this occassion my wife was sucked into a scam and i must admit that at first , i was too .
there were two monks who were reading prayer cards that each person could pick 3 off and the monks would give their opinions on certain subjects , so we queued up for an hour and was finally seen by a monk , my wife asked the monk if he could bless her son and pray for him and us , the monk seemed really concerned and advised my wife to purchase the biggest flower candle on sale which would be lit and placed in the temple , the candle cost 600 yuan ( about £60 ) , at this point i was a little puzzled as to why we had parted with such a large amount of money but i went along with it to please my wife , we were then sent to see the monk again , this time he advised my wife to purchase a metal statue , we were led into a shop and two rather large bronze looking statues were placed on the counter , i then instantly knew that it was a scam and i told my wife of my feelings and angrily walked out of the shop with my step-son following me but my wife felt embarrassed and purchased a small emblem which cost her 300 yuan ( £30 ) .
we were then taken to the water village and were told we were having lunch and would have to have it in a certain restaurant but i refused ,
we spent about 2 and a half hours at the water village , there were lovely little shops selling hand-made products and artists painting everything possible and everything was a fraction of the cost from shanghai .
we were then taken to a big silk shop which i made a point of hurrying through and then we were taken to a big jewellers mainly selling jade products at inflated prices , i was not fooled by the selling tactics .
in my opinion this tour was a bit of a scam , the tour guides and coach driver get a commission from the businesses they stop at including the temple.