Leaving Beijing. Next stop: Shanghai.

Transportation mode: Train. Bullet train to be precise. Probably you were not aware, but China has the largest bullet-train network in the world, having trains going faster than the more popular TGV in France. Yeah, go China
Most of the Chinese are traveling this and next week, so chances of getting tickets were quite slim. Luckily a friend of Klaus who lives in Shanghai, organized some tickets for us as well as a hotel, using her connections.
The train station most of all looks like a very impressive airport, and I mean impressive.
The first thing I saw when entering the station were that the entire commercial space was taken up by Nokia N9 ads. Taken into account that the CEO of Nokia declared MeeGo for dead and thereby I lost my job, kind of is weird to see this much space spent on the phone when they are not going to produce enough anyway. I kind of owe my trip to the phone on that poster, so we went and got a beer :-)
Security checks and quite advanced forms of ticketing systems, most more advanced than most airports I have ever been to, and much more efficient.
We find our train and it looks like something out of a science fiction movie, like a train and a fighter jet morphed together. We get inside and there it looks quite much like an airplane, just more comfortable, though smaller seats there is plenty of legroom.
This is my first time with a bullet train, and I can say from my experiences with IC3 in Denmark, that these trains are a little more impressive. Of course everything is still new, the line we went on from Beijing to Shanghai and opened just July 30th 2011. Just 2 months ago, one of these bullet trains hit another train stuck on the tracks after lightning struck it and it stopped. But statistically it is not going to happen again for a long time, right?
These trains are fast, really fast, and to prove their point, they have a speedometer available while driving. Really smooth ride, everything passes the windows outside like nothing. When things felt slow, I took a look at the speed, it showed 200kmh, still relatively fast I would say?
In rush hour the entire train system is designed to have these trains depart every 5 minutes, yes every 5 minutes. Imagine how many trains are needed and that they are all "Made in China" and the system to avoid accidents etc as well? Not exactly a proof of trust right there...? Well, hopefully they will get problems sorted out fast, to avoid anymore accidents.
We arrived to the Shanghai station, just as impressive as Beijing, grabbed a cab and was driven to our hotel. Shanghai is quite different from Beijing, just by watching out of the window in the taxi on the way to the hotel. The freeways are 20-30 meters up in the air, looks very futuristic.
The hotel we got is out of this world, luxurious I have to say and at the best price ever, as we are official some of her company's business connections (traveling with backpacks..?) It is probably the last hotel in a very long time for me with this kind of standard...
We met with Klaus's friends, went for dinner and had a few drinks. This city is for sure more pale-face friendly than Beijing, but now I suddenly think it is too much. So many German and British tourists everywhere, can't really tell that I am in China anymore.