Shanghai beach

Feeling the need for some fresh air, sun, sand and salt water, I caught the bus out of town on Saturday to one of Shanghai's beaches. Bihai Jinsha Beach(贤碧海金沙水上乐园) is the Fengxian District of Shanghai, apart 1 hour 10 minutes by bus out from the centre of the city. The beach isn't natural but they've done a pretty good job creating something similar to a picture postcard scene. The name translates into English as "Blue Sea, Golden Sands" and they've managed to achieve part of this by importing white sand in from Hainan province, however the Sea (despite a much lauded "water filtration" system") wasn't especially clean.

When we got to the front gate of the beach I was asked for a health certificate to prove that I was "safe to swim". When I said I didn't have one I was told I couldn't come in, I said that I hadn't paid £10 for a ticket and travelled for over an hour (with a bit of a hangover) to be told I couldn't come in, so just walked straight past the guy. Caused a few bemused looks.

Saturday wasn't the warmest day to choose to go to the beach (19 degrees) but the water was still amazingly hot - maybe it is heated. The beach was quite crowded in places but you could find a few more quiet places to relax if you wanted. YOu could do things like canoeing, jet ski-ing, parasailing. They really have tried to make it exactly like a beach in a western resort and plus being a Chinese beach it comes complete with it's own Karaoke stage and KFC of course! The singing and dancing on the karaoke stage goes on till 10pm on a Saturday with a the last bus coming back to the city at 11pm.

Not as good as the "real thing" for sure but still a good way to relax for a few hours on a saturday. Plus at the moment there is a comic and "cosplay" show going on down there which makes it even more interesting than usual.