lost or what?

Last day of boring train photos

From Hangzhou to Shanghai by bullet train

Now I am in Shanghai, my final destination. That means I have been on my last bullet train ride unless I decided to take a daytrip out of Shanghai that requires lining up for a ticket with my passport again, that is unlikely. That means there will be no more boring days of boring photos of train stations, trains, and my new hotel room. There will probably still be a boring day of airport photos, because what else am I supposed to do when I get to an airport hours early on Thursday?

The trip from Hangzhou to Shanghai was only a bit over an hour, but then you get to the outskirts of Shanghai, to the mega station I have been to a few times before.
From there its a long subway ride into the city, there are now multiple subway lines, I nearly boarded the one I know from previous trips, but as it turns out a newer one gets me much closer to my hotel, google maps doesnt know about it yet.
Actually getting onto the subway was a challenge, I already have a Shanghai transport card from previous trips, but if you have not used it for a few years they need to be reactivated. I went to the service window and told the girl to please check my card, she told me it still had lots of money on it (about $15 AUD which was surprising!), and I assumed that meant it would now work. So I go through the subway security, and of course my card does not work. I stumbled back through lines of people to the service centre. I made sure I went back to the same girl and we had to use a surprising amount of half assed Chinese for me to explain that my card is very old, I have not used it for years, it is not working, please make it work! Eventually another person showed her how to do this.

One last hotel check in story, my visa was fine this time, police were not called on me, but they tried to trick me into buying breakfast with my room. No different to Australia here where they do this to me EVERY TIME. I had pre booked online of course, and the hotel check in girl tells me I want breakfast. Not ask, told. I told her I dont think its included in my booking. She said OK. I said I dont want breakfast unless it is part of the booking. She said OK. Next thing shes showing me the rate on the credit card machine, sounded high, about $200 too high. I checked my booking and it was too high, so I show her my rate and ask why is it so high? Breakfast of course, $50 Australian per day! She was trying to add it on despite me making it very very clear I did not want it added on. I am convinced she was trying to rob me. I called her a cheat in Chinese, told her I am not stupid, fix it now or I will leave. Perhaps where I am staying is owned by Novotel who do that to me everywhere in Australia, only in Australia they love to tell me 'but its a corporate account booking, your work is paying, why do you care?'.

You might think I am being harsh to the hotel staff, but its really nothing compared to what I do to them in Australia. They often add on bullshit room service and minibar charges a month after I have stayed somewhere, when that happens I go back every night in person, and make a big scene about it and tell everyone else checking in that the hotel staff are stealing credit card information to book up fake charges. An ex staff member at the Ibis in Darling Harbour told me they have a quota of fake charges they are expected to add on per month to get a bonus!

That was long winded.