Shanghai

I arrived into Shanghai and took the amazing Maglev train into the city - it reaches 430km an hour and takes only 10 minutes! Had to pose by the speedometer in the cabin!

I met up with Matt, a friend who was now living in Shanghai and we went out for dinner with Jin Ling, Adam, Simon, Tony and Scott before going to the delightfully named 'Time Tunnel' pub. We were joined by Julien, Clare and Sandra. Julien got up an sang a song (after borrowing a guitar from the live band that the pub had on!) It was quite a good night!

The next day, I headed to Nanjing Lu - the main shopping area. My aim was to walk down to The Bund but the heavens opened and I ended up buying an umbrella from a women who miraculously appeared when it started raining!

That night, I went to Adam and Sandra's house warming party that had a 'French' theme and we had wine & cheeses. We then moved onto playing on the Wii, which was my first experience of it. I managed to hold my own in the doubles tennis match but lost quite badly in the boxing!

Matt and I went sightseeing to the 'fake' Old Town which tries to sell you every souvenir possible! We went into a tea shop and met a sales woman that Matt knew. We were allowed to try a variety of different teas and she persuaded Matt to buy some for me!

We then went to the real Old Town and saw the restaurant on the water. It was full of small windy streets and we ended up getting some food in a little cafe that I would never have found on my own. We had the traditional food of dumplings.

We then headed over to The Bund (finally) and got a great view of the skyscrapers over the river. We had a drink in the Captains Bar so that we could watch the sun go down and catch the lights of the city.

The next day I met up with Julien and Clare and we headed to the Shanghai Museum. Julien stayed in the shop whilst Clare and I explored the three floors of exhibitions. Some of the artefacts were from 6000 years BC!

On my final day in Shanghai, Clare, Julien and I had arranged to go to the water villages but the information on the brouchure was wrong and there were no buses to it. So we went to the local park and found a group of elderly people playing Jianzi - a weighted shuttlecock that they kick around with their feet. We all joined in but were upstaged by them!

That night, I had dinner with Matt before going to the pub to say goodbye to everyone.