Sorry for the delay in updating! Busy busy week! Well it can certainly be said that Liam's assumption of 'oh, we won't spend much in Yangshuo' was certainly misguided - we've spent the most money here so far! Yesterday we woke up on the train, in the knowledge that we'd have another good few hours before we were on solid ground. The 24 hour train ride had seemed daunting, particularly as when we walked on, we smelt the air and labelled it 'funky.' Everything wa...

Saturday morning, feeling a little worse for wear, we got up late then raced into the (sunny yay!) city centre for some sightseeing while we had time. Because of train times etc we've only really had a couple of days in Shanghai, so we wanted to cram in as much as possible! We raced through the Bund, past the river and the spectacular skyline, to the Yuyuan Gardens, recommended in our Roam China itinerary notes, for the bazaar and walled garden complex. It was an...

We pulled into Shanghai (rainy Shanghai) at about lunchtime, and Bobo suggested we take taxis to our hotel, as it was about half an hour away from the main station, (as well as 20 minutes from the nearest subway.. who picks these hotels?) so we separated and met up with each other in the lobby when we got there. Again it was a posh hotel - but apparently rather in a dodgy location - some of the lads went for a stroll down the adjoining road next to our hotel, onl...

Friday morning a group of us decided to go cycling along the city wall - a total of 14km around Xi'an, after checking out. Everyone met up at 12 and Bobo showed us the way on the public bus to get there to pay - with student discount too waeyyyy! We were pretty surprised that there weren't more people up on the wall, but it did mean that we could cycle around like loonies and not knock any unsuspecting chinese tourists off their bikes. The road was pretty bumpy s...

Ok - quick blog entry for the past two days! The 1st (Wednesday) was Claire's 19th Birthday, and the morning of which was spent on the overnight train. Our train was divided into compartments of 6, with bunk beds and barely any room for luggage. On the whole though it was pretty clean (if not a little rickety) and everyone managed to get some sleep - but not to the toilets, which were squats, and DISGUSTING! We arrived in Xi'an in the early morning and were led...