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Wow, I appear to be back home. I think I was travelling for around 21 hours - it was a good trip (which I now tend to judge by how many films I saw mid-air) but I'm like a zombie today. I just went shopping and was really surprised when I got home to discover that the washing powder I bought was actually in powder format rather than liquid or tablets - when did that innovation happen? I now have more on the kitchen floor than in the machine...
I think this post will be my last travel 'update' but I might post again when I've had a chance to look through the photos and let it all sink in. At the moment it's a bit of a blur... I can't do the whole trip justice at the moment, I'll just say that it was amazing and I'm so pleased that I did it, and that I was able to do it.
The last few days in Shanghai improved from my last post, but I was very much mentally on the flight home already. I did very little sight-seeing - in fact I spent more time in the bar in the hostel, where I met a lot of cool, friendly and/or strange people of all national stripes. I definitely preferred 'hostel' to 'Shangahi' which is a bit mince - I can only offer a broken camera as an excuse.
External highlights included the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the Jinmao building, which the Rough Guide tells me is the highest bar in the world; and going to see a footy match with Lewis and Andrew, a couple of Scots, which ended Shanghai Shenhua 1-0 Dalian Shide. The football was terrible and we missed the goal, but we did see a Chinese fan wearing a Newcastle shirt - it's that yin and yang thing again... I reckon I've now seen football matches in 10 countries, on 3 different continents. I'd like to say that these were all top class football matches but since many of them involved Newcastle United, that would probably be stretching the truth somewhat.
Not so good was the Bund, the area I was most looking forward to seeing, which was almost invisible behind boards and building work; and the riverside, which I didn't even see for the same reasons. There's a LOT of building work going on (some for Expo 2010) - Shanghai resembles one huge building site at the moment. Maybe it'll be nice when they finish it - not very historical though, I suspect.
There were plenty of sights in both Beijing (Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace) and Shanghai (French Concession, Huangpu river cruise) which I missed out on but I figure that gives me a reason to go back - a factor in common with most of the places I visited.
It was interesting (depressing?) to compare the levels of growth and development in Shanghai to a quick walk around Cullercoats and Whitley Bay. I'm hoping that some of the shops I passed just happened to be shut rather than shut down - on a Monday afternoon though...? There were parts where 'shopping' was like looking for teeth in Shane Macgowan's mouth - it was more of a surprise to see one still there than to see two or three in a row missing.
Still, I nipped into an acupuncturist to ask if they knew anything about tai chi locally and talked to a very nice Chinese lady, which cheered me up. I'd definitely like to find out more about Chinese culture.
I might get a chance to upload some photos today or tomorrow (although catching up on the last two months of The Apprentice is very tempting), and then it's off to Glastonbury for a few days - and then back to real life I guess. Thank you all for the comments, the emails and the moral support - buy me a beer and I'll tell you it all over again!
Cheers, John.
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