Shanghai, 8th - 14th November -

We didnt arrive in shanghai until about 9.30 at night but for once, arriving at a new city late at night wasnt an issue, in fact, i'd advise it. We got a taxi from shanghai train station and as soon as we left the terminal we were greeted by a sea of high rise buildings, neon lights and busy roads, exactly the hustle and bustle i was expecting and looking forward too, we were all glued to the windows!

I cant begin to describe to sheer size of the city, but to give you an idea, its roughly 5x the size of new york, the financial district may aswel be a city in itself. Everywhere i looked was like walking around a film set, especially on Nanjing road, next to our hostel, that as you can see from the pictures is absolutely packed full of shops, neon lights and people. Our hostel (the blue mountain hostel) was in a great location, 2 minutes from Nanjing road, the hub of liveliness day and night, 10 minutes from the 'Bund' - the river and promenade separating the city from the financial district, and was on the 6th floor of a high rise. Not bad for 5 quid a night! On our first full day in shanghai we got tickets for a hop on - hop off bus tour that went around the whole city so we could get our bearings and work out what was near us and worth visiting again. it rained, and was freezing cold, but we stayed put on the top eck like true brits and braved to cold to see the city and financial distrist from our seats. The rest of the day was spent around our local Nanjing, looking around the shops and watchings groups of old chinese couples dance in the neon glow to men playing acordians and other random instruments.

Shanghai food is amazing, you knew it was coming, but i can honestly say it was really really good! Its the only food ive had so far in china that actually tastes like a chinese take away in England, proper chow mein and special fried rice that is well up there with the best food i've eaten in china, and luckily we found a great place to get it that was an amazing street vendor, really local to our building. There was an 'ice cold can beer' waiting for Az and I at, before we even sat down at our table each night. i say 'table' it was just a surface knocked up out of scrap wood, on the pavement with 8" plastic stools around it to sit on! just the way i like it. If you dare to venture into alleyway markets off the backstreets you'll find thousands upon thousands of crabs, fish , shellfish and just about everything else you can pull from the sea, crammed into boxes half full with water, barely alive or slowly dying whilst tied up or nat able to move in the tiny boxes, lovely!

We had driven through a place on the bus tour called 'yuan garden' whicj we went back to the next day, it was a very old part of shanghai consisting of no hugh rise buildings, but beautiful courtyards and alleys full of shops galleries and tea and coffe shops, if it wasnt for the mad chinese tours passing through and the school kids on day trips running wild you maight just have been able to escape the madness of the city for a while and appreciate the lovely stilted buildings and lakes. After shopping there for a while we went in search of a proper shopping place, we were in shanghai afterall, and found just that in the unbelievavly huge underground shopping market/ plaza called 'xyanang' at the science and technology museum stop on the metro. This place was incredible, hundreds and hundreds of little shops and stalls lined the maze of small walkways, all with the workers outside shouting prices and products at you or trying to pull you into their shop for 'just a look' and al selling pretty much the same things; watches, shoes, bags, clothes, electronics and dvd's, all obviously fakes (though id challenge even an expert to tell the difference in most cases!) and all with a massively bargainable price. From experience, haggling starts at about 10% of their initial priceand you work your way up to paying no more than 40%! Its all a lot of fun, well, you either love it or hate it i suppose but Az and I spent hours there, just walking around chatting to people and trying to use our (very) broken chinese, winding people up, having a laugh and trying our luck with some outrageously low prices just for banter! After returning to our local for more fantastic noodles that night we took a walk alond the bund promenade, alongside the river that separates the city and financial district. It was an absolutely unbelievable view and we literally stood in awe of the city in all its neon glory for a good hour.

We caught the bus to zhoujiaojiao just over an hour away and on the outskirts of shanghai the next day, its known as the ancient city and the only place i can imagine it being anything like is Venice. Its built ona series small canal like rivers, very traditional and somewhat unspoiled. We took a small boat being captained by an old chinese guy armed with a pladdle thorough the rivers, under bridges and between beautiful buildings as the sun set, it was perfect! me, az, smera and paddy :) had been joined for the day by tiffany, an american who was lovely and travelling alone, we all wandered around the shops and galleries in the small town before getting food and heading back to Nanjing. That night was spent rather drunkenly at 'the blarney stone' irish pub in the 'french concession district' with thanks (obviously) to Niamh who was meeting friends there for the night. What started with me and az innocently playing foozeball with a few beers ended in very deep, drunken conversation with an old irish guy! haha

Other than the irish pub we only had one other proper(ish) night out in shanghai. Az and i ventured to the other side of the city to Xian Tian Di in search of nightlife, this place was the home of it and where everybody was telling us to go. Unfortunately we had fogotten that we were in fact in SHANGHAI and that we were in fact on a budget! Drink prices were unbelievably extortionate and everywhere was full of loaded business men from all over the world, splashing cash and drink champagne and whisky at 60 quid a glass, nedless to say, we had a wander and called it a night.

You can never really be bored in shanghai, theres always something to do, something to look at, things happenings and places to go, having not brought much so far and being in the mecca of fake goods, az and i went in search of the 580 mall, 6 storeys of pure madness, fake stuff and tiny stalls selling the same thing. A few purchases were made after some fun heavy haggling and we left happy in the direction of starbucks where we sat for a couple of hours playing chess, watching the world go by and chatting about our travels still to come, its a hard life....

Unlike most cities ive seen in china, shanghai actually has a fair bit of green space and trees which is a welcome change and we even found a mini theme park in peoples square, and marvelled at these small tunnels whose walls, floors and ceilings, were completely covered in a4 sheets of paper which were adverts for people looking for love, some with pictures but all with a description of them selves, their details and interests. Surprisingly the place was mobbed with people scouring the walls looking for love! I considered puttingaz's picture and number up resisted in the end!

Shanghai is an amazing place and has been my favourite city so far, definately worth a visit and if you've got some money to spend i imaine its just even more magical, ill definately try and get back there in the future and not just to see how much its carried on developing!

Its a 19 hour train to Guangzhou, our next destination, and im writing this on that very train. On my tiny top bunk with my new headhones on and im about to challenge Az to another game of chess on our homemade chessboard we have just made from bits of ripped up paper. with the board drawn in the back of my journal, balanced on my daypack that we've somehow managed to precariously tie between our top bunks, 10 feet up and above sleeping chinese people! haha Crap chinese music is playing stupidly loud and the light is directly above my face, i know im not getting any sleep before arriving in Guangzhou at 5.30am, still i wouldnt change it for the world!