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Greetings from Shanghai!
Sorry its been so long since our last post, but we managed to pack a lot into our time in Beijing which left too little time for adequate blogging. : )
To recap our time briefly - we saw the sunrise at Tiananmen Square (the flag raising ceremony was epic, the sun was very smog obscured), sampled food at the street market but avoided scorpian like the plague (it was still wriggling), braved the Silk Market to earn some bargains (the haggling was intensive! But Ma, your xmas present is sorted), got a pedalo across the Summer Palace lake and marvelled at our surroundings (only to be rescued by a speed boat when a storm rolled in.Exciting!), got up ridiculously early to tackle the unreconstructed Great Wall route of Jingshanling to Simatai (absolutely breath taking in more ways than one - views and slopes!), moseyed round the Temple of Heaven complex before braving an all Chinese menu for dinner (guess work worked out really well in the end) and then catching an opera showcase (brilliant). All that was left for us to do was early morning exercise in one of the parks surrounded by tai chi, aerobics and badminton (such a brilliant atmosphere, worth the 6.30am start) before more shopping, lunch on a roof top bar and then a bike, boat and dumpling tour where we braved the traffic to explore the hutongs before learning how to make non-leaking dumplings for our dinner. The boat bit was a nice relaxing finish. Oh! Which we followed with a foot massage, as you do.
So yeah, that was Beijing. For all its smog and spitting and loud calls of "Lady, look! You want?" its an amazing city and one we came to feel very comfortable in.
We got into Shanghai at around 2.15pm, our flight had been an hour late taking off so we didn't get to our hostel til quite late in the afternoon. Its a lovely hostel, easily our favourite already for its old style building that isn't falling down, good showers, hot water on tap for tea, and stunning views of the skyline from the walkway outside our dorm room. Marvellous.
After once again sampling things picked relatively randomly from an all Chinese menu (ended up with great noodle soups, thanks to our trusty phrase books and some lucky guesswork) we walked to the Bund to see the lit buildings that line the shore. There are so many skyscrapers here I'm at risk of getting quite a crick in my neck. One looks like a giant geometric bunny rabbit, another has a lit up golden crown type thing on the top of it that looks like a crystal cut fruit bowl.
Off to the museum tomorrow and sampling the delights of dim sum and sea food.
Love and stuff
Us xxx
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