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Ni hao! Wow, well we are still in Shanghai and still enjoying it! The city is really modern and clean - completely different from Beijing. At night it was amazing driving through the city with all the lights lit up on the skyscrapers. The sky was a purple colour, partly we think because of the lights and partly because of the smog which is pretty bad here, like Beijing,
Last night we went to see the Shanghai Acrobats which we really enjoyed. We took a taxi with our group from the hotel (we have added a photo of our room to show you how nice it is - no slumming it for us!) to the theatre and got popcorn before we went in. The theatre was quite old fashioned and not really what we were expecting as the Shanghai Acrobats are quite famous and there must be lots of tourists that go to see it. Anyway, the show was amazing! Very similar to Cirque du Soleil but on a much smaller scale. There was the usual acts like a woman squeezing herself in to a barrell (which was tiny!) and a magician, but what really wowed us was the group of male acrobats that did the most amazing things, two women on roller scates doing ice skating type moves, a group of women on biycycles and five men in a metal cage on motorbikes! That was the last act and it really blew us away, one false move from any of them and it would have all gone horribly wrong! We were cringing a lot hoping that they wouldn't crash!! After the show we had a manic taxi ride back to the hotel - the driving here is shocking, our driver went through several red lights (once in front of a police car!) and nearly ran over countless pedestrians and cyclists! As we said before, there is no road etiquette anywhere in China - a red light means nothing, so when we are out and about, crossing the road is a really difficult challenge!
Today we woke up in our lovely hotel room and had a free day to do things together. We walked on The Bund in the most beautifully warm weather wearing t-shirts and flip flops. The weather really does change your mood! We bought rock melon and watermelon from some street stalls and walked along eating them enjoying the scenery and just being outside without a coat and hat on! Then we walked to the main shopping street of Shanghai and Matt bought some little dumplings filled with pork which he really enjoyed (he had three large ones for about 50p - bargain breakfast!). Then we wandered through the city just taking in the amazing buildings and getting a feel for the place. We took the metro (very similar to the one in Beijing only more expensive!) to the 'French Concession' which is randomly in the middle of the city from many years ago when Europeans settled in the city. The buildings are all 1930s French style and completely different to anything we have seen so far in China. The road was filled with little cafes (many selling what we are now referring to as 'Western food' that we took for granted at home such as sandwiches and coffee!) and passed some lovely little parks with boys playing basketball and rollerblading in. It was really nice not to have to be anywhere and just wander together - we feel that is the best way to really discover a place. Unfortunately the weather didn't stay consistent - the sun went in about 2pm and then it got really cold and windy. So we haven't thrown the coats away just yet as we don't trust what the weather will do (you can tell we're British can't you?!)
Shanghai is quite expensive so we declined doing anything that cost too much money today! Most of the group went on a river cruise along The Bund so we might see how it went and do it tomorrow if it's worth it. We felt that we could see a lot of the river and the city by just walking along it and don't want to spend money for the sake of it. There are many museums here and gardens to see but they all want an enterance fee and that's where all our money is going - even though it's cheap, we have to double everything as all our money is together and six pounds here and ten pounds there all adds up!! However, we have really enjoyed our time here and are sad that we only had one and a half days to see the place really.
Tomorrow we catch our train to Yangshao at 5pm (this is the 23 hour one... sheesh!) and don't arrive until about 2pm on Saturday afternoon. So think of us cramped in to a horrible smelly train with nasty squat toilets and stary people... for almost a whole day! We have heard that Yangshao is really beautiful and there's lots of walking and ourside activities to do. Plus we will be seeing the Li River which we might be able to see by boat and Matt wants to do rock climbing too. We've also heard it's over 30 degrees there too so it will be a bit like a holiday!! We'll also go to the rice terraces called the 'Dragons Backbone' which we are excited to see. And then it's off to Hong Kong for the end of our China tour!
Will try and call when we get to Yangshao as it's the weekend and you'll all be off work.
Lots of love, H&M xxxxxxxxx
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