Shanghai has been insane. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left we were caught in a torrent of drinks, bars and clubs.

On arrival we were passed from our Moganshan guide Dexter to our Chinese Shanghai guide Monica (her English name comes from the Friends character.) Dexters second job as well as his dragon trip duties is night club promotion. The score is that he gets paid to take Westoners into various clubs around Shanghai and the Westoners get free entry and free drinks all night! Not a bad deal! We started our first evening in Mook, a newly refurbished stylish club a short cab ride from the hostel. On arrival we were given neon masks and shown to our table. There were two tables reserved for us and we were next to a table of Chinese girls clearly paid to be there who were just playing on their phones. The drinks then started rolling in. We were brought well known branded bottles of vodka, rum and whisky with jugs of mixers. To this we helped ourselves and if we ran out, they just brought more to the table! The music was pumping all evening and was a very bassy electro mix. They also had dancers appear at various points in the evening some of which were strung from the ceiling dressed as Leeloo from the fifth element. After Mook we headed a club called fusion which was just at mad and tequila was added to the mix of drinks on offer.

The next day we woke with sore heads just before midday to meet Monica and travel to Zhujiajiao Watertown which was over an hour bus journey from the hostel. The Watertown is likened to Venice with canals that are used to ferry tourists around on gondolas. We took a small trip on the gondolas and then found a coffee shop in an attempt to combat the hangover. Monica likened us to Zombies throughout the day.

That evening we went for some food which was difficult to stomach but sampled the deep fried dumplings that are a delicacy of Shanghai.

The following day was probably our busiest yet. We started with our final mandarin lesson which was provided by qualified teachers of mandarin. To practice our mandarin we were accompanied by our guide and the mandarin tutors to various shops. We walked for an hour from the hostel down a street of musical instrument shops which was good fun and interesting to see some of the more traditional instruments. Walking through the market we spoke with various market sellers and shop owners in our personal forms of mandarin. The most used term throughout the trip was "tai guile" (too expensive) when attempting to haggle. I was trying to buy thirty dice to play drinking games with but have decided I'm better off buying them on eBay. Our guide also took us through Yu Garden which is a tranquil garden in the centre of the buzzing city where you can feed fish and wander around away from most of the crowds. The highlight of this was pulling a lad out of the pond after he fell in trying to touch the fish.

After taking the metro to The Bund we were treated to an epic view of the Shanghai financial district landscape from the other side of the river. The Bund itself is a road on the waterfront with typical British architecture from British settlement and has a London feel to it. From The Bund we walked to the Hyatt building which has a skyline bar (the vue bar) atop overlooking the financial district. There is also a hot tub there overlooking the view but having not been back to the hostel all day, didn't have our kit for a dip.

We watched the sunset from the Vue bar before heading back to the hostel for a quick change and venturing back out for the much anticipated bar crawl. The first bar on the crawl featured free drinks for the first hour then a minibus journey to the second destination. We made good use of the first hour and were fairly merry on arrival at the second place. Having been plied with free drinks for the past few days (and cheap drinks throughout China) we were surprised to learn that the prices in the second place could rival London. Barry and I therefore took it upon ourselves to head out in search of an off licence for a bottle of whisky. We walked for a few minutes to a crossroads and purchased a bottle of whisky and attempted to walk back. After a few minutes of walking we realised that we could not retrace our steps and was lost from the crawl. Several attempts to gain directions from local restaurants, taxi drivers and passerbys failed dismally. We continued walking and found the American bar chain Hooters in the middle of no where, I used their wifi to get hold of Dexter and although he didn't know where the bar crawl was going, invited us to join him in a club called 7th floor which again provided free drinks. Once we left the club the rest of the night became a blur and before returning to the hostel for sleep managed to get thrown out of kareoke, adopt a child and order food off a Chinese menu by pointing at random symbols. By the time we got in it was light.

We got up the next day just after midday and was out of the hostel to wander round with the guide shortly after. The first stop on the list was the propaganda museum which is a pretty well hidden location in the basement of a block of flats. I found the posters very intriguing and it was interesting to see how propaganda in China has changed over the years. We then went to the TianziFang Art district which featured various artistic shops and stalls the majority of which were photography focussed. To finish the day we had a few beers on the rooftop bar to see off Shanghai. I will no doubt return here in the future!

As is tradition I am writing this blog on the train heading south from Shanghai towards fujian. It's been a long day of travelling and I've currently been sat for 9 hours on the bullet train. Our next destination should prove to be a world away from the buzz of Shanghai but it's been an incredible few days.

Body status - Ruined
Mind status - Ruined
Soul status - Ruined

:)

Max.