Shanghai

We arrived in Shanghai early doors after our sleeper train and headed straight off to meet our friend Flora, with whom we were staying in Shanghai - she is here working so had a nice flat to put us up for the weekend in - nice!

After three months on the road, having somewhere we could relax and chill out in was a huge draw. Also having a laptop where we could upload our phots, get up to date and bits and pieces was another massive draw. Add to that the fact we could order food online to our door and not have to leave the room. We didn't get out much in our first couple of days in Shanghai.

When we were suitably refreshed we hit the town. First up we went to the zoo, which in all honesty was a pretty depressing experience. There were some pandas which was really cool. Other than that we saw a collection of animals that looked to be thoroughly unhappy, all huddling in the shade looking absolutely broken from how hot it was. The general conditions seemed to be pretty shocking, no water and loads of rubbish in the cages etc. It must have been close to 40 degrees that day too - the polar bear in particular didn't look impressed. I remembered that I don't really like zoos that much. I didn't take any photos but Maddy took a few so there are some on her page if you want to see a (to be fair pretty impressive) range of miserable looking animals.

Actually, this deserved an edit when I saw how funny the monkey pictures were again, also a cheeky couple of photos with some people that wanted to have our photos taken with them - happened so much in China it got too funny, we decided to start getting some photos of them too - some good ones to come from Beijing.

After that we headed over to the bund which is one of the big tourist spots in Shanghai. It's pretty impressive there really, especially after it gets dark. The buildings are amazing - China's answer to Wall Street, and you can get some great photos from the other side of the river too which has some more modern skyscrapers. We later headed over to that side for a drink (and some amazing chocolate cake) in the highest bar in the world. The view was pretty epic! It was also next to the huge building that the french spiderman climbed without a harness (if anyone knows what i'm talking about), which looked tiny from the bar. We walked around a bit more and took some more photos and then headed into China's flagship Apple store which I talked about in my presentation for my job at KPMG, used them again for a cheeky bit of free internet.

The next day we headed out to check out one of the fake markets in Shanghai which was supposed to be pretty cool. It didn't let us down, we got some crazy cheap bits from there. I grabbed a new wallet, couple of dvds, some converse (or not), and a go set which I had been looking for while I was in China. Don't know how to play yet - but I will! We grabbed some more (pricey) all you can eat sushi later that day (it was ace though) and headed back to the bund for some more photos. The day afterwards was a bit of a rush trying to sort out our Japan Rail passes - we got screwed over once more by STA, this time the Chinese branch - never deal with these pirates, they're incredibly shit at everything it seems (STA, not the Chinese that is). After that we literally rushed through Yuyuan Gardens before getting our train to Beijing - it was worth it, they were amazing.

That day when we finally did get our rail passes that day we incidentally asked where our train station was, looking for confirmation rather than new information, only to find out he (who booked our tickets) told us the wrong station which was miles away from where we needed to be. Luckily we arrived at the correct station just in time to get settled in (after pretty much dropping my bag on some guy's head) with a McDonalds (our second of the day, not through choice but a lack of time and alternatives in the train station) on our hard seats, which we would be sat on for 15 hours. Nevermind, it was our last train in China. After that we just had the luxurious Japanese Shinkansen (bullet trains) and flights to look forward too. Effectively this was our last hard bit of travelling - the 15 hours were long and hard, and sleep deprived, but we made it. From here on, we travel like kings.

Shanghai was pretty cool, certainly not one of my favourite places - I'm glad we went to see it but I doubt I'll be hurrying back. Here are a few photos.

The skybar was at the top of this

Soon to be the tallest building in China I think

Been listening to a fair share of Burial on this trip (perfect for late night journeys), he's up there as one of my favourite artists for sure. This remix of Commix's Be True is awesome (though it sounds nothing at all like the original). Actually, have them both. Enjoy!