After cleaning ourselves up at home and washing our clothes we headed for Jiujiang. Here we finally met up with the others, Pete, Henry, Nold, Naomi and Ella, some of which we hadn't seen for a long time. In true gap year fashion we ended up drinking .. well .. a little too much, and the night did end with me collapsing onto the bed. Early morning we woke up, did a bit of shopping then all relaxed in bed together, bidding Ella goodbye as she headed off for her 4pm train (ours wasn't until 7 .. well). Naomi and Cat thought it best just to double check our tickets, luckily we did! All I remember next is running down the stairs, screaming to people that it was infact our train at 4pm and that we had an hour to pack, leave and get on that train. My clothes were everywhere, people's clothes were still drying out and noone was ready except for a casual Pete who laughed and took pictures of us. Luckily for us a taxi wasn't too hard to grab and we all made it to the station in time, not before I forgot my phone and Nold forgot both pairs of trousers he owned except the pj's he was wearing .. ah dear. It was too late to go back though and Nold just had to buy some in Shanghai, at least I had purchased my peanut butter the day before which, with the help of my finger, was my dinner for the night. The train journey was nice and easy except for the beautiful farm animal below me bellowing in her sleep.. gaahh!!

We arrived at an early 6am and wandered about trying to locate our hostel. It was much colder and snow could be seen as we entered .. walking about for an hour with huge backpacks did nothing to help my mood and the fact my gloves were buried in my bags was unpleasant. At last we arrived, to a very nice hostel in fact and even had our own room with 4 of us, no strangers for once. The first day we settled in, shopped for clothes in forever 21 (yippee) and ate all the western food our stomachs could take. Some of the others hit the clubs but I decided to chill in with a few of the girls that I hadn't seen for a few months.. a good old catch up. Awoken then around 3am to a VERY drunk Cat who I had to help out the toilet, hold a sick bag open for her and then put her to bed, that's whilst making sure Henry, unconcious, didn't need to be taken to Hospital.. oh God. The next day we did a bit of exploring, walking along the bund, exploring the temples and marketplaces. Shanghai was very beautiful with lots of western architecture although it was very busy. This was the night of chinese new year (the eve) so we planned on hitting the bund to watch the fireworks and then heading to a club. Well, the night started well with us girls all dressing up and heading out in nothing in the freezing temperatures! We let off some fireworks of our own casually on the street and then went to the bund to await the big show. We waited, and waited, and then I went home to change into boots, then waited, then waited .. until nothing. Turned out the fireworks were off this year due to the pollution .. come on guys its new year and you're china .. AHHH!!! It was time for clubbing, we armed ourselves with addresses of a club and looked to grab a taxi.. nothing, the place was packed, everyone wanting a taxi! Luckily, a couple pulled up, offering me and 3 others a lift, saying it was their good deed for new year.. deal! Somehow, 4 of us managed to squeeze into the back of a family car with a baby seat... I was piled on top and v. uncompfy!!! They did drop us off in the end and refused any more from us, sadly the place was dead though but managed to find a cab and a big of sign language (me dancing) led us to another club called 'Rich baby' (snazzy or what). This was pretty chinese but had good music so we danced away, climbing on any tall object in sight. Soon after we thought it best to find the others, a phone call later we met up again and headed to a club they had found. We danced the night away and even came across party jesus .. yes the real man himself! A western, very bearded, soft, long haired man came, staggering towards us with us shouting 'JESSSSUUUSSSS!!!'. We then requested for him to 'BRING THE PARTY' in which he raised his hands to the ceiling and brought the party down on us .. oh yeah!!!!

The next day was another exploring day so we headed off, looking for something new and interesting as there turned out to be not much happening in Shanghai, even for chinese new year. We were met with crowds and crowds of people, making it unable for you to move at all. We had to get out of there, luckily grabbing a taxi (we attempted the subway but didn't fancy the fight to get through.. it was soooooo bad!!) We ended up at the french consession. This was filled with very modern buildings and expensive shops, one in which we used just to see luxury toilets .. hehe. We did manage to notice what looked like a good club .. G+. It was then back for another night out, this time heading out with these two Dutch guys we had met in our hostel. The club was very chinese, filled with people on their phones and noone on the dancefloor. Luckily, there was around 15 of us, so we managed to get the party going and get lots of chinese people dancing. Loved so much we were given free drinks of whisky and vodka throughout the night.. not half bad in my books! This time we all headed home, everyone able to walk by themselves and crawl into bed again.

Yet another exploring day, this time trying to find the fake market, which we infact walked past 100000 times not realising it was inside. It was pretty good actually and I managed to bag a swatch, real of course, for £2.50 … I needed a watch! It has tried to break once already but I just hit it very hard and it started to work again. Seeing as it was our last night again we went back to G+ which we enjoyed and me and Ella decided to get v.drunk …. ooops. I ended up doing way too much baiju shots and managed to be sick all down the taxi, being taken home before I even got to the club. All I remember after that was falling asleep in the bedroom bin, becoming concious every now and again to just see the bottom of the bin then fall asleep again .. sorry mum and dad. The next morning I paid for it of course, especially when I had to pack all my stuff up and be out the room by 12. It was suprising how much stuff everyone else left, I think we managed to bag a couple of dresses from the other volunteers which they left.. silly silly people. I heard stories of party jesus making another return.. damn me for missing that and some funny stories from another volunteer. (Sorry, I won't name names but it's so funny I have to tell) One Volunteers was v.drunk and when in bed thought that one of his tshirts was a beautiful girl. It wasn't until after he got off with his tshirt that he realised it was infact just a tshirt.. ooops. Then later he thought a pile of clothes on his bed was a baby whale - shouting - 'there's a baby whale in my bed, a baby whale!!!'. And these people are my friends .. hmm.The others went to find Pete's wallet which he lost for the 2nd time now in China, unfortunately with no luck, the worse thing being that it had around 800Yuan in it :( Me and Cat said we would keep bag watch whilst the others were out but ended up just falling asleep on the couches, I was beyong caring if I looked like a tramp. It was then off to the airport, we were flying off to Qingdao .. boy it felt good to be on a plane again, very glad that we found cheap tickets and only had an hour flight to endure... LUXURY!!!