We arrived in Shanghi mid morning and after lunch went and walked along the bund and saw the impressive skyline of shanghi. That evening we went on a river cruise to take in shanghis skyline at night which was even more impressive. The next day we took a walking tour including the french concession, major shopping areas, a souvenir market, a plant bird and isect market and a beautiful park where we did some exercises on the funny public exercise machines provided throughout china. That night we went clubbing. The following day we checked out and after lunch caught the overnight train to xi'an which was delayed by four hours. After a lot of wating around and playing cards to an audience we finally reached xi'an in the early afternoon the next day. We went for an orientation walk and then went to the city wall where we rode bikes around the 8.6 miles of the wall. The next day we visited the terracotta warriors and horses which was really impressive and interesting as louis told us a lot about the history of them. In the morning of the following day we left xi'an and got the day train to yichang. We arrived in yichang at 1 am and slept until mid morning. We went for a hotpot lunch and then went shopping for food for the river boat cruise we were going on for the next 2 days. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing frisbee in the local park as the weather was really lovely. That evening we boarded the yangtze river boat which was really quite nice, basically a hotel on a boat as we all had a twin room with an ensuite. The only major down side was that very loud chinese music was played at 6 am to wake everybody up so u didnt get much sleep! The first night we were on board we passed through the three gorges dam which was quite impressive due to its size but not very nice to look at as it is just concrete. The next morning after being woken up at 6am we boarded a slightly smaller sightseeing boat which took us through the narrow channels of a tributary of the three gorges. The scenery was breathtaking despite the slight morning mist. Next we boarded a small bent bean boat which was rowed and then pulled through the water by 3 men, this was called tracking and has been done for many years. We were rowed back to our sightseeing boat which then took us back to our main river boat. Later that afternoon we stopped at a small riverside town and explored the local area which was a bit run down but still very pretty. That evening we spent on the boat playing hide and seek and drinking games which was a good laugh.The following day we left the boat at 7am and got a coach back to our hostel in yichang. From the hostel we then got the coach for four hours to the train station where we got the overnight train to guilin.