On the train to Shanghai we had some baiju (Chinese rice wine), it's a lethal drink (not in the good sense)! Tom, Dave and I went for a walk through the train - planning to meet some Chinese people in the restaurant car but when we arrived everyone was sleeping on the tables, so we carried on and found a cargo carriage with hundreds of boxes full of live baby chicks cheeping away! Some of the chicks had escaped from their boxes so we decided to take four of them back to our carriage. The others in our group, who were mostly asleep at this stage, weren't appreciating the chicks so much... Tom went to sleep with them in his bed; during the night he rolled over and flattened two of them We thought the carriage attendent would go crazy when he saw them but he was delighted and kept them! He was happily feeding them in his cabin when we left.

I didn't do much sightseeing this time round in Shanghai as I'd already spent six days there and it was pouring with rain most of the time. In the evenings we had some nice group meals - one night we went to the nautical-themed bar at the top of Captain's Hostel, with a great view over the Bund; another night we went to the bar on the 87th floor of the Jinmao Tower after dinner and had some cocktails while we were entertained by a magician.

On the way back from the Jinmao trip we popped into a restaurant across the street from our hotel for a couple of beers - a group of local guys came and joined our table, some of them worked in the restaurant, the chefs also came and joined us later. We had a great night's fun trying to chat to them without any common language. They were making fun of one of their gang, saying "mishi mishi" over and over again - we eventually figured out that it was because this guy was Japanese. They were so welcoming and friendly - after the chefs joined us they even brought some more food in from the restaurant next door!