We were determined to get a day of sightseeing in and rose early (when you're travelling 9 is early!) to head to the Shanghai Museum around the corner in People's Square. We were stunend to find that the queue was already stretching all the way around the building and so decided to head across to Pudong to try and do a trip up the tallest building in China, the 492 metre high SWFC. Once again, however, we were thwarted by the holiday crowds and found a three hour long queue to get into the building. Despairing of seeing anything we headed to Longhua Heroes' Memorial Park, the former site of a prison and extermination camp for Communists set up in 1927 by the then ruling Kuomintang under Chiang Kai Shek. The repression of communism was a turning point for modern China as the KMT and the Communist forces had been cooperating until that point in the war on Japan. The changing of priorities by the KMT was a contributing factor to the loss of that war, the subsequent years of Japanese occupation of Chinese territory and the growing support for the Communist Party. Unfortunately Dave was denied at the gate for looking too much like a hobo so he headed to the temple next door while Alan and I wandered the park. Within the park there are a number of fascinating works of art and it is truly a wonderful memorial but Alan and I openly mused on what those early revolutionaries would have made of modern 'Communist' China and in particular bustling money-oriented Shanghai!

After a few hours there we headed back to prepare for the big event, Jo's stag do. We congregated at a bowling alley at 5 to get to know each other and watched the groom's arrival on the back of a beer truck bedecked in a santa hat, pyjamas and some magnificent Minnie Mouse slippers. It was a bit of an in-joke as the Chinese often wear outfits that look very similar to pyjamas in public and we did notice over the course of the evening that most of the locals didn't react at all to his outfit unless they could see the slippers.

After the bowling (if anyone's interested I was awful and came second last!) we headed for another all you can eat Japanese and a 'This is Your Life' takeoff chronicling Jo's years of freedom. We were kicked out a number of hours later after drinking the bar dry and headed to the 'Three Sisters' bar for many more beers and a stripper who took her clothes off not once but twice, standing at the bar chatting (fully clothed I should add!) to the lads in the half hour 'interval'. Dave and I called it a night around 4 after an uncoordinated table football match but we've since been told that the groom to be was taken home at 7, not that he could remember!