Having wanted to leave Shanghai on Saturday for Beijing, it made sense to make booking train tickets top of our priority list. So off we headed to the train station, blissfully unaware China was gearing up for a national holiday. We get the station and it's complete pandemonium, thousands of people scurrying around in the hope of purchasing a ticket. Being Western, we looked for an authoritative type figure, someone to control the chaos but the best the station seemed to muster was a guy who's sole purpose was too blow his whistler and wave his arms, similar to that of a clubber at a hed kandi night.

We took our place in the 'English Speaking' queue, along with all the other crafty Chinese, as this queue, although long, was considerably shorter than the normal queues. With our elbow's sharpened, we made our way forward, only for 'government official's' to cut right in front of us (Being government official gives you special treatment and that can handle, but there is no way 7 out of 10 Chinese are government official's!) 1 hour later we managed to fight our way to the front, only to be told that the train was sold out and there wouldn't be another until Thursday. Not wanting to leave empty handed and ready to leave Shanghai, we made an 'on the spot decision' to change our itinerary and visit Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors. Again, due to the holiday, the sleepers were fully booked and the only ticket available was for Tuesday, a 16 hour journey on hard seats...that should be interesting.

Just before sunset, we decided to head back to the Pudong district and go to the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower, hoping to capture that perfect snap of Shanghai. Unfortunately, the tower promised lots but didn't really leave up to our expectation. We did however get the chance to pose with the Shanghai world cup and took a ride on the indoor roller coaster, which in terms of excitement, would give any park roundabout a run for it's money. On the way down, I made a pit stop at the gent's, only to here the toilet cleaner and another member of staff getting to know each other...I guess, when you're caught up in the moment,!!! We then caught the lift down to the bottom (not before giving my best JT impression in front of the multi color disco lights) just in time to see the fireworks go off.