Day 7: 22.06

The lights have just gone out on our 17 hour "overnight" train to Xi'an...starting to realise that the portion in this trip spent on trains is pretty sizeable!

So we are leaving Shanghai!

We arrived pretty tired at around half 10 on Thursday morning, and were out sightseeing for the day by 12! Shanghai is cool much less traditional than Beijing... There is a definite western feel to a lot of it. The buildings are so tall! And there are so many of them! Completely mental. But it means the views are amazing. First we went to the museum which was pretty cool, but was so tired ended up sitting out in the park for about an hour afterwards before we moved on. Then we walked down the main shopping street, Nanjing road, which was again, really big, to a restaurant for dinner. It was more of the same as we have eaten before, really nice, especially this beef that was really tender and coated in breadcrumb things I think... So yummy! And there was a green vegetable I seem to love as well, can't remember what it is exactly though.

After that we went to look at the light show from the Bund... Wow. All the really high office towers have lights on and boats go up and down the river all lit up... It really was spectacular! So glad I saw it. After wandering up and down there for about an hour we went on search of a bar! Jenny sent us up Nanjing road which I think was possibly a bad way to go, ended up in a very overpriced very strange karaoke type place with no-one in it and expensive drinks...we left pretty quickly and found a cafe place where we could sit outside and have a few drinks. It was pretty cool, I managed to get a cocktail (the beers were pretty cheap but I'm not quite there yet, although I don't mind it too much with dinner now - I'm also practicing my tea drinking skills, although it's definitely nothing like tea at home!). That was nice, getting to chat to everyone a bit more. Carline from NZ apparently has 2 kids, and claire had some great stories...enough to put me off going to the baths in Moscow!

The train just stopped... Every time it does it gives a massive shudder as if we've hit something! Apart from that it's fairly smooth but a bit worse than the last one...the last one didn't have doors on the cabins, but this one doesn't even have walls to separate you from the corridor! And the last one was full of Chinese women... This one is full of Chinese men. It hasn't been too bad considering we are only on the middle bunks along the cabin, but could definitely be more comfortable, one particularly gross bit was one man (wearing wellie boots and a suit) was spitting on the floor for a really long time... On the train! So so gross!! Thank god he disappeared. I'll never get used to the spitting and horrible noise that comes with it here!

On Friday we got up early and went up to the top of the highest tower...I forget the name. Above jin Mao and it looks like a bottle opener though...haha. It was really cool, so high up! The view is class, especially looking at the roofs of all the buildings as they are all painted different colours! It's really cool! There was bits of the floor made of glass so that you could look down! And the lift up was an experience in itself, it felt like going in a time machine!

After that we went to the old town, for a quick lunch (it wasn't fantastic, I just had spring rolls) then into the gardens...again forget the name. They were beautiful though, took loads of pictures. Then we wandered through the old town shops , they were cool but I didn't get anything. After getting changed we went to an acrobatics show which was a bit... Odd to be honest. I wasn't massively impressed, and fell asleep in the middle because i was really tired! Very cheesy titanic bit as well, haha.

Today I had a bit of a lie in to chill out and catch up on sleep. Was glad I did, missed the Maglev (super fast train) but if I'm ever back to shanghai I'll get on it! Wandered around the French Concession area which was cool, but much more European. When I came up from the subway beside our hotel into the heaving Chinese shopping area it was amazing how different it was! Peter and Frieda met a friend who lives in shanghai and was amazed that we were staying in that part of town and taking sleeper trains... We are definitely seeing Chinese china if that makes sense. Hotel was nice though by the way! Despite the lack of wifi.

So then on to this train! Where I've been since half 3 this afternoon (until 9am tomorrow). Sleep time I think! Harry potter audio is turning out as good for that!

Night! Hopefully I'll get some wifi tomorrow! Xxx