SHANGHAI.... Had two hour train trip to the big city. Had an incident with a very rude Chinese woman who after getting on the train quite late, after wed all sat down and put our luggage in the holdalls, shouted at us to move them to fit her stuff in. Very mean woman. Glad she had to have her stuff on the floor in the end! so yeh, Shanghai. We went on the 'psychadelic tunnel' which runs under the Bund, under the river to the other side. There was a massive lead up to it, so was really excited. Had the feel of Disney Land to it. However, wasnt all I expected. Basically lots of random lights for ten minutes and some inflatable dolls that came out at you and you 'thought' youd hit, in our car. Hmmm. Later we went on the river cruise. Was good to see all the new buildings, especially in contrast to the small boats and older buildings further down the river. Different worlds. On our way back the lights began to come on so that was cool. The eveing was sooo cool! We went to a bar called Cloud 9 (I think) on the 84th floor of this seriously posh hotel. very pricey place but amazing views of the city all lit up. On top of the world. Had some lovely champagne and some cocktails. Seriously living the life!!! We then headed off to some other, more reasonably priced bars and had quite a bit to drink!! We all went for dinner at about midnight, then hit more bars with Graham, Byron and Steve until about 4am. Next day we, (Chris, Vi, Su, Byron and I) went to a really nice area of the city with a massive bazarre, but all proper shops. I bought a game, Chinese chequers and went to a nice tea shop and had some delicious cups of Jasmine tea. That night we saw the Shanghai Acrobats. AMAZING! you cant get better than this! The contortionists were mind blowing. You cant believe people can do that to their body. Each act was great though, like one guy who balanced like 11 very heavy wooden chairs on his chin and then they added even more to make the chairs into a dragon like thing. It was huge! Again Ill put up the picture when I can. Then we went on to a bar to watch the football match, Man U v Arsenal. Some things never change! Most of the guys felt quite cheated at the result (Arsenal winning on penalties) as Im sure Myles did. Again had quite a lot to drink that night, was spurred on by the fact that it was Steve and Grahams last night (only 2 week tour, Beijing to Shanghai, Kirsty, Bob, Marion and Wendy also left after Shanghai). What did it for me was two green minty shots. We went back to the hotel at like 12 and got some beers in, listened to music off my MD on Byrons speakers (ppl actually commented on my good, diverse taste in music. Turn up for the books, huh!) and played Barbie Uno. Hehe. But oh dear the next morning was not pretty. Said goodbye to the 6 leaving us, feeling very ill. I hope thats not their lasting memory of me. Although as youll soon find out, Duncan made a much more lasting impression on people in Longsheng!!! What I did not mention is that the day was full of travelling to Longsheng, which included a 2 hour flight to Guilin!!!! Dont try hangovers with flying. Never good, needless to say I threw my breakfast up in the first 10 minutes of the flight! Luckily I was able to sleep a bit after that and gradually I started to feel human again. So yes..onto the rice terraces of Ping'an, Longsheng......