Arriving in Shanghai and it was hot but not as hot as where we had just come from! We eventually got through customs and found the metro into the city to buy our train tickets from the station. The journey took like an hour and the metro was packed with Chinese people all on their phones. They must get WiFi underground. Eventually we made it to the station which was massive by far the biggest railway station I have ever seen took us like 5 mins to walk from one side to the other. The ticket windows weren't even in this massive building they were about 200 meters away so it took us a while to find it and when we did there was only one English speaking window. I had read online that you could buy all train tickets from Shanghai not just for journeys that started in Shanghai so our plan was to buy all our journeys then and there as Chinese trains fill up FAST!! However the woman was a bit rude and she didn't or couldn't reserve any trains for us. We ended up only buying our ticket to Beijing and it was our 4th choice of train and we are in a seat overnight rather than a bed. See trains fill up fast!

After travelling for so long we decided to treat ourselves to a McDonalds (already!) I got a cheeseburger and it tasted completely different than from back home! It was horrible. So I won't be eating there again!

We found the hostel pretty easy and the room was really nice. We emailed the rest of the hostels to try and get them to book trains for us but only one of them would the rest said that we had to do it when we got there and one charged £4 each for the privilege! We looked online and our next train from Beijing to Pingyao in a weeks time was already fully booked; all four trains that day!!

The next day we got up really late, and decided to get out of the heat by going to the Shanghai museum as it was free and would have air conditioning. The museum itself was OK... It really didn't have that much that was of interest to us, there were rooms of pottery, coins and traditional dress that was quite funny and obviously by the sounds of excitement; the Chinese visitors favourite room. But if we had paid for the museum I think I would have been disappointed. We walked back to the street our hostel as it had a really busy restaurant underneath full of locals so we figured it must be good food. I had some kung pao chicken with rice and Dan had a chicken and potato curry both were really good and cheap!! We then decided to get this hostel help us book our train tickets and the guy there spoke really good English. He helped us book all of our trains and even for Beijing to Pingyao train he found us a place where we could change trains so still manage to get there for the day we wanted. However now instead of getting a night train to Pingyao we will be travelling most of the day and also missing a day in Beijing that we would have had. But at least we managed to get something! We definitely wouldn't have been able to book every train as we got to the destination because of how full these trains get so quickly. The guy at the hostel didn't even charge us any booking fee for the trains even though we probably spent a good hour with him. He said our route was really good too which was nice :-)

We went back to our room to put our stuff away to go back outside and then it started pouring down with rain. So much so our whole street got flooded!! So we had a nap instead. I don't think we are doing well with the jet lag, in Bangkok last year we were fine but not this year! We decided to again eat at the hostel because it was raining and seemed a lot busier than the other restaurants on the street. I got some pork and chive dumplings that were good and Dan got some form of pork sandwich thing. They were also good and the whole meal came to about £3.50.

We decided to walk to the Bund to see all the skyscrapers lit up at night even though it was still raining and I had no umbrella or poncho. The streets of Shanghai are surprisingly clean and the city is massive!! Much more impressive than Doha. After arriving at the Bund we managed to take some pretty Good night shots and every now and again lighting struck past which was cool and made all the Chinese go "ooo". We decided to try and take a picture of the skyline with the lightning in the background I got restless so didn't get the shot but Dan actually managed to get a photo of it as it hit one of the buildings!!

The next day we went back to the Bund to view the skyline in the daytime but it was so hot and humid that we didn't stay too long. We walked down East Nanjing Road which is a big shopping district before catching the train to the French concession quarter that was recommended by lonely planet. It had a very European feel as did the Bund as they were built when it was ruled by the British, so perhaps we didn't appreciate it as much because we had just come from England. The French quarter seemed to also have expensive shops so after we decided to walk home from there through a little park in the middle of two massive roads. We grabbed some lunch before setting off for our train to Beijing, both getting some noodles. Mine had suspicious meat in it and I thought it tasted like spag bol but Dan thought otherwise.

We made it to the station with plenty of time to spare because as we had booked all our future train tickets we went to go hand in our reservations for the actual tickets. We sat on the floor killing some time before going into the actual station where right next to us a mother lowered the bin down to let her son wee in it!! After this delightful scene we moved to the actual station where we had to go through some airport style security and then find the waiting room, the train station was about 5 times the size of Leeds Bradford airport it was absolutely massive! We boarded our train smoothly and headed onto Beijing!!