Hello everyone, This morning I arrived in Shanghai and so far it's pretty unimpressive. Much dirtier and far less organised than Beijing, surprisingly. The last few days in Beijing were fun, I went to see the Temple of Heaven and a Tibetan temple, which was absolutely fabulous, very spiritual experience. Also met up with Tobias twice more which was fantastic. And I took the bus without paying for it... subversion all the way. Will try and get towards the Vietnamese border either Monday or Tuesday, looking forward to leaving China and going somewhere a bit smaller. I'm not being very careful about what I eat... been eating meat which has been difficult to avoid and had milk (shock, horror) as well... have been fine so far but am really trying to be more careful. Have also learnt my first five Chinese characters... the two for Shanghai (the first of which also means 'up', very confusing) and the three for 'platform'. If I continue like that I'll be fluent by Monday... ;o) I've also got the feeling I'll be veeery skinny when I get back... I'm often not hungry at all and then when I do buy stuff I eat very little of it. It's probably the utterly unbearable heat. Hope you're well everyone, I'll be posting again soon but don't worry if you don't hear from me for a few days. Lots of love, Jn x