Wednesday 25th April Worst nights sleep so far. I say sleep, I don't think I actually slept, as everytime I seemed to drift off, someone would walk in rustling/talking loudly/ looking at other people in the dark with their phone light on! Set of course to the background sound of immense snoring. Lovely. 4:37 came 'ah sod this I'll sit on the decking'. So I did. I got a unque chance to see Shanghai in the early hours. The roads were quiet, the haze hadn't set in ...

Tuseday 24th April Another bad nights sleep - due to snoring mostly. Lights being switched on after midnight another reason. Pot noodles for breakfast. We were thinking we could keep the empty bowls for cereal, although having consumed our hot breakfast the pots didnt seem upto it when emptied. Today's activity was to be the Jade Temple. Off we trotted on the metro, scouting out places for a spot of coffee later. The Jade Temple seemed a sureal place, calm and ...

Monday 23rd April Not having the best nights sleep (more on that later), now breakfast. Blue Mountain has a fridge and a hot water tap for noodles as well as its bar & resturuant grub. It has no kitchen to cook hot food in, so porridge and banana ordered for me, whilst Frank opted to finish off our bread and ordered a coffee. Out on the metro to Shanghai Railway station to buy our onward tickets and we walked along the main road back to the hostel - a fair t...

Saturday 21st April As mentioned in the earlier post we spent much of our first 24 hours in China holed up in our room, venturing out only for some food from the shop next door (pot noodles, fruit in jelly, bread and sweets) and to get the wifi code ... although the internet would only work on Bing. Hmm? Feeling a little digitally stranded but glad of a rest, we slept well. Watching the Robin Williams film "Hook" on the ex- pat channel. Then "Lord of the Rings",...