We LOVED Shanghai. We arrived off the sleeper bus to see the start of the Shanghai Marathon and from that moment on we just got a good vibe about the place. The city has so much character and stunning architecture - a mixture of space age Transformer robot buildings, art deco Manhattan, French villas and old stone London. We absolutely fell in love with the Tianzifang area which is a rabbit warren of boutiques, bars and cafes and spent a couple of days just wandering through the streets of the French Concession, along the Bund and the Pudong Waterfront and sipping cocktails at the 87th floor bar of one of the world's tallest buildings. So much of the place is currently being tarted up in anticipation of next year's Expo but that didn't spoil our fun.

To get across the river from the Bund (the old bit) to Pudong (the Hong Kong-esque new bit), we decided not to take the subway but to take the 'Sightseeing Tunnel' - a totally bizarre monorail pod that transported us through a tunnel of flashing psychedelic lights and voices booming 'meteor shower... blue green...' - nightmares of the ultra scary Willy Wonka film's chocolate river boat ride came flooding back. Very random.

Having spent a couple of days in the city, we decided to take a trip out to the cute canal town of Zhujiajiao. Only we were being especially lazy that day and missed the morning bus out there. Not to be defeated, we spent about an hour pointing at maps, gesticulating at the Chinese and trying to work out whether there was another way of getting there. Three hours of a local bus, a stop in an unknown town and a taxi ride later, we arrived - just before the sun set to mark the end of the day... So with everything starting to close, we took a few snaps and less than an hour after arriving, we started on our journey back to Shanghai.

With our final day in China beckoning, we treated ourselves to a night at The Puli - the most stunning, funky hotel and spa we've ever been to (go on Google it and get jealous). After 3 months of hostels and roaches, we spent the day in our fluffy gowns, had the entire gym and infinity pool overlooking the skyline to ourselves and sipped on the complimentary vintage red. We could get used to a bit of 'flash-packing'...

The next morning we had to get to the airport to fly off to our next destination of Japan. And we got to the airport in true Chinese style courtesy of a magnetically levitated train - The MagLev. Oh. My. God. It went from 0 to 430 km per hour in 1 minute! I can't believe we didn't take off as we felt the G-force flatten our cheeks. Less than 5 minutes later we had arrived 30 kms away at the airport. Totally mental. Gatwick Express eat your heart out.