We're off to the zoo! About £4 entry and only 6 or so stops away on the tube it's the perfect way to spend part of our last day in Shanghai. Before leaving for the zoo though we booked tickets to see 'ERA' at Shanghai Circus World for 7.30pm tonight - an acrobatic show recommended to be seen while in Shanghai. We both really enjoyed the zoo, seeing Pandas, tigers, elephants, flamingoes, parrots, a hippo, bears, gorillas and all other sorts of animals! The con...

Its sunny and there's blue sky - and what a difference it makes!! We headed out about 10am and went to the Yuyuan Gardens and walked across the zig-zagging bridge - it's lovely here, especially in the sun. You could get lost in this place though, again it's one of those places that seem never ending with something new around every corner. We had to pay to get in here but at only 30¥ each (about £3 each) you can't really complain! We picked up some food on the...

For the first time all holiday we were able to have a lie in and not think about setting any alarms! It was lovely and just what we needed. We left the hotel around 11am and headed towards the Hop on Hop off bus stop - we already prebooked tickets for this for the weekend to get us around the city and see the sights. The ticket also includes entry into a Buddhist Temple, a river cruise along the Huangpu River for an hour and also entry to the observation deck o...

And so our Shanghai adventure begins! 4.50am and our airport transfer picks us up -a different guy than all the other transfers, which is a shame as we wanted to tip the other one..but anyway. It's raining today in Beijing - not had the best of luck with the weather with all the smog but at least it has been dry the entire time. The flight over went quickly, we were looking forward to some breakfast on the plane, but what we got looked like prison food!! Pink po...

So today was our last day in Beijing! One more tour we had arranged to do though - a morning tour through the hutongs of Beijing. (A hutong is a traditional courtyard residence). Not such an early start for us today though which was great (a lie in at last...kind off!), we were picked up at 9 by our guide Lily and driven to the main hutong area where we had a rickshaw ride. To be honest there wasn't a great deal to be seen to begin with, the hutongs are quite ...