Hi its Laura. its 12.23pm I waited up for 2hours for my family to phone me, as have been missing them loads! but unfortunatly some mis-communication meant they thought they were ringing me 10.00pm UK time instead of 10.00am Uk time. so when they do phone here in 5hrs tmie, we would have checked out to head off to beijing! good times ;) have packed. my rucksack is too heavy to trek with. Will be sending some crap home asap! so expect that to be coming mom. Ra...

Tis Saturday! Our last day in Shanghai. Wanted to make the most of it, however slept badly last night- its been uber humid here and sleep was just not possible. Plus, im getting more bites each nite. The bugs like me. Currently im at 4 itchy red bites.. eww. It was noticably smoggy today also. You look up, or into the horizon and pollutuion is visible, its very stange. It was definatly the hottest its been, the locals had there umbrellas out to protect from the...

Today we awoke after 14hours!!! Didnt even hear the alarm, must have been the hot carbonara in our bellys! feel amazing though. really needed that sleep to give us a boost! Enjoyed our first proper lunch at 2.30pm, in the form of a triple decker club sammich :) and wrote a few postcards.. we really hope they get bk home, because we did slightly slag off shanghai..minimally.. Also we asked the barmaid to write UK in chinese on the bottom, as she said no postcard...

Today was our day to explore. Set the alarm for 6.45am ARHHHH, then we got up for free breakfast which consisted of an awful lot of fried food (not good for first thing in the morning). Today we had to attempt to conquer the metro system. We were extrememly apprehensive due to the fact so far outside the hostel we had found noone that spoke English. Luckily all the signs and everything were in English and the cost of each single ride was only 20p. what a bargai...

"Dear passengers, welcome to Shanghai... we are the Quarantine Team" These were the first words heard after landing! 11 painstaking hours on a plane, spent wriggling, watching 5 lame movies and eating Richard Branson fry up/microwave mess.. to be told we arent getting off the plane until we be scanned by men in white suits! They came on waering facemasks, steamy goggles and white one-sies! it was something out of E.T , very disturbing. What concerned ...