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 bargain!! And the metro was way faster and a lot nicer than the london underground.

Once arriving in Shanghai centre we were trying to navigate our way to Peoples Square when we were approached by 3 young chinese people. The guy, Zhang Shuai was very extremely helpful in giving us directions. He and Laura looked over our tourist map for about 20mins talking about directions etc. Meanwhile his two friends, Lisa and Marissa, asked me numerous questions about England and the comparrisons between Shanghai and back home. They were both amazed by our skin colour and explained a lot of the chinese women have sun umbrellas (its very strange to see) to keep their skin as fair as possible as they think its healthy and beautiful.

After much talking the invited us to go to a traditional chinese tea house with them. Laura, as trusting as ever, filmed us walking there just in case we got abducted by the nice people.... so funny!! We entered this tiny little room which consisted of literally a table, 6 chairs and a bookcase. The lady that was presenting the tea ceremony spoke no English so Zhang, Lisa and Marissa took it in turns to translate what was going on. We got to see how the tea was prepared using the little chinese cups, pots etc.. and also got to sample a nice variety of teas. Our fave was definately the flower and fruit fusion. We were not allowed to take pics in there as it was a spiritual place but Laura managed to take a sneaky few.

After exchanging email addresses with our chinese friends we set off complete with directions to all the good places to visit. We came to the Shanghai river, which was filled with chinese tourists as its a great place to view the Financial district across the water and the Pearl Tower. You can go up to the very top to see the view. Apparently its quite famous but we are not sure why.

We then decided to try and find Yu Yuan park. On route we met these 2 chinese students who stopped to ask us loads of questions and also invite us to their Art Exhibition but we decided against it only as we had so much to see. Well after about an hour we decided mayb we should have gone with them as the park we were looking for was clearly invisable as we could not find it anywhere!! Very fustrating when its so hot. We did end up going into the Temple of the City Gods..... as soon as you walk through the door you can purchase incense sticks (bout 20 tied together), then you stand in the courtyard burning it and bowing at the same time. There were loads of rooms filled with buddahs and a lot of chinese visitors praying. It was quite a weird sensation as we were walking around taking pics at the time.

After completely giving up trying to find the park, we walked past a tourist centre and grabbed another map. This one didnt even have the Yu Yuan Park on there!!! so the map Laura bought from england was clearly out of date... well done Waterstones.

We were knackered but decided we should go see some culture so ended up in the Shanghai museum. It was very interesting but probably wasted on us as we were just to tired and hungry. Had to sit in the cafe to eat some cake (the only food i could find) as it was now gone 4pm and I hadnt eaten anything all day. We made our way bak to the metro.. how we managed to get bak to the hostel i have no idea as we were practically falling asleep stood up!

We managed to get bak to the hostel without being hit by any of the super dangerous traffic. Trying to cross the road woke us up a bit. Litterally fell into bed and i fell asleep for about 3 hrs before Laura woke me up completely starving bless her!
Went down to the amazing hostel restaurant/common room which is styled to well and ate possibly the best Carbonara ever. Tasted so good. Probably as it was the first proper food we have eaten here. And of course a pot of amazing fruit tea!

N&L