So today we made our way to Shanghai. On the way we stopped at WuZhen which is a little canal town and 2 hours from Hangzhou. We had a tour around, but it was raining and very very busy. It was a shame it was raining and everybody had umbrellas in my face - it made it hard to get nice pictures. It's a really nice little place though and much more what I wanted to see in China. People actually live here but all the streets are jam packed with tourists. When walking past we could see through the windows how they live - could even see them having their lunch.
Some of the residents occasionally have arguments with the tourist board for that area, and in the past couple of days a resident got beaten up by tourist board security for being outspoken about not wanting so many tourists.
There's a lot of Chinese Tourist groups and their tour leaders talk really loud over a speaker system while walking around telling them the history. Most of our group fancied taking the speakers, throwing them on the floor and jumping on them. Either that or accidentally bump them into the canal.

We stayed a couple of hours but would have stayed longer if it weren't for the rain - everyone was soaked. So, at 1pm we jumped back on our coach and headed to Shanghai - another 2 hour coach journey. It's a good time to relax and listen to music etc.

The skyline heading in to Shanghai was filled with skyscrapers. And as we got into the city centre, it reminded me a bit of New York. The coach dropped us all off just near Nanjing Rd and we had a short walk through the shopping area. I really liked the look and feel of Shanghai straight away - first impressions anyway.

We got checked in and had about 40 mins to rest before meeting up again to have tea. Our tour leader took us to a restaurant for hotpot. You sit at a table with a gas stove in the middle and you get a big pan filled with a "soup". It's more like a flavored water rather than what we would call soup. Anyway, the pan has two halves - one is hot and spicy, and the other half was just normal. You then get loads of different vegetables (cabbage, potato, sweet potato, bamboo, lotus, mushrooms, tree fungus and loads of others) and some meats (thin beef, crab sticks, fish balls, quail eggs). Once the soup is boiling, you throw some of the food in and let it cook a little. In the meantime, you put a little bit of sesame seed oil, chili oil and garlic in a bowl and also scoop in a bit of the soup. Then you take bits of the meat and veg, stick it in your bowl for the extra flavours and then put it in your rice bowl and eat together.
It's called a fondue in other countries like Sweden. It was really good and not something we've had before. Only fondue I've had is one of those with the chocolate "soup", strawberries, marshmallows etc.

From there we went to an Acrobatics show. The different things they can do are amazing. One of the women's specialities was bending over backwards. Doesn't sound that impressive? Well her nose was touching her arse.
They did all kinds of things and then the finale was 5 motorbikes in this tiny round cage - mental.

After that we walked back to the hotel and past the Jing'an Temple - you have all these skyscrapers and then a chinese temple all lit up which reminds you you are still in China and looks amazing. We had to get back to the hotel to find a hostel for our last 2 nights in Shanghai - Saturday and Sunday. The problem is, the Shanghai World Expo is on, and everywhere is booked up! And I mean everywhere. We've had to book into a 10 bedroom mixed dorm in a hostel that hasn't got a good rating (from previous travellers, 66%) and is a bit away from the main area. Oh well, we won't get what we want every time.