Think I drank too much red wine last night! Big thanks to Becky, Barry and Angel again, and to their friends too.

We didn't have a good nights sleep - the mattress is literally an inch thick and under that is just wood, people were coming in and out of the room all night, some of the windows and curtains were open so we could here the Market starting up very early in the morning and the sun coming through...good thing I was a bit drunk and probably slept through most of the noise. Oh, and me and Therese shared a single bottom bunk bed!
Then I remembered something about a spider crawling on my JagBag (it's a silk lining bag, like a sleeping bag) during the night. I remember flicking the sheet near my chest, then not so long later a bit further down near my stomach...then I felt something near my feet and was sure it was in the bag so quickly scurried out of it, threw the bag in the corner and slept with my towel over me. The next morning we got up and I was telling Therese I was sure the spider was in the bag. I picked my JagBag up and held it high into the light from the window......COCKROACH! I slept with a fricking cockroach!!! I threw the bag down and left it there. A bit later I picked it up again to show someone else but it was gone. And then a bit later we saw it running across the floor!! Should have seen Therese's face...

After a slow start in the morning (we wanted to get most of our packing done for our flight to Hong Kong tomorrow) me, Therese, Therese and Johanna set off to have a walk around the Bund area. The streets leading up to the Bund were completely packed. We decided to take a look at what the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel was exactly. For 45 Yuan (£4.50) a little shuttle/pod transports you under the river to Pudong - we went for it. It went down, there was a load of lights and lasers (not good ones) and came back up at the other side and lasted 2 minutes max. It was the most pathetic thing I've seen and not what we all expected from Shanghai - think Blackpool could do better.

Anyway, we got to the Pudong area and had a wander around towards the Central roundabout. There were some good views from the walkway above the roundabout, and then I caught a glance of the new Apple store - I ran off to take some pictures. It's pretty cool looking - a tall glass cylinder type thing sticking out of the ground and then a spiral staircase takes you underground. We took a quick look around the shopping mall and to get some food - they had a Next shop in there! We were starving but nothing really took our fancy in the mall an it was a bit expensive so we decided to go to Subway for a decent sandwich - sub of the day is only 15 Yuan (£1.50). I got the girls to make a quick detour first to the Apple Store to have a quick look around - sad, I know and it was just as expensive as home.
We got our Subway and sat on a wall...getting photographed by Chinese people! They're pretty obsessed with taking pictures of westerners, especially Johanna because of her blonde hair. Johanna even got asked to stand and take a picture with one guy - happens all the time too...!

We took the subway back to the hostel - Therese got hit by a closing door on the subway because we were jumping on as the door closed. She didn't get hurt at all - it was funny because she just bounced off the door & Into the other Therese. After that we all had the giggles really badly on the subway, don't think the Chinese people were impressed.

We stopped off at the supermarket to get some beers, pot noodles (Chinese version), crisps and water. The Tiger beer was 5.60 Yuan (56p) for one of those big 600ml bottles. We also treat ourselves to some cookies from Cookie Man and took it all back to the hostel.
When we got back, Therese used her acting skills & told reception that we were sharing one bed because somebody was in her bed (they weren't really) so could we just pay for one bed for the two nights. After a while they eventually clicked on & agreed so for two people for two nights we paid 126 Yuan (£12.60) - that's about what it was worth anyway! The toilets and showers were pretty clean to be fair though.

It was our last night in Shanghai and our last night with our friends Therese and Johanna! : (
After freshening up, we went to the communal area in the hostel and ate all our food and drunk our beer. Then we got the iPod and (Sweden) Therese's speakers out and listened to some music - Swedish House Mafia for the Swedes. And then toned it down to a bit of Bob Marley. We had our own karaoke going on - well, I just mimed when it was my go. We could have stayed there all night because we were all having a good laugh but as it was our last night we also wanted to go out and see some more sights.

We jumped on the subway to the Bund again. The Bund looks amazing at night with the view across the river of Pudong. There's a huge promenade which we walked down. It was really weird looking across at Pudong (where the Pearl Tower is as seen in Mission Impossible 3) because it just didn't seem real, it was like we were watching a movie or something. The buildings on the Bund are nice too. We had a laugh taking some silly pictures pulling faces etc with views of Pudong and again the Chinese people just thought we were a bit crazy & were all laughing at us (ooooooh private joke). We took a long walk back to the top of the Bund and flagged a taxi down eventually after Therese used her chinese language skills (one word, Ni Hao with a big smile) to go back to the hostel as it was about 9.30pm and we had to be up at 5am for our flight to Hong Kong.

We got our bags sorted and was speaking to a few people in our dorm. One guy had also been to Beijing and went to the night Market where we had been and seen all the different disgusting foods. He was telling us he'd eaten a lot of it! Scorpions (alive), seahorse, dog, bull penis and all sorts of other stuff. I felt sick.

Really, we would have liked to have gone out with our Swedish mates for a few farewell drinks etc but it was already 11pm and we needed to get some sleep. So we said our goodbyes to Therese and Johanna and gave them a big hug. It was pretty sad because we've been together on the tour and then for the past few days it's just been us four. We've had a really good laugh and we're all pretty much on the same wavelength. Maybe we'll see each other on our travels in south-east Asia, but at the moment our plans are a bit different - same countries but different order. We've exchanged contact details, so if we don't see them, we're definitely going to visit them in Sweden and they'll have to pay a visit to Yorkshire - take them to Betty's Tea Room!

A few things to remember that made us laugh:
Bananas are for monkeys (some sort of Swedish advertisement);
The Chinese Oooooooooh (private joke);
Taking silly pictures - me lying down taking pics, holding the Pearl Tower (oh, and picking Therese's nose with it);
Shanghai Museum and the girls' conversations;
Swedes are stair walkers!
Lots of other things, and just having a good time!