So today it was time to leave the safety of the group tour and look after ourselves. We met up with our great Swedish Friends Therese and Johanna at 10am (well, 10.15am once Therese packed her bag) and got a taxi to our new home - Innjoyworld Hostel. The taxi arrived in a "traditional" type street (look out for photos sometime soon). We walked into the hostel and first impressions of the inside were not too bad. Then we walked into the room - it was a ...

Today was our first full day in Shanghai. We met at 9.30am and had a nice walk through People's Square to the Shanghai Museum - ate our cereal bar along the way. The museum shows the clothing, paintings, pottery, coins etc throughout Chinese history. We had a wander around for a couple of hours and sneaked in a quick coffee. After that we all went to the Silk Market in the Bazaar around Yuyuan Gardens and Shanghai Old Street. I love how one minute you are walkin...

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 walkin...

Day 6...... This morning we had to catch an early flight to Hangzhou from Xi'an. Our wake up call was at 5am. We got to the airport and we flew with Hainan airlines! The airport was very crowded and again as custom in China people clearing their throats and spitting on the floor - I'm getting quite annoyed with this now and it really does make you want to vomit. We got served breakfast on the plane the choices were fried rice or noodles...surprise, surprise....

Sleeper Train...DONE! I slept pretty well on the night train, but Therese didn't. Everyone got up shortly after 7am because the lights are turned on and the conductor opens the curtains in all the rooms! The toilet was a squat hole, but fortunately we were next to a carriage which was the next class up and had a normal toilet, so we all used that. The views from the train of the countryside were great so that's an advantage of using the trains to get around. ...