Nihao everybody! As you can see our Chinese is coming on a treat! Since our last postcard we have done rather a lot. Hence the lack of postcards! We caught the sleeper train with 2 canadian guys from our hostel (hello Neil and Ron) on Thursday night where we were cooped up for 10 hours with only a squatty potty on board - the smell of which made us want to vomit. We arrived in Qingdao at 5am (minus Ron who ditched us for his girlfriend at 2am in the middle of china somewhere after a rather dramatic exit including language that we could not possibly repeat due to parental reading - don't worry Ron we couldn't find our tickets either!). Completely clueless, we decided to go and buy our train tickets for our next journey down to Shanghai but OF COURSE even at that ungodly hour the whole population of Qingdao was queuing for the same tickets. Silly us for not taking into account the fact that it was Chinese New Year! Never mind, we had a cunning plan....while Neil pretended to look at a hotel's amazing room, we took advantage of their complementary services and bought some flights to Shanghai instead (always thinking!!!!). Next stop a temple (after Liz had stopped up-chucking from travel sickness) in which we particularly enjoyed the participation areas i.e. banging of gongs etc, this would have been 10 times easier if we hadn't been carrying 100 ton weights on our backs (thank goodness for our own personal b**** aka Neil the bag carrier who will learn not to pack so light next time!). All in all Qingdao is a very beautiful place, which reminds us of home (sort of, it smells of the sea anyway). After a 2 hour coffee break in a 5* hotel the toilets of which we got very excited about, we departed from Neil L and caught a taxi, to catch the bus, to catch the plane from the airport. So onto Shanghai....Will's place. We both had a jaw hanging moment as we pulled up outside a gorgeous, huge apartment block overlooking the 'bund' (famous place) which of course is where it turned out we were staying (an amazing bachelor pad - sorry Will but it is! J). We did non-stop partying for about 48hrs living it large on the Shanghai town and then dragged our hung-over selves to the fake market where Liz haggled herself a pair of Ray Bans (fake naturally) for about 2 quid and Cheryl got her a case for about another 50p - damn we're getting good! To add to our weird culinary repertoire we ate jellyfish - bleugh!!!! Bring on chicken's feet any day! Today we're a little shattered from walking the length and breadth of Shanghai, we have indulged in history lessons and tea in the Grand Hyatt (tallest, poshest hotel). We drank about 8 cups each but only because they kept giving us more and in a country of such poverty it would be rude not to accept! Well that's us up to date. Next plans include a train to Nanning and then onto Vietnam (hopefully) where we are going to get warm - horray!!!!! Nighty night xxxxx