Dear avid followers,

I fail to be able to keep up with myself on the blog. The internet being down yesterday did not help. I would also be uploading more photos to flickr if it didnt take an hour to do ten photos. I have hundreds on the camera and am beginning to think I will run out before long. Some have already corrupted and have been lost forever :-( I think it is more likely to be the slow computers than the internet connection. This is of course a modern city.

I have been here for 4 nights and tonight will be my last before I move to Guilin. I had carefully worked out the tube I needed to take from the station when I arrived here, which stop to get off at, drawn a map of the local area around the hostel and still I got lost. I had begun to doubt the map and instructions from the website when I had been searching for an hour, but I had just missed the bloomin road. When I re-traced my steps I realised the scale was smaller than I had thought. Once I took this into account I found that I had ignored the minor roads thinking that I was looking for a major one. Then it was obvious and it was exactly where the map said it was! Oh the relief! I would have arrived early at half 8, but got here at half 9. Still I got here, and apart from the faint smell of sewage, it is nice. Shanghai seems busier, brighter, yet smellier than Beijing.

The first morning was a pain. I had to pack up and leave my bag at reception, ready to move rooms when I got back in the evening. I then set off to try and buy the blasted train ticket from here to Guilin and failed, again. The ticket window had only been open an hour and yet they only had hard seats left. The sleepers had only become available that morning and had already gone! Consequently i needed a flight. It had worked out costing me an arm and a leg for a 2 and a half hour trip. It was also a nightmare to buy, because Nationwide refused to pay for it. They still havent told me why.

Anyway, I headed into town and took a long walk to adjust to the new city and to clear my head. I picked a metro station roughly in the right direction. The map I had picked up from the train station was pretty useless, so I made my way to the famous Bund by guesswork. The Bund, which means something like 'muddy embankment' was once a busy site of trading by the Huangpu river. Now it serves as a viewing platform for Pudong, the modern show piece of the city, featuring the Pearl Tower (the odd looking one with two sort of ball shaped bits bulging out of a thin tall spike, supended on a tripod), Jinmao tower (the one that 'spiderman' climbed), and the World Financial Centre, amongst other glittering glass pinnacles. Ok, so the modern buildings were tall and shiny n stuff, but I would prefer more Lama Temples really.

The weather was awesome. Really sunny, but not humid. Having been out in the sun in Beijing the day before I left with no noticeable effect, I went pretty much unprotected again, and burnt! Not too bad though. Just a nice warming of the forearms, which might just have browned if I wasn't me. I walked further on and discovered 'Anti-traveling' in the form of the EXPO. I dont know if you have heard of this thing, but it consists of a vast series of exhibitions from every country under the sun. It seems to be something dreampt up by some advertising genious as a sort of Marketeering gimic. I hated it. You 'que' (if you can call it that) for ages to visit a fake bit of Nepal, India, wherever. Each extravagent pavillion comes complete with gift shop, restaurant, and all sorts of other ploys to make you part with your money. The place was heaving with people. Y160 to get in. I have not been back!