Hello blog followers,

So here we are in Shanghai, the most populated city in China.

However, we have been in China for nearly two weeks so lets bring you up to scratch.

We arrived in Beijing on the 10th November, ending our Trans Mongolian adventure. The first night was spent having one final blowout with our vodkatrain comrades (which was a messy affair to say the least).

We had five days in Beijing and spent it being tourists, to the max! The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace (easily our favourite attraction), Tiananmen Square, we even had a couple of girls try the old tea house scam on us (approach tourist and speak English, pretend to be a tourist too, gain trust, suggest going for a drink, take to tea house (who are in on it), charge about ₤100 per glass and say it's ancient Chinese tea). Needless to say we feel we did justice to the tourist traps.

The food in China is amazing!! The main problem is ordering it. We are depending largely on pictures and pointing. It's also fun to look at what everyone else is eating and point some more.

Whilst in Beijing we also hit up the silk market and did a cheeky bit of shopping. Hoodies, trainers and a laptop were bought, all haggled for, all cheap. We also paid a visit to snack street where food generally comes on a stick. Not fancying the scorpions, tarantulas or seahorses Amy and I stuck to chicken, pork and the tasty, tasty dumplings.

Leaving Beijing involved an over night train to Shanghai. Unfortunately there were no sleeper tickets left so we ended up in seats. Despite the horror stories we've heard it wasn't half bad. We met a really friendly Chinese bloke called Yu Liang who Paul managed to hold a basic conversation with (relying entirely on a mandarin phrasebook) over the course of 4 hours.

Spent the first day in Shanghai just chilling and the second walking around, taking in the city and visiting the ever elegant Bund (a street section on the river which consist of beautiful, New York style buildings). Directly across from the Bund is the impressive skyline of Shanghai's bustling business centre (a real treat when lit up at night).

Shanghai is a fascinating city and you can really feel the British, French and Japanese influence.

We had planned to spend 5 days in Shanghai but on the recommendation of a friend we went down to Hangzhou. And we were happy we did! We spent our time in this beautiful place cycling around West Lake and visiting a tea village in the hills. We were able to meet up with friends of a friend who showed us bits of Hangzhou we would never have discovered. A particular treat were the newly built Sun and Moon buildings, the first a gigantic, spherical, golden hotel and the later a building in the shape of crescent moon lain on its side.

We left Hangzhou feeling we had seen a part of China a bit more off the beaten track and got ourselves back to Shanghai. We have one more night here and then we catch a night train to Xian (with sleeper tickets!).

So that's us over the last two weeks. China so far is proving to be a brilliant place. Unfortunately the cities are really polluted (at times you can't see the end of the street for the smog). However the food is delicious and inexpensive and the people are friendly and generally intrigued by our foreign looks (we have been in many photos, some with consent, most without).

All in all we're enjoying being here,

Catch you later,

Paul and Amy