Ni Hao

Last night we had a battle with the hostel staff about our room, when we went upstairs it was freezing cold and I managed to set the air con to hot but it did not seem to warm up the room. Mel jumped into bed fully clothed again complete with hat and gloves and I went off to see the hostel staff about an extra duvet and getting the room warmer.The lady that arrived agreed that it would not go any higher then a guy arrived and told us to wait 10 minutes and the room would warm up.

Mrs Shaw was not having any of it and politely asked that we have another duvet which helped a bit but 10 hours later when we got up it still was not warm. I know that I keep going on about the cold but getting cold then warming up is not a problem but when you physically can't get warm it is so annoying.

After breakfast we took the metro down to Nanjing Road which is supposed to be the busiest shopping street in China, a bit like Oxford Street in London. I don't know about it being the busiest but it was certainly the most dangerous, I am at the perfect height to be struck in the face by tiny women carrying umbrellas and on 3 occasions I nearly lost an eye!!!

Today we have spent the day either underground or up in the air, we feel like Wombles!!!

It was trying to snow again but it was more like sleet, as luck would have it we found a long john shop on Nanjing Rd and I invested in a pair made from wool. I know they are wool because the shop assistant kept bouncing a toy sheep around in front of us to try and get this fact across. We then kept walking and ended up down by the river with the Imperial Pearl Tower looking at us from across the river.

There were people selling allsorts of tat and I nearly ended up with 3 rolex copies and a Mont Blanc pen for 5 quid but Mel's frosty glare put an end to that shopping spree. I had already blown my budget on Long Johns!!!!!

To get across the river to The Bund we took the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, this confused me as you are under the river and can't see anything but we went anyway to escape the rain and sleet and the dodgy watch salesman!!!

The ride was certainly not worth the money but it was pretty weird with crazy inflatables and a dodgy light show to keep you entertained for the 3 minute journey!!!

As the weather was so misty and wet we decided to just go up the Imperial Pearl tower to the observation deck at 263m as the rest of the tower was covered in mist.The views from up top were limited but you could venture outside and feel the wind and sleet blowing around which was quite cool, literally.

Back on the ground it was time to get drenched again and we took ourselves over to the Jin Mao Tower which is home to the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Floor 54 but more importantly it has the worlds highest bar on Floor 87. Cloud 9 bar is open to the public and to reach it you need to take an elevator to the hotel on floor 54, then another elevator to floor 85 before finishing the journey off in yet another elevator taking you to floor 87. We were shown to our table and just wanted drinks. Mel got really excited when she saw that they had wine so we both had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to wash our complimentary peanuts down, one glass turned into 2 as we thought the effort to get up there warranted it, as the view was pretty bad we could only see snow and cloud.

Then came the bill, with the service charge it was 20 quid for 4 glasses of wine which was more than it cost us for 2 nights in our last hostel with the dodgy windows!!!!

Mel is convinced the SARS epidemic spread here so quickly because no one covers their mouth and nose while sneezing/coughing and on the subway this is not pleasant. Back at the hostel and it is still cold and my new Long johns are worth their weight in gold!!!!

Will be in touch

Lots of Love

M & M

xx