Ni Hao

It is a good job China is a country that makes everything because since we have been here things have done nothing but break or pack up on us, maybe it is just that we are nine months into the trip and they are worn out!!!

Overnight the snow had fallen again but the rain had followed and all the roads and paths were full of slush which made it unpleasant to walk in, to top this Mel's trainers had sprung a leak as well (damn merrells!!) so it was dowwn to Nanjing road to begin our hunt for new trainers.

Within 20 minutes we had found a cracking pair of trainers but no size 4 in China what is all that about, no one has big feet here so it was back into the snow and the next mall. We had no luck in the malls and tried a little shop on the street this was the first pair that Mel had tried on but her feet were so wet that when she took off her old footwear in the relative warmth of the shop her feet were steaming like a thoroughbred race horse!!!

These were no good and the quest continued eventually we did find a pair and even managed to get a 4 1/2 with some gesturing and pointing also a real bargain as when we came to pay they had 50% off as well.The sales staff were really cheery and quite funny in a department store that reminded us of Grace brothers off "Are you being Served"

To complete our normal day, we went to Tesco and did some essential shopping, it was a real struggle to get Mel to leave but eventually she reluctantly parted ways with her favourite store before returning to the hostel and sitting in bed for 2 hours with all our clothes on before daring to leave the room for the even colder bar area for a drink.Tomorrow we leave Shanghai (which I can safely say has not been our favourite place in China) for the nation's capital Beijing.We are on our last train which will take 12 hours to get to Beijing. It will be our last stop and we will have covered several thousand kilometres and seen some excellent things and we will have passed through seven provinces all with their unique points.

It just goes to show that even travelling the world has it's shall we say "normal days."

We are looking forward to trying Beijing duck in the pancakes when we get there also if anyone has a top tip for cheap flights from Delhi to Kathmandu could they let us know as it is giving it us a right headache at the minute trying to find some we can book online!!!

See you in Beijing for crispy duck pancakes and a walk on the wall.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx