Today we met early for breakfast and planned our day. We were to go off for a bike ride along the Yu Long River. The lonely planet guide book recommended bike Asia for renting bike as you got a better quality bike, whereas Roy said that the bike they rent were perfectly acceptable. I said that I would rather pay a little more and get a better quality bike and some of the others agreed so off to bike Asia we went. 5 of us paid the £3.50 extra and got a light ...

We didn't arrive in town until late today and basically just dumped our bags and headed out for some dinner. Sorry but nothing really happened today, just seemed to have spent the whole day travelling.One thing I would like to add is that it looks like we have come to a Chinese version of Tenerife as the town is absolutely packed with bars and loads of neon signs, along with lots of dodgy knock off gear being sold in the streets such as DVD’s and fake ...

As we only had a the morning today as we are back on a sleeper train again this evening, we decided to head over to the Shanghai Propaganda Poster art centre as it was recommended by some of the other guys who had visited yesterday. The place was a bit hard to find as it was in the basement of a block of flats, but definitely worth the effort to find it in the rain.This collection of posters serves as a valuable historical document providing a remarkable glimpse...

Finally today we managed to find something that was free! We went along to the Shanghai Museum and we were all surprised to find that the admission was free. The most interesting halls here were the bronze weapons and the sculptures halls, and luckily for us the descriptions of the artefacts were also written in English. The Chinese calligraphy and money halls were probably the least interesting as a room full of coins and notes and room full of Chinese scrip...

We arrived in shanghai at around 13:00 and checked in to the City Central Youth Hostel, showered and then headed straight out for lunch and a walk around the city. The sun was finally shining today so out came the shorts. Roy took us to a small local restaurant just around the corner from the hostel and I had Beef noodles for 15 Yuan which was delicious, whereas most other people had won ton soup and where very disappointed with theirs. After being on the trai...