A day off! Amazing. What did I do first after my massive sleep in? Went downstairs to make sure the three old men, one of whom was old cantankerous, got their transfer ok. Their St Petersburg transfer had failed to collect them from the airport, making them a hostile crowd before they even met me. This, wasn't really for their benefit, it was for mine….I wanted to make sure the cantankerous old b****** actually left the hotel. Luckily, for me the transfer turned up, his two mates actually gave me a hug goodbye and said, thanks for everything, but him no…he just picked up his wheelie back and wheeled straight past me with his nose in the air. Miserable old fart, I thought to myself. I watched him get into the van and felt comforted by the fact that he was now gone.

I spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing work related. Screw it, after that tour I needed a proper day off. I slept in, I watched TV, I managed to find a Sizzler and in an expensive shopping centre and had a huge expensive meal, steak and hibachi chicken, it was worth every cent I paid for it. I followed my epic meal with a ninety minute massage at Dragonfly's massage parlour and treated myself to a few trinkets in the markets.

I got back to the hotel at around 6pm and then went upstairs to get ready for dinner with Bobbie who I was meeting at bar street. It was getting on and I didn't really feel like walking to the metro station, so I asked the hotel staff to call me a taxi. Which they somehow couldn't manage to do, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and find this mythical Denshikou station that is supposedly the closest one to the hotel. I walked up the street, past the Peking duck place and then kept going, and going and going until I reached a busy highway, the metro station was across the road. Nowhere near the hotel at all.

I got on the train and had to change twice, I ended up about fifteen minutes late, but so was Bobbie so that was ok. Bobbie took me to a noodle place which was upstairs in a back alley, it was too full, so we went out for some pearl tea, mine was a citrus flavour which was very refreshing. We then went back to the noodle place which was quite small and very full. It was chaos and you just had to yell for what you wanted, needless to say Bobbie placed out order. I had vegetable noodles and this strange yellow Chinese soft drink, which ranked somewhere between Sprite and Lift. Pretty good actually.

After dinner, we went to Revolution bar, which was a small little place away from the tourist action. We sat at the bar surrounded by red lanterns, with propaganda pictures of Chairman Mao on the ceiling. I drank a raspberry Mojito while we chatted, it was so nice to relax after basically the tour from hell.

It started to get late and it was time for me to leave, so I let Bobbie help me get a cab, which even she had trouble getting (the hotel really is a nightmare to get to) I finally got back to the hotel and had a really good sleep, totally recovered from the chaos of the last few weeks. I prayed for better company to arrive tomorrow.