The birthday celebrations!!

The other guys on the trip are amazing!! They totally surprised me with a cake made of ice cream - strawberry. basically layers of biscuit and strawberry ice cream - managed to munch through two slices, could have easily eaten the whole thing. They also got me a present - some really nice bottles of Saki, two in blue and white jars and four small ones with chinese writing on them - very cool. There was also a mini chalkboard with happy birthday Ross on it. I was really taken aback - was not expecting that at all. The plan was to then hit a Kareoke bar that our guide was taking us to. Now if you think kareoke, you think pub....yes..?? well imagine a floor of a building filled with these little rooms and in each room there was a large tv and microphones. You have your own individual place to sing to your friends - no ther audience - it was insane, but also fantastic fun. We got the english tracks going as chinese was a bit hard and sang our little hearts out. I should also mention that they had tried to find some gold hot pants for me to wear whilst singing some Kylie but they only found a very tasteful pink hair band. After kareoke John was trying to find out about a club to go to. We finally got there and once again the weirness countinued. We paid 80 yuan (about 8 pounds) for entry which then gave us FREE drinks all night. The manager and owner kept saying hello and getting tequila for us. Alex told then it was my birthday so they got the dancers on stage to sing a happy birthday remix song. this was followed by a fruit plate and more drink. About 1 ish we headed to another bar for more dancing. The second place was totally packed - and way more expensive. Just as we were about to leave Roz and myself joined John with some of his friends and we got invited to drink champagne - who could say no!! After more dancing we finally ended up in a macdonalds - a double cheeseburger has never tasted soo good - so we had two. Finally got back to the hostel at 5am ish!!
A cracking night - one never to be forgotten and I doubt will ever be repeated.

Can i just say a massive thank you to Elise, Carly, John, Josh, Alex, Brad, Liv, Roz and Allen for making my 34th totally awesome - you guys are the best.

Today (8/02/10) we headed out to finish off some present shopping and then I headed to the Shanghai Museum which is huge! It had 4 floors and each floor had 4 exhibitions on it all of different things. They had art, pottery, bronzes, furniture, and coins - all seriously old. The favourites have to be the bronze pots as the designs on them were incredible the detail was amazing and so fine - and some were from the 6th and 7th century.
Well it is a relaxing evening of cards and possibly drinking the saki I had as I can't send it home.

Sorry for not putting up photos as having trouble the uploads in the hostel I am in today - hopefully better luck tmw. Some good news - we don't have to travel by train as they messed it up and so we now fly - at no extra cost to us - fantastic.
Take care all