The journey from Sydney took 10 and a half hours but went pretty fast after watching about 5 different films! After getting through all the passport control etc we headed to the bus depot to try and get a bus to the tube station were we would then get a train to near our hostel. After waiting 10 minutes or so the bus turned up and we jumped on! To say they don't waste any time here is an understatement! we had barely stepped on the bus before it was driving away with us trying to push are way down the aisle with our big backpacks on and all are other bags we had. When it got to our stop we knew we had to be quick getting off to we got ourselves prepared! We had a 30 second window in which to get our bags on and get off but we made it! we then headed down the the tube station and tried to figure out Chinese writing on the ticket screen before realising there was a button for English translation! We got off the tube and decided it was time to test out the Chinese food so we headed straight for KFC! We then went to our hostel and discovered our room was actually really nice just like a good hotel room with TV and en-suite and the restaurant looked ok too! We decided to get an early night and catch up with some sleep so we weren't too jet lagged the next day!

Ady woke up full of cold the next day which seemed crazy since we had only been in the cold weather less than a day but I managed to convince him into a bit of shopping! I asked the receptionist where was good for clothes and we got directed to an area which was about 20 minutes from the centre. As soon as we turned up we knew we were in for a morning of hassle. We went into the first department store and we turned around and had literally 10 guys behind us and 5 guys in front of us all of them hassling us to go to their shop. It started to get a bit ridiculous so we had to give up in the end as we really couldn't be bothered with all the hassle we just wanted to look around! Ady suggested we look for food instead! We found a really cheap noodle place which served free jasmine tea so we ended up staying in there for an hour or so and the food was surprisingly good!! We then decided to leave and go for a walk to the Bund which is a famous area near the river in Shanghai. We had a walk around and took in the sights then we found something called a tourist tunnel. Curiosity got the better of us and we decided to go through it which takes you across the river. Well this tunnel was the tackiest tunnel I have ever seen! You sit in a cable car type thing and all these pyscadelic lights flash on and off with a woman saying things like paradise and hell and life and death etc. Then appears the inflatable dolls in front of the cable car that just looks freaky! Then the ride is over and you come out near the pearl sky tower. We didn't go to the top of the tower because of the price but we had a look around the area then made our way back through the weird tunnel to the bund. As darkness fell you got a real sense of how many high rise buildings there are in Shanghai! They are all lit up and some of them flash different colours and looked great in the dark!

The next day we went to see a Chinese acrobatics show. It really was amazing! Some of the acrobats are so young but really good. The highlight of the show was when 8 motorbikes get in to a round metal cage and are literally a couple of centimetres apart and manage to all ride around in it for about 5 minutes changing directions etc it was brilliant!

The next day was pouring down so we had a chilled out day before we caught a 12 hour night train to Beijing.