Not as much to say about Shanghai. We only got to spend two days there. After the overnight train was washed off in the showers, we went for an orientation tour with Lacey. About 200m from the hotel Anna managed to get knocked over by an old lady on a motorbike. More damage to pride than either party - but these bikes do come out of nowhere and because they are electric they make no noise!!! Well, a nice big black bruise on the knee is all Anna has to show for it - lots of layers and thick gloves provided some protection!!

After working out where we were in relation to our hotel we decided to use the short time left before dinner by going tio find the Maglev train (see video). The experience of travelling on land at 430kmph was well worth the otherwise pointless trip to the airport!

The Bund is alright, especially at night - clearly they are trying to make it the new Hong Kong (would be a political coup for the government) - they haven't managed it!

Walked to the Yuyuan Gardens one day - took a while as Shanghai is currently being rebuilt for the 2010 World Expo so bridges have been removed and paths disappear without warning (all sounds a bit Hogwarts when reading that!). Gardens were quite cool. After went for a walk towards the old French Concession. Again, those contrasts were apparent. Walking through back streets with people hanging their laundry on the street, and apparent poverty, only to turn a corner and find an Astom Martin dealer!! Saw the building were the communist party was formed and read a very biased accound of that time.

Shangai acrobats were awesome - especially the final "Sphere of Death". Every time you thought they couldn't actually fit another motorbike in the cage they did - maxed out at 5! Two girls taking some dodgy Chinese medicine for illness hallucinated their way through the whole show - they described it as purple blobs!! Aside from that, the actual bodily feats of the acrobats were amazing!

On the way back to the hotel, we saw 4 older business men openly taking their young ladies (bought from the establishments along the road our hotel was on) to their rooms for an evening of fun and heart attacks. Guess that's more common when gender selection has led to a massively higher number of men than women (Bachelor bomb) meaning that many men will never find a partner.

Left Shanghai, after visit to museum on day long train journey westwards.