DAY 12

On Saturday we went Xu Jia Hui to have a look around the technology market. When I say market, I mean numerous buildings six or seven stories high, packed with computers, phones and cameras as far as the eye can see. Understandably, when the employees see two westerners walk in, they immediately flock to you, trying to be your best friend, pulling you into their shops and offering all manner of fantastic deals, when all they are really thinking is "money, money, money, moooney.....moooooney!"

We didn't buy anything immediately but returned that evening to purchase two ASUS Eee PC's, they are about the size of a hardback book and probably half as heavy. So like kids at Christmas we rushed back to the hostel to play with them, in fact that's a lie, we had them out of the boxes before we'd even reached the subway station. On the train back, we were approached by a local who began asking us all the usual questions and telling us about himself. Having already been scammed once so far we were a little sceptical about this gentleman but we had a problem, he was getting off at our stop, he was pretty well built and we had awkwardly shaped valuable with us, clearly on show. A slightly trickier customer than the bloke with only three fingers on one had and two girls that, one on top of the other would only just reach my shoulders, that scammed us two nights ago.

Fortunately for us, he was true to his word and just practising his English, but that didn't stop us almost galloping back to the hostel so that we could play with our new prized possessions in peace. After a couple of hours of showing off, we put the laptops away and went out to celebrate our friend Tom's 23rd birthday with friends from the hostel, Holly, Kate, Peter, Mark and Ana. We started in a karaoke bar and the hired act seemed pleased to see us, encouraging our group to sing along at every occasion. I was more interested in the football on the tele but couldn't help but laugh when the locals got up to have a go.

We moved on to another bar at 1 am, when everyone bar Tom, Daley and myself decided to call it a night and the three of us ended up in a bar called Sasha's, the only busy bar in the French Concession. Again, I went for the slightly awkward stance on the dance floor, this time throwing in a couple of side steps I'd learnt from watching Will Smith in the film, Hitch. (Alcohol, eh? Goes straight to my head.)

We got back to the hostel at around 4.30 am, customary check on Facebook and then off to bed. Well, strictly speaking it was off to accidentally wake up everyone in our dorm and then go to bed. But you get the point.