Shanghai - 3rd June to 7th June

We left Xi'an on the overnight train to Shanghai. This is probably our last overnight train in China and also pretty likely to be the last overnight train on our whole trip. Quite a landmark moment for us really, we've become used to travelling this way. Maybe we'll miss it.

We were back in the 4-berth compartments for the 14 hour, 1500km journey to Shanghai (this really is a massive country), so a decent nights sleep beckoned. That was ruined by one of the women we were sharing with though, she was on her mobile phone seemingly all night – up and down, in and out of the cabin. Then she was up at 5am for some strange morning ritual that involved slapping her own face a lot. She nearly had a couple of helping hands. Maybe we won't miss overnight trains so much afterall!

We arrived in Shanghai at 7am and got to our hotel via the underground system. Subways here are great – cheap, clean and signposted in English. So much easier than trying to explain to a taxi-driver where it is you want to go. The hotel had a room ready for us as well, we seem to have been pretty lucky that way. We'd found a reasonably priced place off one of the main shopping areas in the middle of town, a short walk from the river. The cheap rates were probably explained by the World's Most Uncomfortable Bed (Sue will tell you that the mattress bruised her just from laying on it) and the resident Cockroach that lived behind the broken TV (I didn't have the heart to tell Sue about the resident Beastie at the time – this will be the first she hears of it..!). On the whole though, it wasn't a bad place and the location was perfect.

So how to describe Shanghai? Some facts from the guidebook: Home to more than 21 million people, approximately one third of China's exports come from the surrounding area. In addition to that, the city attracts about a quarter of all foreign investment into China – more that any single developing country. The city has been growing at a massive rate since 1990 when the Pudong area was designated a 'Special Economic Zone' and investment started pouring in. It has something like twice as many sky-scrapers as New York.

So how did we find it? In short, a really nice place. You can tell that there is money here, everything is new, sleek and shiny and on a grand scale – it's a really impressive place to walk around. It's also huge, but the underground is extensive and has a map to rival the complexity of London's, so it's easy to get around. The perfect place for a girl's shopping trip (apparently). If it wasn't so far away.

The centre of interest for tourists is the Bund, an area along the river that was part of the British Concession and then the International Settlement between the mid 1800s and World War 2. The buildings here are grand colonial-style edifices: stone pillars and domes. They face-off across the river with the gleaming sky-scrapers of Pudong, a view comparable with Hong Kong or Manhattan. It's quite a contrast and everything is lit up beautifully at night. We found ourselves coming back at several different times to enjoy the view and the relatively open and unhustled walk up and down the river. On our last night we treated ourselves to the trip up to the various viewing platforms on the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (the building in the pictures with all the spherical bits). At £15 each it was expensive, but the views were obviously spectacular. The platform at 250-odd metres (the 2nd sphere up) has a full 360 degree glass floor which was a bit daunting! It's quite something to see the city lights beneath your feet and buses about the size of ants scurrying around. After that, the normal-floored platform at 350m didn't seem quite so incredible!

We had to see some acrobats while we were in China and Shanghai is one of the best places to do that with several performances every night. We got seats in a nice, small theatre in one of the gleaming new shopping/hotel/entertainment complexes for a show that lasted a bit over an hour. It was an amazing show and really entertaining, a good mixture between tricks and stunts involving catapults and somersaults and the like; artful displays, dances and routines and a mixture of fun and comedy as well. There was a nervous minute when a couple of performers prowled the audience looking for a volunteer for a knife throwing display. Thankfully some other poor soul was chosen and tied to the target. He was blind-folded and the knife-throwing faked much to the audience's enjoyment and the poor chap's terror! A fun night out to celebrate the official half way point of our trip!

In amongst our wanderings around Shanghai, we took a day-trip to Hangzhou, a little over an hour away on the train. Hangzhou is a pretty big city, but is built around a big lake where it is easy to escape into peaceful countryside and is, apparently, one of the should-see sights on a trip to China. It was lovely, but it was also raining which detracted from the experience somewhat. We scrapped our original plan of hiring bikes to ride around the lake and took a boat-trip instead. The boats stop at the various islands in the lake so that you can wander around and catch another boat to the next destination of your choice. It was a picturesque place, the islands were filled with pools and ponds of lillies and carp, with various temples and pagodas dotted around. We were pretty damp and tired when we got back on the train and all of the seats had been allocated, standing room only for us. Fortunately it's only a short trip and Sue found a seat of sorts in the luggage rack. The main source of interest was the digital speedometer displayed in the train – we hit 351km/h on the way back. Easily the fastest I've been without a plane. And definitely the fastest Sue's been while sat in a luggage rack.

We've also used some of our time in Shanghai to look into the situation in Japan. We're due to fly there on the 13th of this month and it looks as though we'll be going ahead with that leg of our trip. The Foreign Office advice is that you stay away from Fukishima, but that everywhere else is ok. We will be flying into Tokyo and heading southwest to Hiroshima and back, so will be well out of harm's way. Infrastructure and power-supplies seem to be back to normal. We took the plunge and visited the Japan Airlines office in Shanghai and bought our 14-day tourist rail-passes (which you have to buy outside of the country) which gets you unlimited train travel for the princely sum of c£360 each. Ouch. Still cheaper than buying standard tickets though.

So we've just left Shanghai and are on the train now, cruising along at a steady 147km/h. We've been helping ourselves to the boiling water to make tea and to hydrate our big pot-noodles. About half the people on the carriage broke out various flavours of noodles at 12 noon sharp which let off quite a smell and started a stampede to the water dispenser. Sue's just had a hug from a toddler who was staring at her over the back of the seat in front (and who Sue was making faces at). Her mum surprisingly and unceremoniously dropped the child in Sue's lap and started taking pictures. Very amusing. Apparently his nappy smells a bit though.

We're heading 7 hours north to the holy mountain of Tai Shan which we intend to climb tomorrow along with the probably inevitable streams of Chinese tourists and pilgrims. From there it will be another 4 hours on the train to Beijing and the Great Wall and our last stop in China.

Hope you are all well,
Dan & Sue