We had our 1st bullet train experience with the ride from Beijing to Shanghai! 5 hours whizzing along at 314 kmph. It was great, the train had so much leg room & was really comfortable. We arrived in Shanghai and took the subway to find our place.

Already Shanghai felt so much more like a European city. Our hotel was in a great location as it was only a 15 minute walk to the Bund. This is the stretch of river promenade where you can see the modern stretch of skyline across the water. We didn't have many plans in Shanghai so just went with the flow.

We went to find some of the tech markets looking for cheap gadgetry. Sy found a few things so that made him happy. They had so much from knock off beats by dre headphones to ipads. These markets were happy to barter unlike a lot of china we'd seen. There was so much stuff & I just wish I'd had a little more inclination to buy some gadgets there. I think I was a bit too concerned as to whether I'd but some headphones & they'd fall apart after a week. They have a market for everything here so at least you know which market you need to visit to get a particular item. Bit silly though if you need more than one things as you have to then whizz around the city going to the different markets.

One of the markets we visited was the insect market. At least there were more animals than just insects but still it's kinda very specific! The cats, kittens & puppies didn't look too happy but we had no option but to skip them or else we'd both get too upset. There were lots of fish & turtles as keeping turtles here is very common, lake turtles, mainly mud turtles. Then we got to the insects, they like their beetles but more than beetles they loved their crickets. There was container after container of crickets, locals would pick them up inspect them, then shake the bottle to hear the crickets call. This was the most important thing, the tone of the call. Sy said he'd heard it was for zen, that the right tone of cricket was important. Either way, weird.

We took a strange underwater tunnel to get across the other side of the river. With lights & strange features along to length of the tunnel it felt like a weird fairground ride. First stop was the aquarium. I'd read good reviews so wanted to see what it was like. I really wasnt disappointed, I'd even go as far to say my favourite aquarium in the world so far. The tanks were massive & well maintained. They had the longest underwater viewing tunnel in the world. There was a travelator like in the airports that moved you along the tunnel. You could step off if you wanted to look at something longer. Both Sy & I enjoyed their jellyfish exhibition, well lit tanks made for some great pictures.

We had already made the decision that if the weather wasnt clear that we wouldn't go up the financial tower. No point spending money to see fog. We'd seen enough of that in China already!!

So instead we walked around the area and enjoyed taking in the sculptures. In the evening we took some great night shots of the area around the river, the pedestrian shopping street. We also enjoyed getting some traffic shots at one of the many overhead walkways that are a bit like spaghetti junction in themselves!!

We had arranged to meet Sy's old friend Ben and seeing as it was the last night of the New Years holiday we wanted to go to the lantern festival. But firstly we had very important matters to attend to. Thankfully due on all the ex-pats in Shanghai we'd heard we could get a Sunday roast!! We were so excited as we headed to GLO London, a restaurant that specialises in all things British. It was a traditional carvery and we piled up our plates and demolished every morsel. It was delicious.

We met Ben and headed to the place where the lantern festival was held. I'm still not sure even until today as to whether we got the right place but where we ended up was chaos. We paid to get in and it was an utter sea of people. It was ok for the first section as it was flowing ok but then it got stuck. There seemed to be no limit to the people they were letting in. I guess I've just worked to many festivals so had in the back of my head about the disasters when crowd control goes wrong but I was starting to get uncomfortable. We were being pushed against barriers and there really was nowhere to turn. I said to Sy I needed to get out and he wasnt sure how we could as we were so crammed in. For once my festival/moshpit Kate came in handy as I just pushed brute force through. Calling to Sy to follow as horrible as it felt just pushing people out of the way. Sy told me after that the look on their faces was funny as they weren't entirely sure what had just happened! Some people laughed at the western girl who couldn't handle the crowd. Hey ho, I needed out. We left there and headed back to Bens place and met his girlfriend Stacey and enjoyed a drink. It was nice to meet them both and we could have stayed a lot longer but unfortunately we had to leave early as we had a really early start to fly out.....onwards to Japan!!