Shanghai

We were all pleased to board the train to leave Xian. The Terracotta Warriors and Banpo were interesting but none of V5 warmed to the city itself. L's first comment on Shanghai was - "it is so much cleaner!".

The weather is colder than I expected it to be, although there is not the pollution and fog haze we had endlessly in the other two cities - it is nice to be able to focus our eyes on something clearly in the distance. We even saw sun and shadows today - something we noticed had been missing for the last week since leaving Singapore.

Shanghai is a busy city but much cleaner than Xian and Beijing - The western influences on it are quite noticeable with a mix of oriental and European architecture of say 200 years and not just ancient and modern Chinese.

We ventured onto the metro and into the heart of Shanghai. People approached us left right and centre offering to take us to shops selling fake designer goods - handbags, suitcases, wallets etc.

Took the metro to east East Nanjing Street and walking down the mall ran into a friend of Ben's from school - Allen who is in Shanghai visiting his grandmother - it blew everyone's mind, including his! It was about 15 minutes before I had the wits to think I should have taken a picture of all the kids as proof that there really is only six degrees of separation.

We walked to the Bund and saw the river and interesting skyline of modern buildings on the other side. Taking a small detour we found ourselves walking down the street with 'pretty girls' smiling sweetly at B1 and B2 ;-) - the education you give your kids on such journeys is priceless.

We are having dreadful Internet connection problems - all our email accounts come through gmail and of course google and the Chinese government apparently haven't reached agreement, so there seems to be a bit of a go slow on anything related to google. It hasn't been such an issue as in Shanghai although it has not been brilliant in Beijing or Xian either.

The second day we bought tickets on a hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus that took us around the city. We found a youth hostel bar that we all felt comfortable in and spent a few hours playing pool, talking to fellow travellers and soaking up the relaxed atmosphere - it is the most talking we've done with strangers as not many Chinese are open and talkative even if they can speak English. This has made us think that perhaps hostel accommodation might be more interesting for the kids particularly.