Shanghai

We've been in Shanghai for 3 nights now, tonight is our fourth (well, not sure when it is 'cause I have to email this to me Mum to paste as kel surprise Blogspot is blocked in China too). We have enjoyed Shanghai. Not really much to do here apart from wonder about, but there's alot of lovely places to wonder about in.

We're staying on East Nanjing Road which is very central. It's in Peoples Square which is a massive high street at this end, then further down the road is a huge park called Peoples Park which is very nice. We passed through there the other day and there was a group of kids with their speakers out, Shufflin'. We were waiting for them to do something good but that was the only dance they could do. I was tempted to go and show 'em how it's done but I refrained. Thought I'd spare Lee the embarrassment.

We planned to soak up some culture whilst we were here as there's quite a few museums about the history of Shanghai etc etc.. We did try to go to one the other day, but we got a bit lost and stumbled upon the Insect Kingdom! Much more fun! There was loads of crazy shit in there, all different kinds of creepy crawlies we'd never seen or heard of. What we didn't like were the tags at the bottom of each cage; Thailand, Malaysia, Thailand, Malaysia, Malaysia, Thailand... Can't wait to encounter these bad boys, or not. The Stick Insects were our favourite, we were looking at the cage for ages before we spotted them, then when we did they were frickin' everywhere, they really do look like twigs! Doesn't take much to amuse me.

There's a place here that reminds us of Brighton. It's called the French Concession, and it's an area that has little lanes with boutiques, coffee shops, restaurants and bars. That was cool for a stroll. There was so many of what we call "shit shops", basically a shop that sells loads of different shit that is not useful to anyone, but everyone loves a mooch around and usually ends up buying some useless shit that just clogs up your house. Anyway, we love them, and the ones here are filled with really small cute stuff :-)

Earlier on we went and had a look at the national football stadium and Shanghai Shenhua's stadium to see where Anelka plays, then we came back and went for a walk around The Bund which is also a 2 min walk from our hostel. This is a walk way that takes you past the river were you can see all the buildings lit up, it was really pretty.

Haha the other night we were wondering around one of the many shopping centres and we were chatting away and I stumbled. I looked down and there was black and yellow tape covering one of those cases that covers wires, it was quite a biggun though. Lee was laughing because he said he noticed it right away and stepped over it, but 3 different people crossed it at the same time as us and they all tripped too. We got the idea to go to the floor above and stand and watch to see how many people tripped. It was hilarious, so many people fell over it. We made a video which I've just watched again now and I've got snot everywhere were I was trying to hold my laugh in so I didn't wake up the rest of the dorm. Definitely Youtube material.

This is our first experience of dorms. It's okay I suppose, it's annoying having to be dressed all the time, it wastes clothes too! Plus you have to bloody whisper all the time and you feel guilty if you get in late. It's okay though. I bet we'd meet more people this way too, the people that have been here have been mostly weird.

Despite my last post we have a lovely 20 hour train ride ahead of us tomorrow! We have a bed this time though. We're going to Zhangjiajie (don't quote me on the spelling there). James Cameron got the inspiration for Avatar from there. Remember the floating mountains in the film? They are in Zhangjiajie, except they are attached to the ground obviously. Can't wait. Oh and we have no internet in the hostel we're going to, so don't worry again if you don't hear from us, we're fine and dandy.