Shanghai

31st January

We started the morning in one of the Chinese spots near our hostel, delicious meal, Pork Sichuan filled with tonnes of chopped chilli's and some Brocolli on the side, they can even make this taste good! We headed to the Yuyuan gardens area, the area is cramped with tourist shops and interesting floats. We arrived there and were pounched on by people wanting to sell, copywatches and bags..I went with one of them down a lane and opened a shed door and there was a proper shop full of bags and 2 suitcases full of watches, to be honest they looked OK but they were a bit tacky looking so I passed. Lots of interesting food in this area, We got this caramel strawberry stick, when I say we I should say Tina got one, I had 2 bites and when I finished taking pictures it had magically disappeared.

Tina picked up a watch for about $6 of Chairman Mao, he waves 60 times a minute...I'm pretty jealous!

Tomorrow we are Japan Bound - Ferry to Osaka.

Shanghai

30th January

Headed to 'The Bund' today and what a skyline it is, one side of the river is french colonial type buildings, the other side like the Emerald city from the Wizard of Oz, ultra sleek and modern buildings (including one that looks like a bottle opener). We decided to head across in 'The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel'.. Well I don't dwell too much on things but this is the only time in 6 months I've felt like I've been robbed..what it is:it's basically a tunnel under the water that goes across to the financial district thats filled with light effects and cheesey commentary, 2 minutes later your across and don't know what to make of it..for $10 return it's a blantant ripoff and you can take the probably more interesting subway for less then a tenth of this tourist trap..2 thumbs down!

The fincancial district is just unbelievable, a marvel of engineering alot of the buildings here, we headed into one of the massive shopping complex's and had a wander around, it was very much like Westfield in Bondi, marble everywhere and ultra expensive stuff...and then there was Toy's 'R' Us..

Had a wander through here, some of you may remember the advert for Toy's R Us (The one with: It's called toys 'r' us, toys 'r' us, toys 'r' us!) screened on the British TV stations probably nearly 20 years ago at this stage, any child growing up in that era..wanted to go to a Toy's 'R' Us store bu we didn't have one in the Republic...well today I finally did it, curiousity more then anything, it's got everything and more you'd find in a toy store back home, with an abundance of rabbit paraphenalia for the new year.

We'll it was time to head back across on the sightseeing tunnel, I can hardly hold in the excitement..If I saw anyone going into this ball of shite on the way out I would have told them to avoid.

Tina made a new friend at the Hostel, he actually lives with a cat in the kennel!

Shanghai Noon

We headed towards People square a park in the centre of this concrete jungle, I was aproached by a group of Korean students to answer a survey on climate change and they then all wanted there picture with me! We ventured over towards the museum and other park where people were flying / selling kites including a massive octopus one that my dog would really enjoy shredding to pieces. We were going to head towards 'The Bund' but it was very overcast so we decided to leave it for another day.

We headed into the underground where they have this massive shopping area, when I say massive it's about 10 Omni shopping centres! The place is huge, glad to see the auld communism is still alive and well here! :D The shops range from a shop purely devoted to Disney & Snoopy merchandise and pretty much any high street retailer you'd see in the western world.

We got the subway back, like Beijing it's a cracking system that works really well. I notice that the Shanghai people are a little more laid back then their Beijing cousins and don't have as much fight in them when it comes to queueing and baording the train!