Mingtown Etour Youth Hostel Shanghai

Our final stop! We got here on the Thursday (24th) afternoon after a short hop on the train. If you go from Nanjing station beware the crazy mop cleaner who insists on cleaning round your feet despite the fact that the rest of the waiting room was empty (and mops here are rank, they stick them down the toilet then mop their tables with them and lovely things like that) but otherwise the trip is fine. Shanghai was like arriving in another world at first, with its cleanlines and shiny buildings...

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Yesterday I decided I should go for a walk just to get my bearings... yep got them... that is after I went the wrong directions trying to get to Renmin Park which is pretty much next door to the hostel.. but the plus side - found a great little cafe and got proper coffee and a tomato, ham and cheese omelette! Tasty and no side effects that I can spot as yet.

Finally got my bearings and meandered round the park for a while. Nothing stunning compared to what I have seen in ...

Today I eased into my day with a coffee at Starbucks. Sitting outside in my puddle of sweat, I slowly sipped at the Grande to make the most of the half cup of liquid after I spooned of the half cup of froth.

After losing 3 litres of water, I decided it was time to tackle head on Nanjing Lu, the famous shopping street in Shanghai. With my sole mission to purchase a hat, sunglasses and watch I was prepared for battle. I headed into a Nike store in the hope of finding a 'shuobiao' - watc...

So I decided that I needed to go to the zoo today. It has been 9 years since I was there last, and curiousity was getting the better of me. In 1998, I remember walking around in tears at the cruelty that I believed these animals were exposed to. I was right. The only thing that has changed, is that the grass and weeds has grown. A picture says a thousand words. So keep looking.

Story for later... old lady and sweaty arm.

Shangers Summary: The 100 year old architecture, tight pavements and air cons dripping water on you down the street. These old buildings each with a plaque on regarding their history. And then there is the new, Pudong. Glass peaks of all shapes and sizes. Wonderful to look at in many different ways. A vastness of Urban Planning and Design. A little shopping here and there and I soon replaced my wardrobe (third of space in backpack), buying new underpants, combats, shorts and T-shirts. All the...

Hier, nous sommes partis de l'aeroport de Guilin pour se rendre a Shanghai. Il y a eu de petits retards alors nous sommes arrives a l'auberge a l'heure du souper. Nous avons marche un peu dans la ville sur la rue pietonniere en partie bordee de petits restos/comptoirs de nourriture locale plus ou moins rassurants et en partie de grands restos et grandes chaines de magasins occidentales genre Lacoste etc et des milliers de bijouteries.

Ici, on se fait constamment accoster par des genres...

Week 3 began on a train from Hong Kong to Shanghai. The journey itself took a total of 22 hours and saw me share a cabin with three chain smoking middle aged Chinese men, none of whom spoke a single word of English. Nevertheless the journey up was quite an experience as it gave me my first glimpse of China as well as some much needed sleep. Walking out of Shanghai Railway Station was a bit of a culture shock however, none of the signs were in a recognizable language and no-one spoke any Engli...

Aaaaargh!!! I have just spent an hour writing a blog entry about the last 4 days in Suzhou, and I have managed to delete it. Needless the say I am not in the mood to write it all again now. I will write it all out again when we get to Hangzhou either later tody or maybe tomorrow. Kate xxx

Hi everyone, As you may have read in my previous post, I wrote a lovely long piece about our stay in Suzhou, and then managed to delete it all. I can't re-write the whole thing, so I'll just give you an idea about our stay there and what we've been up to since. We arrived in Suzhou from Shanghai on Wednesday 23rd April and stayed in the Mingtown Youth Hostel there for 4 nights. We really enjoyed our time at the hostel - the location is really beautiful, beside a canal on a tiny street in an o...

Hi everyone, It's Thursday evening, and Ali and I are leaving Hangzhou tomorrow morning to get a train to Nanjing. The train is at about 9.30am and takes around 5 hours, so I don't imagine we'll get much else done other than finding the next hostel! On Tuesday we walked around the lake towards the Yellow Dragon Cave Park, which we intended to climb up into to see the view. On the way we saw a boat trip advertised and decided to buy a ticket. The ticket allowed us to travel on the boats for a ...