Shanghai Express Style

  Xi'an, China
Saturday, September 8, 2007

Hello again.  Well from thinking that i wouldn't get access to the net so easily over here, it appears to be readily available everywhere and even better its free in our current hotel.  So time for an update, after a 12 hour train journey we arrived in Shaghai on Monday morning and its was a great looking city, much more compact than Beijing and very different in style.  Its about time i made up some stats so here's some on Shanghai, there are about 9 billion people that live in Shanghai and they all have a bicycle.  The most common English phrase used is 'You wanna buy DVD/Hand Bag/Rolex Watch (...insert other knocked off item of your choice...).  Unfortunately theres a jump in the beer prices and we paid around a pound a drink over here (apart from one night in a glitzy area where a mojito set me back 6 pounds).

Shanghai Skyline

After sorting out my bearings in Shaghai and having some lunch (grilled eel fried rice - yum!) we went to this indoor market which was 3 floors of complete chaos.  There were loads of little stalls and every stall keeper insisted on shouting, grabbing, pulling, anything to get you in there shop (great marketing).  This was very amusing, and a couple of days later i went back for some proper bargaining and picked up some sunglasses for 2 pound a pair.

Bike Madness

In the evening we hit some of the bars with the Germans and our tour guide Aaron for a very funny night which included me winning at killer darts (unfortunately no-one was looking when i hit the bull), me and Rich beating the Germans at pool (Our national pride is now back in tact after losing at Wembley), the Germans beating the Chinese at pool (Their national pride back in tact)  and a round of very funny photos which i'll put up once I get them e-mailed to me.

The following day we went up the pearl tower, which is, well a very big tower, i think its in the top 5 for its height.  Very impressive views and i got a picture with metal mickey and the Beijing olympics mascot.  In the evening we went to the more glitzy area which was a stark contrast from the previous night, definately the high society in this area, I looked the part in scruffy T-shirt, combats and trainers.  The following day after a quick visit to the Shaghai footbal stadium (very big, great stadium) we we back on the overnight train again, this time to Xi'an.  The train journey was livened up by some texas hold em when Jenny, an American from Cincinatti, nearly fleeced all of us.  Luckily I had some good runs (I'm talking poker hand here not the other sort) and i finished with my wallet back to where it started.

Terracotta Warriors

Xi'an is back inland from coastal Shanghai, and is famed for its teracotta warriors which were discoverd by farmers building a well back in 1974.  They believe there are over 6000 of these life size warriors to be excavated.  Its said to be the eighth wonder of the world and they were okay to see but got a bit tedious once you'd seen a few.  Xi'an city itself is a really cool little city and has only 4 million inhabitants.  The city's surrounded by a huge wall and we hired bikes to ride around on the top of it.  I'd not riden a bike since i was 12 so I was happy to stay on and only have my bike chain come of only twice.

Under starters orders

Tonight hopefully we'll manage to find a bar to catch the England game in and then tomorrow morning we have a very early start, setting of to Yichang and then on to a cruise boat for a trip to the three gorges. 

Biking the wall

Just to leave you with, my favourite 3 menu dishes i've seen: 1) 'Fish resembling meat', 2) 'Thirst quenching fish head' and 3)'Chicken without sexual life' (this was spring chicken)