Hello Shanghai

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So my first experience of an overnight train turned out to be really good =)

6 passengers per cabin which isn't as cramped as it sounds. I was sharing with the Australian couple from my tour group (Glen & Lisa) and a Chinese family, including a little old lady who kept trying to start a conversation with me in Mandarin which was good fun =)

I slept through most of the 11 or so hour journey, much nicer to be able to lie down than be jammed upright in a plane seat, mind you my experience on the bottom bunk was quite different to Clare's on the top. She could barely sit up and got very sleep and is currently zonked out in our Shanghai hotel room as a result.

As before the hotel is lovely, well air conditioned and very clean =) Shanghai also seems a good deal less sticky than Beijing and we actually saw the sky today for the first time since arriving in China! Since we arrived we have had a group lunch in the hotel which consisted of a whole range of Chinese dishes chosen by our group leader Louis which were all really varied, served on a gargantuan lazy susan and cost £3.80 for the whole meal including drinks =D

I'm going to try and upload all my photos so far with this blog entry since the internet connection here is so much faster than in Beijing, so they might be in a bit of a random order, but there you go!

On the less do great side, I seem to have left my phone in Beijing =( my group leader is calling the previous hotel to see if it can be posted forward (like to Hong Kong or somesuch) but I dont know if this will work, guess its insured anyway . . . but the main upshot is, dont phone me!!!

Hoping to hear from home via e-mail soon!

Cat xxx

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