With all the grace of a three legged elephant...

From Xi'an we took a train to Shanghai, a city which seems to reveal a version of china we were expecting, rather than the immaculate show we have been exposed to so far. Walking down the Bund we saw the skyline that Shanghai is famous for and took some much needed famous-building-growing-from-head photos. It was grey weather but that didn't dampen our mood, we strolled among the kites, 1930's style buildings and inevitable chinese tourists. It took us a while to decide where to eat that night but we finally settled on a restaurant by half 9 - a very unsociable time to eat in china where although the shops,dentists, and hairdressers stay open until gone half 11, the restaurants stop serving bang on 10:00pm. It seems that the place to eat is Shanghai- the best fish we had ever eaten! We were promptly shown the bill and the door at 10:00 and headed for Face Bar, an upmarket bar where we drank various cocktails for more than any meal had cost so far! I'm ashamed to say I had to be escorted home at 1am but others went to a famous club in a skyscraper and didn't manage to drag themselves home til gone 4am!

The next day was a free day and while our resident post-grad history of art student and faithful room mate (Amanda) went off in search of the art amongst the backstreets, Carl and I went to the Shanghai museum where we managed to spend 3 hours getting severly cultured on Chinese pottery, coins, calligraphy and paintings. With some memebers of our intrepid group still nursing hangovers we had a quiet night in the french concession. This is Shanghai's version of Kensington in London (apparently) so very upmarket, with live jazz and even more expensive cocktails on the menu.

Our time in Shanghai wizzed by and we were on a 24hour train journey to Yangshou in the Guilin Province. We arrived in Yangshou in time to go for a meal and watch the light show. A spectacular event giving another example of the Chinese going all out to impress; the opening for the Beijing Games is going to be a sight not to be missed. We sought out the Monkey top roof bar recommened in Lonley Planet and played Beer Pong with some other travellers we met there.

The next day (the day i'm writing this) was a busy one, Amanda and I crawled out of bed for 7am to do some Tai Chi in the park amongst the (frighteningly) supple pensioners doing their morning exercise! Tai Chi is a strangley aerobic thing to do given that all the movements are very slow and deliberate; a degree of balance and grace is needed. Naturally, having neither of these qualities, I was the idoit staggering around and falling over myself, much to the amusemant of the pensioners sat in the box splits...

Kayaking down the Dragon River was next, we spent 3 hours amongst the amazing limestone mountains and mist, paddling downstream and arriving in a rural town (a refreshing change form the cities) where we got on the public bus and made our way bumpily back to Yangshou through rural china on unmade roads; another side of which we hadn't seen.

Tomorrow brings kung fu, climbing and bike riding, can't wait!

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