Shanghai

---

Day 3 - after a torrid night's sleep we arrive in freezing cold shanghai minus our bags (which contained our coats!)

We hung around the airport for a while making our disappointment known, and managed to come away with extra Chinese Yuan ($) to fund our travels.

The metro from the airport was long enough, without the need of the schoolboy error of falling asleep and failing to change trains when all the other passengers got off. An hour later we were back at the airport! suffice to say that there was a lot of travelling that day and the journey to our couch surfing hostess was a long one. Luckily she was very friendly and helped with reuniting us with our bags.

Her apartment, though, was cold. I mean very cold! We couldn't understand how people could live in sub-zero temperatures. We shivered our way through our fist night!

Our final 2 nights we are spending at another couchsufinh host. Fortunately her place is considerably warmer and central too. We feel happy here.

Our impressions of Shanghai so far: wonderful city. Clean, orderly, but exciting too. A mix of old and new, some veri impressive architecture ( eg the Bund with its European colonial style buildings, traditional Chinese pagodas in the old town, the jaw-dropping ultr-modern skyline of Pudong across the river. And oh, I forgot to mention the food...wow! I always knew I loved dumplings, but the Shanghai dumplings are SOMETHING ELSE!

Tomorrow is day 4 and we'll be heading to an ancient canal village...

---