Day 3

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By Thursday I think most of us were starting to get our head round the time difference .... But I personally still can't understand rice for breakfast!! So after a very cultural bowl of coco pops we ran to the coach and went for our morning rehearsal :-) we sounded a lot better than the night before, way more energy and less flat! When the rehearsal was over and David had told us to 'take it easy this afternoon' we raced off to catch the metro back into central Shanghai (another fight with the ticket machine- but with tickets costing about the equivalent of 30p I have no right to complain!!!) To go to the yuyuan gardens. The surrounding bazaar- a collection of ad hoc stalls was completely amazing, a maze of brightly coloured gifts and shouting Chinese people and confused tourists! The gardens were the complete opposite, after the guide book telling us sternly that if you didn't turn up promptly you would be rammed up with the world and his wife, surprisingly we ourselves had lots of space and great views!! The rockery s and the walk ways over the water were epic, there was no way you could have explored all the tiny crevices and pathways unless you spent at least a couple of days there. After some selfies we trekked off in search of food (I mean it was about half 3 by then) and found this restaurant with a massive queue outside for takeaway (a good sign) but upstairs was practically empty called Nanxiang steamed bun restaurant. Katie (resident food order-er and God-send when it comes to making us try the word things everyone else is rather dubious about) got us steamed buns and this bun with soup inside that you sucked out with a straw and some sticky rice :-) the highlight were sweet buns that were shaped into little pigs that tasted so good we suddenly weren't so stuffed after all and wanted some more!!! By this time it was getting a bit late the day, so we caught taxis back to the hotel and changed ready for our first concert. The audience was surprisingly large- and I really think the royal festival hall should think about getting the large green signs that the stewards held up in people's faces if they took pictures or chatted! As soon as we sang the opening bars of moli hua the audience cheered and clapped, one little boy even sang along :-) In general there was a real buzz, but by the time we had finished it was definitely time for some grub!!!!! After our failed dinner the night before we took a taxi to French concession and found this lovely restaurant that served up a real storm!! We ate deep fried needle mushrooms, bbq pork dumplings and an array of other brilliant things that left us full (and with the beer on top merry) rolling back to catch a cab and wave goodbye sadly to a glowing twinkly dark Shanghai. Night all, Sophie xx

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