Another sleeper train has taken us from the humid heat of Shanghai to misty rain in Xi'an. This train came with the added feature of a button on the wall of the corridor to control the loud and cheesy piped Chinese music, and is packed with students and others traveling to see family for the annual moon festival. This also explains the mystery giant queues at Shanghai cake shops, everyone was buying "moon cakes" for the weekend... We've just been for a rather damp walk around the Muslim quarter of Xi'an - it's full of little stalls selling souvenirs and food which smelt lovely, and the traders didn't hassle us at all. We also went round the great mosque, which wasn't all that dissimilar in style to some of the temples in Beijing. Tomorrow we're going ... read more

We arrived in Shanghai this morning on the overnight train. For a hard sleeper, it was a surprisingly comfortable journey. We were in a compartment with six bunks, and mostly slept between lights out at 10pm and arrival at Nanjing just before 7. The toilets, however, were pretty disgusting... We got to Shanghai at 11ish, after passing lots of towns and cities with high rise buildings. In Shanghai, we've walked along the Bund with its European-style buildings and view of the skyscrapers in Pudong and visited the Yuyuan gardens. This evening we went on a boat down the river, with both sides impressively illuminated. Definitely time for bed now though!... read more

Today we went back to Tiananmen square, and walked around in the rain. Thankfully there was less rain than last night when we got totally drenched despite waterproofs and umbrellas! After Tiananmen square we went on a tour of the forbidden city, which is really quite impressive. Lots of elaborate buildings and courtyards, but it must have been a really odd place in the past when half the residents were the emperor's concubines. After the tour, we stayed in the forbidden city and explored the extensive gardens and many further courtyards - it really is huge. Yesterday we got a view over the forbidden city from the hill in Jingshan park, and you could see the massive scale of it compared to other landmarks. In the late afternoon we went to yonghegong, the lama temple. Built ... read more

We seem to have almost adjusted to the time zone, and were up at 6.30 this morning. We headed out of the city center to the summer palace, an amazing park full of elaborate buildings, high arch bridges and a big lake - it was so smoggy you could barely see the other side! We walked a long way, and Lara took a lot of photos... From there we headed to the even smoggier Olympic park, seeing the birds nest stadium and water cube. We ate dinner in the city center, wandering through a few hutongs and massive shopping centers after dinner.... read more

Just a quick update to say we arrived safely this morning and found our hotel. Internet connection is very slow so we don't seem to be able to send email for now.... read more