Shanghai

After our nightmare in Xi'an, we arrived in Shanghai having had a
really good sleep on the train. Luckily this time the accommodation we
booked had a record of us and all was fine except we now couldn't book
a train back to Xi'an for another 6 days. There's not been too much to
do in Shanghai. It's the type of city we could imagine living in, but
as a backpacker there's not that much to see and do apart from lots of
shopping. We did lots of walking and the city seems very different to
Beijing, more modern and more "western" shops (including Tesco and M&S).

We did two touristy things here, involving transport. One was the Bund
"sightseeing" tunnel. This was an absolute waste of time and money...
3 minutes of my life I can never get back. I have to try and describe
this bizarre experience. It's 45RMB to get in a little cart / people
mover carraige thing that goes through a tunnell under the river. When
it started moving there were twirling lights and swirling music,
followed by a booming voice which said phrases like: Paradise and
Hell, Magma Flow, Lunar Burst, etc., etc. This only lasted a few
minutes, but it was the most under-whelming experience of all time.
Emilie and Hanna, if you're reading this, then please let us know what
you were thinking when you recommended us to do this, or are things
that dull in Sweden. ;)

Second thing we did was the Maglev train from the airport to the city
centre. This unlike the Bund tunnel was an experience. The train
reached a speed of 431 km/h and it felt like we were about to take
off. This was only a 7 minute journey, but the trip the other way took
almost an hour.

Tonight we're getting the train back to Xi'an, this time we've
definitely got accommodation at the place where we slept on the roof,
but this time we have a room. We're looking forward to seeing the
Terracotta Warriors and the rest of Xi'an.

Thanks for all the comments, we're unable to reply at the moment, but
do like reading them.