Day 30 - November 3rd

Late wake up again! Woken by Pierre, French guy who’s living at the apartment at the mo, losing his phone. He must have dropped it in the taxi when he was returning from the office (on a Saturday!). Pretty annoying, as the person called my phone back, but when I tried to talk to them, they didn’t answer. Stolen! Decide to get my shit together and go down to Pizza Hut for lunch! I eat 4 of the 6 pieces of my pizza and save the other two pieces for later! I’ve turned into such an old man! Haha!

I bid Eamonn farewell, even though he says he will meet me tomorrow in Hangzhou. I face the metro system with all my luggage. Pretty hard work! I get to the train station after an hour and go get a ticket. The Lonely Planet suggests it will cost Y40, I get a ticket for Y24. I notice later that I have got the slow train! Everyone seems to be looking at me. Just staring! The train stewards here are sooo anal! He had to make sure all my straps from my backpack were tucked into the over head shelf which took a good few minutes! So anal for something which is perfectly safe! I suppose he was trying to make his train look neater or something? He seemed to have missed the fact that the trains are just DIRTY! The Tannoys start blaring out Backstreet Boys. I decide it’s time to listen to my iPod!

After 2 hours, I arrive at Hangzhou. Whilst leaving, I talk to people and they warn me that I shouldn’t tell people I am from Hong Kong! So what should I tell them? I come from England? Rip me off even more? The taxi ride is crazy! We get to a traffic jam, where people are getting out of their cars and yelling at the police! Apparently, there is a fireworks display today and all the roads are closed! The taxi driver stops and tells me to get out and walk the rest of the way to my hostel. Its just a few 100 metres down the off ramp of the highway. Okay… so I get out and walk.

Turns out my hostel wasn’t ‘just’ down the road. Its miles away! I call the hostel and the original one I wanted was fully booked anyway… first time I’ve had trouble with bookings! Then the second one I choose say I should get a taxi to get there. So I wait for a taxi… and wait… and wait. A good half hour passes so I decide maybe I should move and try to find a better place. I walk pass many massage parlours with red lights… hmm. When I say lots, I mean a whole bloody block! Maybe this ain't the best place to hang out! After an hour, I give up getting in a taxi (after several actually don’t let me in!) and decide the best course of action would be to go to an Internet café and chill for a bit until the traffic is better (this is at about 10pm).

After an hour, I still can’t seem to get a taxi. So I call up the hostel and ask them which direction I would have to walk. Better to walk half way and find a cab then sit around with nothing! On my walk, I get people laugh at me “so you can’t get a cab?”. I finally get a cab after walking a good 4 blocks. “Why do you want to go to that youth hostel? There’s one just around the corner…” I decide that I started walking to this hostel, by god am I gonna get there!

I arrive (3 hours after getting off the train!) and check in. I am greeted by a Chinese lady who was from the states who can talk Cantonese. We talk in 3 different languages! She seems nice enough, but then after a few hours, she leaves with some other people to go to Yellow Mountain.

I see a mouse run out of my room! I eat my 2 remaining slices of pizza!

Miles walked: 195.750m

Day 29 - November 2nd

2pm wake up! Feel bad for wasting yet another half a day! I get dumplings for lunch and then get bus into town with Max. I arrive at the Bund for around sun down. Yea, took me a while to get ready and my shit together! Pictures, picture, picture! I take the stupid gay tunnel across the Bund, which is JUST gay!

When up the Pearl Tower. Thought I’d go see the night view as I’ve done it all before, but in the daytime. Get on the binoculars for 30secs… you can see right into people’s apartments and into hotel rooms! Hehe… I’ll stop there! I decide to be really touristy and get some popcorn and go to the lower deck of the observation tower, which was a lot less crowded and had prob even better views of the city! Spend about an hour up there and then decide to leave. Find huge pictures in the lobby of the Tower, one of the Great Wall, one of Pudong in Shanghai and then one of Niagara Falls! I find it funny, but then realize there are pictures of all the worlds sights… no Top Golf of Watford though! See one of the best buskers in on the subway home!

Have dinner at home with Eamonn… great cook! Then night out! Go to random house-warming where I get loads of crazy people interviews! Go to nightclub called Muse… sausage fest! 4 o'clock return!

Miles walked: 190.795m

Day 28 - November 1st

Mozzy last night kept me up! The bastard bit me on the forehead as the rest of my body was wrapped up in my sleeping bag! I finally make it to the museum (third attempt!) and the whole place is full of children on a school trip. I get myself an audio tour and then go to the top of the museum and worm myself down (the opposite to the school kids). After 2 hours of museuming, I have a break and have a chocolate cake. The kids have seem to have gone, but they are replaced by even more annoying Americans!

I would say that this museum is my second favourite in China, 1^st place going to Beijing Military Museum, but that’s mainly because I got to ride in a tank there! After the 4^th hour, I regret bringing my Lonely Planet with me, as my shoulders start to ache! I leave at chucking out time, spending a total of 5 hours there. I think I saw everything, but the last hour was very rushed! Maybe should have woke up an hour earlier!

On the way home, I see a street-peddler selling Monopoly. I don’t know if it’s the Shanghai edition, but I get it for the boys as a gift for letting me stay round for soo long! I’m happy as I haggle it down by a lot!

Monopoly night! I win!!! I’m great! Max is the funniest person ever!

Miles walked: 186.186 m

Day 27 - October 31st

Sleep in till 1. Doesn’t look like I will be going to the museum today! Cook noodles for lunch at home. I feel real bad that I have wasted yet another day, so decide to leave the house and just go somewhere. I end up going to the old town… I’ve been here before! My dad took me last time I came to Shanghai! Worse, it’s full of people! I’m not really feeling busyness today!

The metro system in Shanghai is very similar to Hong Kong in the fact that the platforms have glass panels to stop people falling/jumping and have doors at where the doors of the train would stop. But unlike HK, the doors were open all the time, rather than just when the train pulled up. Sort of pointless now having a safety system when you don’t use it? My thoughts on the savvyness of the Shanghainese changes. Even funnier, the trains aren’t even the whole length of the platform, causing stampedes of people running up the platform when the train stops… surely not safe? Worst of all, I get stuck on my train as I can’t get off because the crowd of people rushing in when I am trying to get out! My metro experience was not very good today!

Have dinner with Eamonn, Neith and two other Irish, Amy and Keane from the flat downstairs. Big Halloween night tonight, but I am too tired to go with them! Also, I was determined to go to the museum tomorrow! I was asked what food I really wanted to eat. I answered; “shepard’s pie” the response was “fuck off back to England!!!” I settle for a lasagna instead! Go home and have early night.

Miles walked: 180.488m

Day 26 - October 30th

Wake up and drag myself up! I’m such a bum nowadays! I’ve woken up the last two days when Max gets back from Uni at midday. I tell him I’m going to the Shanghai Museum and set off to get some foodage! I force the food down me, but I’m not really enjoying it any more! Feel pretty miserable! I talk to Lisa, which cheers me up, and then I decide it’s probably best to just go home and sleep. So I go to the supermarket and get myself some snacks and fruit and then head home.

I sit and watch some more BBC News and then I hear a key rustling at the door. Now, I know Eamonn is at work, and Max had just gone to Chinese class… it’s the third house mate who I have not met yet! She walks in with her mum and uncle; “hello! I’m Eamonn’s friend” I’m glad she didn’t find me in my underwear with a beer in my hand (the thought had crossed my mind… what? No one was in the house!?!?) Was still pretty awkward though! But they left after a bit so I was left on my own again!

Nap!

Wake up to Max returning after lessons. “Do you want to come play football?” My answer? “Hell yeah!!!” So he lends me some shoes and a t-shirt and we’re off to play football with the French. Most fun I have had in a long time!!! Showed my skills and most importantly formed part of the Great Wall of China in front of our goal!

Return home HUNGRY! Have a shower and shave my scraggly beard! Go and have dinner with the French… order the typical Kung Pao Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. Get a call from mum and wish her happy birthday. What a great son I am, I make her call me to wish her birthday wishes! The French guys go up to their apartment to have a smoke. I decide against it, as I feel the high is not worth the risk. I was told that it’s not that risky, as most police officers don’t know the smell of weed, so even if they investigate, they wouldn’t know what it was! Though life sentence in China doesn’t sound that appealing for me for a few drags and a high!

Spend an hour and a half trying to find credit for my phone and panicking so that I could call Olivia and meet up for drinks tonight. Her mobile wasn’t working, so I was relying on her calling me, but you can’t receive calls in China unless you have credit. Gay system! I finally get credit at around midnight and receive call from Olivia. It was only her 2^nd attempt to call me! As usual, she wasn’t even ready or packed (her flight leaves tomorrow at 6am). We decide to meet at 1am! Girls ey?

We go for drinks and stay out until around 4. No sleep for her tonight! Taxi home was pretty scary, the driver was actually falling asleep at the wheel! I decide to talk to him to keep him awake!

Miles walked: 173.083m

Day 25 - October 29th

Wake up and try and make it to the Shanghai Museum. Decide to meet Neith for lunch, though it takes me about an hour to find where she works! We have a good natter about missing home and eat a sandwich! I then try and find a bus back into town for People’s Square, but I’m not sure which one to take so I ask someone. Their first reaction is "are you from Hong Kong?"

I decide to get into a taxi and have a nice chat with the driver! He thinks I am a film director! The topic gets onto people from UK and about class differences and such. I know I might be heading for a particularly sensitive subject so just decide to tell him that at the end of the day, everyone is the same everywhere and so are governments! Phew! He likes me and says that I am a descendant of the Yellow Emperor! He then asks me about the doll in UK. I tell him I know little about it!

Make it to People’s Square, but it’s too late to go to Shanghai Museum (3 o’clock by now… I’d need a good 4 hours and it closes in 2) so I settle for the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum instead! Pretty good museum, though it got rather tedious at the end as I don’t really care too much about Shanghai to be fair :P

Read in People’s Square and then decide to go for a walk. This walk becomes a mammoth walk which gets me lost and covers around 10miles!!! I just started walking and couldn't stop!

Meet Olivia (friend from BLCU who was visiting Shanghai too) at around 11pm. Tell her how fed-up I am of travelling! She tells me I look very thin and I realise that I haven’t actually been eating lately! Maybe why I keep doing stupid things! We hang out at McDonalds!

Miles walked: 166.903m

Day 24 - October 28th

Hung over! Write-off day! Done nothing apart from watch the Discovery Channel, a DVD and the football!!!

Shortest entry I’ve written!

Miles walked: 153.076m

Day 23 - October 27th

Wake up to piano playing from upstairs. Would sound real cultured and cool if I could say what was being played… but I’m not cultured and cool! Look out the window and see children playing in the park. Big contrast to what had happened the night before. I go to the living room and turn on the TV. They have satellite! I watch Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back! I also find that they have BBC News! Quality!

Have dim sum lunch with Martin. Was alright dim sum, nothing on the stuff back in Hong Kong! Eamonn takes me to the French Concessions and a swanky place called Shin Tian Di. There are soo many fit girls, both Chinese and Western! Eamonn leaves me to go help a friend with her English… apparently she has fit friends!

I walk around the French concessions and it feels like being back in London! There’s enough whiteys, though they all speak French! I walk a good few miles and get tired so I decide to go home via the metro. I take it the wrong way and get lost twice! It’s a silly system! People seem so much savvier here in Shanghai. Very un-Chinese!

Get home and upload a bollock-load of pictures! So much faster here and using a decent PC! Go to a ramen place for Dinner; one of my favourite places when I was in Hong Kong. Meet Eamonn again and the drinking starts! I won’t get into too much detail of the night out, but we went to a place called Bon Bon (all you can drink for Y120) and ended up with a Danish passed out on the sofa, whilst Eamonn had to escape the clutches of Helgar, the German who was after his Irish bits! Return home at 6am!

Miles walked: 151.316m

Day 22 - October 26th

Pack my bags and it ends up heavier and bulkier than before! Maybe it’s the make up bag the Danes left which I was taking to them! I have a Burger King with Tom for breakfast! We walk pass another internet café which is closer then the one we had been going to all this time round the corner. I say goodbye to Tom who is the first person I have spent more than one day hanging out with!

I top up my phone, buy an Y100 card for Y105, a common thing I found out from now on as I have a Beijing number and that takes a different top up card.

I get a ticket to Suzhou and I think it is 1^st class again when I get on the train. Pretty short trip and I sleep for most of it. I get off the train and find a whitey tour group. I leave the station and am swamped with people selling maps and homeless people with limbs missing. Not the best first impression! I buy a map and then someone asks me if I need a hotel. I tell them I got a hostel booked and they ask me the price. I tell them Y40, they turn away knowing they can’t do much to match that!

I get into a cab and am taken to the hostel by a nice man who is learning English and Cantonese! We chat away alternating in the three languages and I help him with some of his homework!

I arrive at he hostel and I am told there is someone from England who looks just like me who left yesterday! I have a doppelganger!

I walk around the streets. It is really pretty… so are the girls! It was like walking backwards in time and the canal is really cool!

Arrive in Shanghai! Have a stiff drink, sleep.

Miles walked: 143.750m