ok so this is shanghai....

Be ready for a good hour of reading i'm pretty sure this could be a book... Well on Saturday I spend the day getting ready for shanghai!! :)! I was too excited! Couldn’t wait to just get going! We got on the coach at 7.20; it was a 3-hour drive to Shanghai. When we arrived at the hotel, we were all surprised that it was really nice and clean, for £10 a night! Anyway we were all pleased and just getting ready to go and explore the Bund for the first night, when all we could hear was shouting, in the corridor a couple were having a domestic, well so we thought. Next time we looked out of our bedroom door the man had emptied his wife’s bag all over the floor and was shouting at her still. This was sort of when we realised this argument wasn’t going to get much better, as they shut the door, it was horrible, all we could hear was screaming, thuds and shouting. We also heard glass smash, which we couldn’t work out weather it was the lamps or maybe a mug, but it was just horrific, we called the security guard who was nothing better then a scrawny old Chinese man who stood outside the door and basically listened. It was horrible to hear, her so-called husband was literally beating up this woman and we could do nothing but listen. The laws are so different over here, if we had interfered there was nothing stopping him starting on one of us, which wouldn’t have been a good start to our mini holiday. The laws over here basically state that if you marry someone you give up any rights you have, hence us not calling the police, as if this couple were married which I take it they were, then they wouldn’t have done anything! This girl could have been killed and this isn’t an exaggeration, the screams where awful, you could hear them all the way down the corridor but no one else even flinched! Out here what happens to you if very much your own business and you do not involve others. This is a big problem I think in china; it causes so many problems because no one will speak up about anything! They could walk past someone being murdered and they wouldn’t even admit to seeing anything. I can see why they do it, but it literally will just take one person to start having their own mind and people will follow. Tong Tong said that domestic violence happens all too often in china and because of the sort of unwritten marriage rule, nothing is ever done. It was also surprising how this women didn’t even try to get out of the room, maybe he was against the door or something, but there women especially out here don’t seem to have minds of their own. They are brought up to not question men and their authority, even if it does mean them getting hurt. I makes you realise how lucky you actually are to be English and live in a fair society! This sort of put a dampener on our night, but we still wanted to go and see the bund at night! Unfortunately it wasn’t lit up as it was too late but it was still good to see!

We also went to a salsa bar, well this was accidental, we all needed something alcoholic after that and this was the place we sort of stumbled upon! Was very amusing to see all these Chinese couples salsa dancing; some of them were actually good too! Although maybe they needed to tone down the body rubbing and inappropriate touching but if they did that, I’m sure they would be good salsa dancers… (Maybe) eventually after a long day and evening we went back to the hotel and tiptoed to our room as not to wake up the big scary man from across the hall way. I was glad to be back but it was still a little off putting to know what had happened there earlier! Lucky on Sunday morning they were leaving! We didn’t see either the man or women, which im glad about as I think I would have wanted to hit him around the head with something such as a fire extinguisher, plus I wouldn’t have wanted to see the state of the poor woman after all that. Think that I may have been in tear had I seen her. Anyway onto something a little more pleasant after such a bad start, shopping! We had heard about a couple of good markets to visit for some good china fakes, yes fakes. And they are more a less exactly the same as the real ones! Amaze! These markets are so good you can find some good deals and for very good prices, think we became experts at haggling on Sunday, the store holders seems to start off at really high prices like £150, for a fake! But as long as you start very low your guaranteed to get the price you want, if they don’t seem to be budging on the price you simply move onto the next stall, where either the guy from the other stall will follow you and keep bringing the price down, or you will find the same thing on another stall and find someone how will let you have It for the price you want! Its actually fun! After finding a few bargain in the market on Nanjing road number 580, We went onto another market after meeting Jeremy who has become good friends with Laura over the past few weeks, this market was called pearl markets, which as you can guess by the name, had a whole floor dedicated to pearls and jewellery. It was ok but not as interesting as the first market on Nanjing road. Was also went to look around people square which is centred in the middle of shanghai city centre, with all the main shopping department stores around it! So as Sunday was shopping this is what we did! After the markets we moved onto the store, it was good, but my feet felt like they were the size of bricks and when it got to 11 hours of shopping, we decided it was about time to go and get ready for a late tea! In which Jeremy took us to a Japanese restaurant. Have to say if that was like typical Japanese food, I prefer that to Chinese! Really enjoyed it in fact! I tried seafood for the first time too, think this was because id have a little too much rice wine, it wasn’t even seafood someone would usually try either for the first time, it was oyster, turns out it was ok, still wouldn’t chose to eat fish or seafood if I had an option, but it was ok, I could eat more if I had to. Then after a long day and my feet ready to drop off I was ready for bed! And it was actually a nice soft bed!! Never slept so well in my life! That one thing I really miss from home! My comfy bed and cosy pillows…. On Monday, we visited a few places, firstly along the way to a street Tong Tong wanted us to see, we came across a park in the middle of the city, in the park was numerous people doing dancing and tie-chi, it was so interesting to see, Caroline even joined it, we filmed it so you will all see it at one point but I cant upload videos onto here so you will have to wait till I’m back in England I think to upload it onto Facebook. It was so funny, Caroline Irish dancing and this man doing some other sort of dancing then someone else tried to join in too!!! To get to the writers street, which is a place dedicated to famous Chinese writers, we had to walk down a street that basically was a typical Chinese slum. The houses where tiny, mostly as far as we could tell didn’t have electric, and maybe just 2 or 3 small rooms. It was amazing to see, and to watch what they do in day-to-day life, it was also upsetting and makes you realise how lucky you really are. When we arrived at the street, it was literally just meters off the slum yet it was such a difference, the building where beautiful and cultural, there was motifs on the walls and carvings of the famous writers and statues. Further down there was some shops sell so called jade and other precious stones (bare in mind china is the number one country for producing fakes) we also stumbled upon a little shop where a man was patiently sat outside painting, although this was painting the inside of glass perfume bottles, it was amazing to just watch him, he had a paint brush, but the bristles where glue together into a sort of point 90 degrees to handle, he’s get some paint put the paint brush into the bottle and start working, the amount of time these must take is unreal! I had to have one they were far too pretty to not!! After this we took the tube, which was an interesting experience, to People Square where we went into the urban planning museum. Here was all scale models of things to see in shanghai, it was amazing and on the 4th floor was the main model of the full city! It even had things in it that were still in production, such as the soon to be tallest building. It was really interesting. After this we decided it was time to move onto a temple, which I have to admit was one of the main things I was looking forward to seeing! It was called Jing An temple, it was beautiful! The minute we walked through the gates, there was gold and silver everywhere!! They had a ritual, in which you buy some incense sticks, set them on fire, then place them on like a big well sort of thing is the only way I can explain it! It was interesting to see and do, and see all the local Chinese people worshiping the Buddha in the temple; there was also a huge solid silver Buddha!! After the temple we split into 2 groups, Laura and Becca went back to the hotel to get change, and me, Kate, Caroline and Tong Tong, all got onto the tube to the bottle opener! It was sort of a treat for Tong Tong to say thank you for her help so far throughout this experience! The bottle opener (World Financial Centre) is basically a skyscraper, but as of yet the biggest in shanghai, you know its high when you go up in the lift and your ears pop due to the pressure change! The bar is on the 91st floor, actually part of the Park Hyatt hotel, which was Beautiful. The bar was nice, but the staff where pretty much rude to say it was a top hotel. Also the bar had a minimum spend which was £12! This is classed as very expensive in china! I had a coffee then a cocktail, it would have been a better experience if it weren’t for the smog that covered all of shanghai basically. Now and again you could see the lights on the buildings but not often, it was still an experience just a shame the view wasn’t clearer! After this we went for dinner at hooters! Which surprisingly was the same as in any other part of the world, all the girls had next to no clothes on! (Very surprising considering china finds these things a little controversial) The food was good though, and I think we were all very grateful to sit down after such a hard day of walking around! Finally it was bedtime, as I had to be out of the door for half past 7!

(ok so ill upload the rest tomorrow way past my bed night night night) Tuesday arrive and it was our last day!!!! Time here goes far too fast! All the days seem to roll into one. After out very early start we took a taxi to the oriental pearl tower, which is I think the second highest building in shanghai after the WFC, in hope to see more of the city from the sky then what we did the day before, when we arrived we treated ourselves to a subway! Which was amazing! Iv missed it far too much. Then we went up the tower, firstly we went to the highest sphere, we couldn’t see much, maybe about the same as in the bottle opener, we also visited the space pod right at the top of the tower but again we saw little, then we moved down to another sphere (I cant actually remember how high this was off the ground, it had a 9 in the number anyway haha, I think something like 900 meters…. Maybe) at this point all the way around the viewing area was a glass floor, now before I went up I wondered if this would be a good idea, but I loved it, the one who got scared was Becca! Iv never had someone grabbing onto my arm in fear before. I got some good pictures but they don’t do the view justice I’m afraid! As it was a Perspex floor I think on the photos it reflected the above lights too much, so they are not as clear as it was in real life! I loved it! Such a good view! One the floor above this there was a small roller coaster don’t ask why, people here are very random at times! Anyway we thought why not, I soon regretted this as I was say next to Becca, it turns out she get scared before going on roller-coaster, so the minute we set off all I could feel was her gripping my hand, as well as screaming down my ear, funniest thing was after the 30 second coaster Becca was in tears with laughter, actually had tears running down her face, it took us about 10 minutes to get her off it then! After taking lots more pictures and visiting the museum about shanghai that was situated on the ground of the oriental pearl, me Becca and Laura went to meet Kate Caroline and Tong Tong near Yu Gardens! It Turns out this is a main tourist attraction, as the second you stepped out of the taxi you could barely move! Never mind traffic, the amount of people in that area was ridicules! We decided maybe lunch would be a good idea, so we stopped at Mc Donald’s. After we looked in some shops and eventually reached Yu Gardens after fighting our way to the bridge near the entrance, we arrived with all intentions of going in, this soon changed when we saw the amount of people queuing. The bridge was literally covers, you couldn’t really see the entrance and the thought of having to actually get to it with all the people just made us change our mind within seconds I think, its also the fact that when people are so close together, the chances of being pick pocketed at a lot higher too, so personally this was another reason I didn’t want to attempt to get in! It happens a lot here or so we are told, so I was extra careful with my bag in these crowds! After this we got a taxi to another street, were there was good architecture and some very cute cafes and shops! The buildings were beautiful! We also managed to have a rest in Starbucks, coffee managed to wake us all up a little. After walking so much half of us decided maybe going home earlier was a better idea, plus we would have to be up at 6.30 am the next day, so me Caroline Kate and Tong Tong went to the coach station in hope we could swap out tickets! We did, and finally arrived home by 9pm! I was so tiered it was more a less straight to bed! Back to work ☹! Ok so its not that bad but still would rather have been travelling around! Anyway yesterday was the same as any other day at work, we finished out designs then went home. The company building its self seems to be coming together, I will take some pictures before I leave, it’s even got its own Intrex wallpaper! The boss is quite strict though, he doesn’t like us having any time off, even if its for something jasmine has organised, it maybe because he doesn’t speak much English but he seems moody too at times! Anyway, once I got home at actually a decent time for once too! We went for dinner in the college canteen this place is questionable, we tend to stick to our usual which is either beef with peppers and rice, or a chicken burger, we dare not try anything else, plus they never have a clue what you are saying so if you order something else you could end up with something totally different to what you meant! Last night we had beef, peppers and rice, we also made a new friend too! A little girl who’s parents run the restaurant we eat in. she decided to follow us around while we looked at the other shops, she even chased Becca down the corridor. One thing that surprised me too was how well she could cope what we said! She couldn’t answer a question but she could repeat what we said very well! (Think she must have been about 4 or 5 years old) she was so cute! We did consider taking her home but don’t think we would have got away with it haha! After I spent the rest of my night writing this! It’s taken 2 days to finish! Far too much has happened since Saturday haha! Today has been amazing! We didn’t have work! So we got a lie in! iv spent today basically doing my blog, speaking to Jasmine about the weekend as we are off to another city to look at fabric markets this weekend, and washing clothes, for me and Kate as she’s in another city 3 days a week! Been productive really but nothing amazing has happened! We are currently just waiting for Becca to get back from work then we will set off to the canteen for dinner again, think it maybe a burger tonight! (How I have a healthy diet out here… not!) I’m working tomorrow now instead of Saturday, so another early night for me!