Shanghai Nights

We arrived at night by plane from Xi'an (we had wanted to get a ferry down the Yangtze river but it was too hard to organize so we flew for less than the ferry costs!!), and straight away the city knocks you back. It is huge. Skyscrapers are everywhere. We zipped through the city in a taxi across these cool elevated motorways that are lit by neon lights and go between the skyscrapers. Like something out of the future or a computer game.

Our hotel was right smack in the middle of the city on the main shopping street which looks like a bigger version of Time Square in New York with all the billboards and lights everywhere. The people here are much more used to westerners so we didn't stick out too much like in other places.

We had lunch in Cloud 9, the highest cafe in the world, on Sunday on the 87th Floor of the highest building in Shanghai the Marriott Grand hotel. The views were amazing, you could see every direction for miles.

The river cruise is pretty cool as well. We went at night coz then you can see the skyline lit up. Very romantic altogether.

When we were in Datong we met this Irish bloke (Colm) who lives and works in Shanghai and he told us to give him a buzz when we got here. We met up with him at his (very very swish) apartment and he took us to an Irish pub quiz. There’s loads of Irish people here. We won the quiz (of course it naturally came down to my fantastic singing voice - there were 3 bonus points to whomever could sing Words by the Bee Gees the best so our team got the points) by 1 point. The prize was a voucher for an Aromatherapy massage in the top hotel in Shaghai worth nearly 100 euros per massage. I'll have one of them thanks very much. But there were only four vouchers for a team of six. I got one simply for being such a great singer and the rest were drawn for. Aishlings name didn't get drawn so being the hopeless romantic that I am I gave her my one. She said the massage was fantastic anyway.

We went out that night with the same crowd as well to the top club in town, Bar Rouge. It really was a top club. Its on the roof of this high building looking out over the Bund (where all the tall buildings are on the river). The barmen were like something out of the movie cocktail, setting the bar on fire and pouring bottles of vodka down your throat till you couldn't handle any more.

We paid a taxi driver to zip around town for a while too while the five of us hung out of the windows singing Irish football songs (it was the night of the shockingly bad Isreal game). Great.

Anyway, we're off to some other place in our travel China tour you've never heard of so we'll talk to you then.