the Whore of the Orient

We love Shanghi. Its crazy, it makes the rest of China seem provincial and backward. While the rest of China's history stretches back over 2 millenia, Shanghai's is compressed into about a century, from the opium wars and the British concessions to the Japanese invasion, the rise of communism and the more recent rise of the huge skyscrapers. There are 20 million people living here and that gives it the palpable sence that there's things happening.


We've spent our last few days living 2 lives. We're staying in a youth hostel in the cheap end of town and have most of our meals down the market where a meal of dumplings for 2 or noodles with meat is about 80p. But we've spent a lot of our time visiting art galleries and spending more than we should dining in fancy restaurants- it gets addictive! We had cocktails atop an old French building looking down the Bund and across to the crazy skyscrapers of Pudong on the other side of the the river (they turn the lights off gradually from 11pm so it's strange to watch it change). Our best meal in China was in a restaurant which you had to know a secret code to get into (it was all a bit Lord of the rings - get it wrong and the door on your right opens to reveal a brick wall, get it right and the door opens on the left to reveal the waitor ready to take you to your table).



Anyway, I'm typing this first thing in the morning waiting to leave in the rain to Japan. Hope everyone is good at home.