Arrived in Shanghai

Our first train journey in China has delivered us bleary-eyed to Shanghai. The sleeper-train left on time, was clean, fast and very comfortable. One of the other people in our four-berth compartment spent the night snoring, belching and breaking wind so loudly that it put my efforts to shame.



On Tuesday I dragged Cathy to a 5 hour trek along a small section of the Great Wall.
It was a fantastic day; beautiful weather and the wall was every bit as spectaular as we imagined. Even though it is mostly a modern reconstruction, large parts of the surface are in terrible condition which, together with some steep gradients, made for tricky walking conditions. We quickly settled into a rhythm of me scampering ahead like an excitable puppy with Cathy following me at a much more sensible pace.



Yesterday we visited the Lama Temple (the picture to the right is of part of a large bell there), a beautiful Tibetan Buddhist Temple which managed to survive the Cultural Revolution. The Temple of Heaven Park was a pleasant escape from Beijing's noise; the temple buildings are pretty enough but essentially it is a very large park, over 250 hectares according to our guide book). On Monday we strolled round the Forbidden City and then The Underground City, a massive bomb shelter built during the 70s.

Four nights in Shanghai now. We have tickets for the Women's Football World Cup Final on Sunday which I'm really looking forward to, even though England were sent packing by the USA in the quarter-finals. Cathy is telling me its time to go outside now :-)