The Jade Buddha Temple is a famous tourist attraction of Shanghai. It has the largest Buddha made out of pure jade in the world, we werent allowed to take photos of the actual thing.

This is a typical garden in the Buddhist temple.
This is Jake and a very complicated Chinese sign!

A group of monks walking back after meditation.

A very detailed carving of famous monks, putting money on certain monks gave you luck and prosperity.
These are the guardians of the temple, and Jake looking tiny!
A typical temple.

These girls arent just spinning plates, they have at least 4-6 plates spinning in each hand and still do acrobatics!!

This is the girls with the chandeliers! Like I said, it looks like an impossible position to move out of!!
These are the ring jumping men.

And this is a very bad picture of 5 motorbikes whizzing around!

OK, so I imagine that you are wondering about that picture with the motorbikes in a cage? Well, on our last night in Shanghai, we went to see the famous Chinese Acrobats. This ended up being a highlight of our stay as we were mesmerized for over an hour and the truly fantastic and nearly impossible, gravity defying stunts that were on show. Now, I didn’t think I was someone who was easily impressed. After watching a particular display of about 8 girls climb on each other and contort their bodies into shapes that should be physically impossible, my mouth was on the floor and I was applauding wildly, however, the Chinese people around us looked mildly entertained.

A great act was when one girl lay on a bench and balanced a chandelier type structure on both of her hands and one on her head. She then maneuvered herself (in alarming ways) into different positions. Then, a chandelier was placed on each foot and another one in her mouth, Jake and I thought this was a good ending, there was clearly no way anyone could move with all these things balancing…we were wrong. I have no idea how, and it’s hard to describe, but she managed to twist and turn into different shapes, with all these chandeliers in place!
Another favorite was Chinese men back flipping their way across the stage and then jumping through very high hoops! It was even more exciting when about 5 of them were jumping in all different directions at the same time!
Now, the photo in question was actually the finale of the show. The giant metal sphere opened, and a guy (who obviously didn’t worry about death) drove in on his motorbike. He then proceeded to ride round in all directions, even 360degrees over the top. When another man was added to the cage, I started to bite my nails; there really wasn’t much space in there. They both rode around together and going upside down, it was really something to watch. However, by the time it came to adding the 5th person, yes, I said 5th person into the sphere, the merely entertained Chinese people were also wetting themselves. What followed was a death defying stunt of 5 motorbikes riding around going in different directions and barely missing each other. Wow, what an end to the show.

In all seriousness, I think this show was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen and highly recommend this to all visitors in China.

One night, Jake and I went to the top of Jin Mao tower, in the famous bar Cloud 9. The prices were crazy, but the view was worth it.
Me in the trendy Cloud 9 bar, hundreds of feet above the ground!
Ah, Jake and I after drinking (very expensive) cocktails in Cloud 9.
Jing An temple, old China right next to new China!

OK, this is hard to explain this picture, so I'll do it later, just remember its from the Acrobats, and there are 5 motorbikes in a metal sphere!
Jake and his draught guiness! He was so happy!
Yes, we are not just science people, we went to the art museum!
We went to a cool "roast it yourself" kind of restaurant. Was pretty fun!
Oh dear, another fatal English error. Still up Jin Mao tower!

Oh yes, the geeks went to yet another science museum! This one was really great! The robots behind
The robots behind Jake were atually dancing!
This is Century Park, it was huge!
What a crazy skyline! No wonder Shanghai is called 'The architects playground'!

The famous GIANT Jin Mao tower!

This is the famous Yu Yuen Gardens.

It is very beautiful and actually really big! Pearls and jade are very cheap in China, and here is the place to buy them!
This is the predicted model for Shanghai in 2010, pretty bug huh!
This is just one of the monstrous shopping malls!

This is the famous Nanjing Road, which is filled with shops and restaurants. A very busy place day and night.

This is the bottom of the Pearl Tower, covered in lanterns!

This is me half way up the tower!
This is the view half way up.

This is the tower from the bottom!

Well, Jake and I ended up staying 3 weeks in Shanghai as Katie Simmonds, very kindly, gave us her fantastic apartment for free! So instead of writing a mammoth lengthy account of each day, I will just highlight the good bits.
Shanghai is an enormous city with a population of over 20million people, (the whole of the UK has about 50million!), but it is an amazing mix of West and East.
Now, what you have to remember is that Jake and I have been living in the middle of no-where in a backward town with only McDonalds as Western culture. Just imagine our surprise when we stumble upon Starbucks and Pizza Express! There was no stopping us, each meal was a treat and we filled up on French and Italian food as much as we could. Not to mention real draught beer and nice wine! It really was 3 weeks of fun and paradise. This city is well worth a visit and I hope to be living there someday.

I have already put some pictures up of the riverfront of the stunning architecture and lights. The waterfront actually has some very old English looking buildings, I believe that Shanghai was actually a French colony for a while, so some of the stunning architecture has remained. However, this is still a developing city with great plans for the future. Whilst Hong Kong’s skyline was a full range of lights and buildings, Shanghai is relatively sparse in comparison.

Now, shopping in Shanghai, wow, what an experience. There is a mall called “The Super Brand Mall” which is like a giant labyrinth of shops, western and eastern. However, these were out of our price range, so we headed to the markets. Nothing I can write will describe the size of these clothing markets. Miles and miles and rows of shops all with cheap clothing, shoes and accessories. It goes without saying we had trouble packing our bag on the way home.

On our first night, we went up the Pearl of the Orient TV tower. This is the large structure that looks like a spaceship. The views from the top of the tower were amazing! At 100yuen a ticket it is expensive, but definitely worth a visit! We also (later in our trip) went up the Jin Mao tower, which is the 5th tallest building in the world. It’s also expensive, but the bar at the top, Cloud 9, was comfortable and had great views.

Shanghai is well known for its great nightlife. Jake and I visited quite a few of the popular spots only to feel like we had walked into a busy London street full of loud Westerners and trendy bars. It made me realize that I don’t miss it at all, and we were both embarrassed to be English as a group of fat girls got up into the table and danced and shouted at the whole bar how drunk they were…we left. However, there are other nice nightlife spots. We found great pub like bars on the backstreets and made many friends chatting to others. Maybe I’m just getting old.

Jake and I both realized the benefit of learning to speak Chinese while we were in Shanghai. While there are plenty of places designed for Westerners, pricey and full of louts, we were able to wonder a little further into actual China and go to restaurants and bars that had no foreigners present. We made friends by chatting in our limited Chinese and found some great, ridiculously cheap and seriously yummy places to eat. It’s well worth exploring beyond the tourist places and discovering real China.

Day 2: After going to one of the most boring museums in the world, we met some nice Chinese people and went for a tea ceremony.
This was a chance to see traditional tea making and try some good quality stuff! It also cost us a fortune!
Back to the riverside and we ealked along the famous "Bund" area. This is a random boat with a huge tv on the side!
Across the river is an area which is developing rapidly and has some of the most interesting designs of buildings.
The tallest, (the one with the spheres) is called the Pearl of the Orient.

Ok, here is the beginning of the greatly anticipated Shanghai write up. Jake and I ended up staying there for three weeks, so I’ll just tell you the highlights!
We decided to go there by train, which took 18 hours!!

So when we finally arrived in out nice hotel, we were glad to see a huge bed!
On the first night, we wondered up to the waterfront to look at the impressive lights. The Aurora building actually has a giant TV on the front! It was crazy!
This is people's square, well, a little bit of it. The space age building is infact a relvoving restaurant!
Shanghai is famous for its incredible architecture, after a day, our necks really hurt from looking up all the time!