The Last Crusade

After the mouse incident mentioned at the end of the last blog, I managed to pull some David Jewish magic. I complained and said that Katie was incredibly upset by the ordeal, crying into her pillow, although she was surprisingly cheerful, all things considered. I even threw in some BS that I like to write online reviews of all the hostels I stay in… So I blagged us a free upgrade, a discount for the remaining night we were staying, free breakfast and some beers. Considering the lack of sleep the previous night, I thought I did pretty well.
I would like to add that yes, I was very cheerful and this had a lot to do with Dave's reaction when the mouse made its presence known...he made a noise that was somewhere between a squeal and a yelp. It was hilarious. As was the fact that the mouse had clearly been munching on our leftover train snacks while we were out getting dinner, as evident by half eaten biscuits and scattering of droppings. I later had to empty Dave's entire bag, shake everything to check for poo, and then refold and repack it (he was too scared to in case there was another mouse hiding in the clothes!).

What else did we do in Shanghai? Not a lot to be honest, we saw the Bund once more and did a lot of shopping. The discounts and freebies at the hostel actually came in very useful because I spent a lot more money on shopping than I had planned for and ended up 

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150 over budget - whoops! We also saw a very interesting store-front on the "Oxford Street" of Shanghai.

And we saw the cleanest thing in the entire country!

We did have time for one more trip, at the end of our holiday - this time to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a town 45 minutes away from Shanghai on the world’s fastest train. This train reached speeds of 353 km/h – a record for the holiday!

New Record! WOOOOOO!!

The town is a popular Chinese tourist destination as it has a magnificent lake, which attracts large numbers of mosquitoes. Unfortunately for about the first time this holiday, the weather was not great and it was a bit overcast, spoiling some good views.
It was also unfortunate that I forgot to take the Jungle Juice (aka Dave repellent) and as a result I left with some horrible bites. From the mosquitoes, not Dave. 

A Spoiled Polluted View

We did, however, have a tour guide - Matt - who Katie knew from back home.
Big shout out to the Hinckley Massive!
He showed us around all day, which was great of him, and took us to a fantastic restaurant to finish off our trip.
We were down to our last pennies so asked Matt to recommend somewhere cheap. And boy, did he deliver. We ate more food than in the rest of the holiday combined! And it may have been one of our cheapest meals in China. Nice one Binns.
Thanks a lot for the day Matt – it was great fun and we really appreciate the effort.

And so here we are at the end of our holiday...I think the best way to summarise our trip to China is to compare it to an underground rave. It involved a long queue to get into the main attractions and the place was rammo, containing way too many people for health and safety to be happy. People were constantly barging into you and you were never quite sure that the police weren’t about to swoop in and arrest everyone. It was an amazing experience and it seemed to go on forever but by the end of it all, we were very tired and felt like a long hot shower was needed to get all the dirt off.

All in all China felt polluted, dirty and in need of a makeover. It was great fun but I don’t think either of us would like to live there. The people weren’t as friendly as Koreans and it was a right ball ache trying to buy anything, as the haggling aspect, although fun, just gets tiring. The sights were amazing, with the highlights being the Terracotta Army, the Summer Palace and the Bund.
How the hell can you forget to mention The Wall?! Dave you are a disgrace. This was my favourite bit of the trip and I want to go back!!!

Would we recommend China? Hells yes. But be prepared, because it feels less like a holiday and more like an overcrowded adventure...with lots of delicious food along the way...

China - Shanghai Edition

On Sunday, we returned from our holiday to China and we haven’t looked back… until now! The next few blogs will try and summate our 15 night epic adventure. So sit back, relax and fasten your seatbelts because as with most holidays - ours started with a flight.

Shanghai is two hours from Busan and I have to say that I do not like two hour flights. I feel like they are a waste. Not because of the CO2 but the fact that you end up spending more time in an airport than you actually do on a plane. I feel cheated. I paid for a flight, not to sit in an airport lounge that could be any airport lounge in the world. Anyway after taking off, we got our meal, then were landing before I had finished chewing.

We travelled to Shanghai centre on the Maglev – the world’s fastest train. It didn’t reach its max speed however, but wikipedia assures me that the line is the fastest line in the world. We got as high as 301 km/h and it took 8 minutes to travel the 30 km. Please calculate the average speed and write it in the comments (show working).

Upon arriving in Shanghai proper, the first strange thing I noticed were the x-ray machines in the subway. Subways are pretty much the same everywhere but imagine people in Brixton putting their bags through the scanner? Yeah right! How about Brooklyn? No way girlfriend!

We carried our very heavy bags to Blue Mountain hostel in East Nanjing where we would be spending our first night in Shanghai. We were greeted by a sign saying there would be no running water from 8am to 8pm the following day because they were doing their yearly clean of the septic tank for the whole building… Dave immediately started worrying about where he would do his morning poo.

I was immediately worried about where I would do my morning poo. But apart from the lack of running water, the hostel was comfortable, clean, reasonably priced (20 pounds for a double room) with free wifi and a good atmosphere in the bar / lounge / beach party area. After we dropped our bags in the room, the friendly and helpful staff pointed us in the right direction to buy train tickets.

After an ordeal involving communication problems and me mistaking a woman for a man (not the first time :o), we booked a high speed train to Beijing for the following evening. With the most difficult part (or so we thought) of the holiday dealt with (booking trains in China gets everyone as confused as my great aunt with Alzheimer’s), we could finally relax.

We then had our first proper meal in China. We ordered a beef dish, which arrived after 10 minutes and was stone warm. We also ordered chicken / bones which came 15 minutes after the beef, and was followed 10 minutes later by the rice. Food in China arrives like buses should arrive in the UK – every 10 to 15 mins, not like buses actually arrive in the UK – all at once. 


I know a few of you reading this will be shocked and appalled at the lack of detail in Dave's description of that meal, but fear not! I will be satisfying all of your curiosity soon enough with my very own feature, dedicated entirely to the Grossman-esque rambling ponderfication, descriptifation, regurgitation and photographation of the many culinary delights we enjoyed over the two weeks. So stay tuned! 

We then went to the Bund and took some (50+ more like, with his new camera!) standard touristy but still impressive photos. The Bund really was a sight to behold, like Halle Berry’s breasts in Swordfish – magnificent, bold, not a let down, and added some colour to the evening. We snacked on our first meat on stick (more bones) and some aubergine on stick. The food was served by a good looking twenty-something man whose shop was 0.5 m2.
He looked as though he might jump out from behind his grill at any second and beat the crap (artistically of course) out of a bunch of troublesome triad members! It was brilliant...in my head.

Back in the hostel, we got drunk and bumped into a couple we know from Busan. It took all of 12 hours to randomly meet someone we know (we’re sooooo popular!) I had bet Dave on the flight over that we would meet someone we knew within the first 3 days of our trip...I'm still waiting to get the McDonalds bulgogi burger he owes me...now that is a tasty burger!

The next day we went to the French Concession, which is basically a French / European style area. We had lunch there and I dived into a taste of home – fish and chips. It was incredible, the fish batter melted in my mouth like a kitkat in your pocket.
I, of course, had spag bol and it was deliciously garlicy and cheesy...mmm!

And before we knew it, we were on our train to Beijing – Subway sandwich in hand, ready for our 5 hour train journey (820 miles). As I draft this post in my notebook we are travelling through a storm and lightning has just struck the ground about 300m away. I am worried I might need to use this notepad to clean my pants so if you’re reading this, appreciate the effort and grossness involved with recovering this rambling mess. 


I was asleep as Dave didn't wake me to see the storm...he just revelled in telling me about it once I woke up, 5 minutes after we had passed through it. Needless to stay the stormy atmosphere didn't leave the train for a couple more hours!

Shanghai - Beijing - Faster than the Maglev