China - How Shiny Can Deck Shoes Get?

So there was Ollie, in Shanghai! Last time I'd seen him he'd been about to leave for India, and me for Korea...and now we were in China, shows how plans change eh. But Ollie hadn't changed at all...except for the brown deck shoes he was now sporting. So after catching up and knocking back some cheap beers we headed for bed....we had Qibao in the morning.

Qibao is a small canal town, over 1000 years old. And on this day, it was packed. Maybe it's because it was a National Holiday, maybe it's just because it was China. Even so, it was lovely.

What was odd, was that all these hundreds of people had come to visit the town, but 95% of them stayed within a few lanes in the centre....step outside of the crazy lanes and there was a whole town to discover. The surrounding town was all painted green, and in the backstreets were tables of people betting wads of cash on games and knocking back beer. This was the poorest area we visited, but the people were the friendliest. And of course, there was lots more meat on coat-hangers.

We dropped into another Taoist temple, ate some spicy noodle soup (which Lexi was sure was pigs blood, I chose to ignore, and then ate hers) and then headed home for a nap, a hotpot and more cheap beers. Aaaah the life.

We got up super early to get a bus to Zhujiajao, left late, misjudged the distance, ran a long way, missed the bus, sweated a lot, stressed out, then realised we could just jump on the next bus. Excellent. Zhujiajao is a water town outside of Shanghai, which has canals instead of roads. Kind of like a small Venice. And it was stunning.

So we did the best thing to do when wanting to enjoy the scenery - find some tables in the sun, drink beer and play cards....and, um....get your deck shoes polished.

That night was more cheap beers, more hotpot, more cards games.....I could spend more time here! But alas, tomorrow was our last day. My friend had suggested a local Bird, Fish, Insect & Flower Market and I thought that sounded intruiging. Might be able to smuggle back a beetle or two. Trouble is, no-one knew where it was. The hostel had a vague idea it was down a main road, but we shouldn't have worried.....we heard the birds tweeting a mile off.

I'm not sure if these animals were for pets or for food (I suspect a bit of both), and the cages were definatly too small for some of these animals (especially the cats and dogs)....so we found ourselves walking from cage to cage giving water to the animals and even trying to buy pet food for some of the skinnier felines. Even so, the market was fascinating. The animals were in pretty good spirits, which suggested they weren't mistreated, so we wandered around trying to talk above the squeeks and squawks, and buying whatever dusty gems we could find. I bought a bone for some reason.

Our Shanghai time was running out so we headed down to the meeting place of the first ever Communist Party of China. You weren't allowed to take photos. I didn't notice. I got screamed at in Chinese and thought the guard was either going to explode or break my camera.....but I got this pitcure....mwoahaha.

It shows the original plan for the Communist Party....which is such a good plan. But we later saw that most of the delegates at this meeting were later expelled from the Party, sent to prison, or murdered. A flaw in the plan I think when the founders are killed by the followers.

So time was up! Only one thing left to do. Knock back cocktails in the French Concession, head home, don't eat dinner, drink more, and more, get a stupidly small amount of sleep, get up at 5am to go to the airport and then sit clutching a sick bag for the whole of the flight home. Seems strangely familiar.....

So goodbye China! Until next time. And goodbye Ollie. Until we meet again...who knows where that will be, but that's the exciting part ;-)