Sick

God I feel rough. I feel like I spent the night drinking until 4pm. My head is full of cold and I feel dizzyL. And if that wasn’t bad enough, this morning I woke up to this…..

Hopefully it will go by tomorrow as my tour has already been delayed one day because of the rain.  I am kind of ready to go home so I’m glad I didn’t book 2 weeks. Though, it has been nice not to have to wear earplugs in order to have a peaceful night’s sleep.

Update: Just popped out to take night pictures of Shanghai. I am so homesick! Hate everyone!!!! Going back to bed…….

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

I’m sick…… the cold that has been creeping up on me for weeks has finally decided to pop up. I feel it’s only to get worse -_- I’m a bad sick person as I mentioned before as I feel sorry for myself and I want no-one near me.

Well it’s only popped up in the last hour so today I was fine and I went to do tourist stuff like take photos and buy gifts (for myself mwhahahaha).

So I slept in today (though my body naturally woke up at 8am god dammit!) I left my hotel and walked to ‘the Bund’. Big mistake in my new sandals! Oh how they rubbed!! I have two blisters to show for it. So I took photos at the bund and took photos for people in exchange for taking mine. Though they didn’t mention my hair looked like something out of ‘There’s something about Mary’.

Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai

I caught the subway back to my hotel (one stop) due to blisters and I the fact that I forgot to put sun cream on. After getting changed (I have never sweat so much! I am sweating from places I didn’t know you could sweat from!) I went to ‘Old town’. I have never got so lost. I was looking at my ipod (thank you lonely planet eBook maps) and nothing was where it was supposed to be. I couldn’t even find the bloody tourist centre. I did happen to just come across 3 places I was looking for by chance. The first was maybe ‘old street…’ , the second was Yu’yuan gardens and the third was a traditional tea shop/café.

Tea house

Old town

I brought so much in old street. I am dreading looking at my bank statement….. It was so busy but in a good way.

In the afternoon I went to Shanghai museum. Some girl wanted to take a picture with me which was weird, so I declined. Instead I offered to take a picture of her and her friends together. I am feeling very big headed here. I have been told three times now that I look twenty! Mwhahaha. In Korean people can tell my age but here I am young. I am seriously considering moving here now haha. Plus no one seems as obsessed with beauty here as they are in Korea. Women seem more relaxed.

I came back to the hotel and decided to treat myself to a foot massage. I even got a foot scrub and they got rid of all the dead skin on the soles of my feet (poor guy though I think he punished me during the massage). The massage was a fiver and the scrub was 2 quid. I will be back for more….

Dinner was awkward as I was the only one in the hotel restaurant. How late to people eat?! It was nearly 6pm!!!!!

Now going to eat chocolate to make myself feel better.

Off to Shanghai....

On Wednesday, I had to travel to Shanghai. I left my hotel really early as I wasn’t sure how long I need to be there before and how confusing the train station would be. Initially Beijing South railway station was confusing but after finding what they called the ‘waiting area’, which actually is where you catch your train, it was easy.

The train is supposed to go 350km an hour, but because of recent accidents involving high speed trains in China, the government has issued safety checks and the train could only go to around 300 km an hour (I’m going to put some of the journey on youtube in the next few days). Catching the train was easier than I expected and it was a direct journey. There was even a direct exit to the front of my hotel at the station.

I had booked a corner room at the park hotel as it was at a discount rate. The park hotel is quite an old hotel compared the modern hotels surrounding it so it comes  across with a 1930s Shanghai feel (just like in the movies). It used to be the tallest building in Shanghai in the 1920s or 30s.

I had only eaten 2 oreos all day by this point and it was 4.30pm so I decided to look up this fried dumpling place I had read on lonely planet as it was close.  When it said 5.5yuan (50p) for a dumpling I thought it meant one and I thought it was cheap so I ordered two. It turned out it was one set so I ended up with 8 big dumplings (I could only eat 4). I’m sure the person who took my order thought I was a pig.

I ended up having a bath (yay!) and watching Alvin and the chipmunks: The sequel………don’t judge me…….

China

I've finally gathered the courage and booked my flights to China. I don't mind travelling alone but it's the overnight night trains I am worried about. I get paranoid easily and I feel like everyone is going to rob me. I will end up sleeping with one eye open and have to wear sunglasses to cover my panda eyes throughout the trip!

Anyways, the plan is 4 days in Beijing, 2 in Xian and 3 in Shanghai. I can't wait! I have always wanted to see the Great wall!! It's on my list of things I want to do before I die (It's a long list). ^^