Arrived in Hangzhou!

Yep, we're in Hangzhou, all right!
Well, we can't say we've seen a lot of the city since we actually arrived around 6pm, it was already nearly dark and then it took us more than two hours to find a hotel with rooms available.
Yes, we didn't book ahead and sincerely regret it now. We are again in a Motel 168, which is actually a pretty good chain of affordable hotels, but the one of Hangzhou is really far from the city center... So we're already thinking of moving to another hotel tomorrow.
Ok, at least we have internet in the room so I just post this little message and will try to update some pictures.
Tonight, we had a nice dinner in a nearby restaurant:
-Water chestnuts with green chilis and bacon
-Chili beef
-Vegetable Spring Rolls
and some herbs we have no idea about their names.
We also had 2 local ''beers'' which were very rightfully called ''LIGHT'' beers...
They're the first beers i ever drank that have actually even less than 2 degrees of alcohol!
It really felt like bubbly water but was kind refresing, it's called XIHU, (west lake), in case you're interested.
OK, now I have to keep searching for another hotel so I'll leave you for now!
Stay tuned!
ORELena

Shanghai3

Yesterday was a day basically spent arranging the rest of our holidays. We bought tickets to go to Hangzhou (Zhejiang), that is suposed to be a beautiful city not very far from Shanghai.
Then we changed hotel, this one doesn't have internet unfortunately, and then we decided to treat ourselves and go eat some real good food.
We started with a really good and unexpensive Japanese restaurant (Ebi Sushi) and then in the evening we walked along Nanjing Lu all the way to the Bund... That was all extremely crowded and that gave us a real taste of the Shanghai we had imagined. Crowded streets full of huge neon signs, advertising screens, restaurants, bars, shopping malls and things like that.
This morning, we'll leave the hotel and then go take a train for Hangzhou at 2pm.
We'll try to post something from there but of course it all depends on us finding a hotel with an internet connection.
Have anice day!
ORELena

Shanghai Museum

Well, I've just lost a looong message I had written about yesterday and our visit to the great and very modern Shanghai Museum, so I am really upset and I won't write it all again right now.
What I said was basically that:
-Shanghai Historical Museum is very well arranged, classy and very well lit.
-The collections are rich and interesting with plenty of explanations in english.
-You can have a look at their website:
http://www.shanghaimuseum.net/en/index.asp
-Chinese school kids visiting the museum were a real pain. They're spoilt, noisy, rude and nobody ever dare say anything to them. They used the museum as a crazy playground.
-We visited the Old Town and the Antiquaries market.
Amazing contrasts, nearly destroyed houses and poverty being juxtaposed to the skyline of the skyscrapers...Pretty impressive.
-Last night we went to Xintiendi, a really popular block with all the fashionable bars, restaurants and shops for foreigners and chinese who have too much money in their pockets. Pretty and fun but a little too expensive for our wallets.
-We don't know what we'll be doing today, nor where we'll be going but will probably stay in Shangai another day because we havent booked tickets yet.
Ok, see you soon!
ORElena
PS: I just got Segolene Royal's letter to the French Abroad and it's definitely more touching than the one Sarkozy sent some days ago.
And she even talks about ecology!
Crossing fingers 'till sunday...