People, people everywhere!!

Dear diary ...So we survived another trip with Possum to the airport and caught our flight to Shanghai. Shanghai had a very diferent feel - it is bigger faster and there are alot more people than we have seen in any other place in China/the world!!!We have been lucky to have stayed our 10 days in Shanghai with Li in his living room - a huge saving on the bank account which when you are travelling is very much appreciated! It's always nice to hang out with kiwis and get some local city insight.As most of you will know the world expo is on here and it has taken over the city. There are posters, signs, gardens and vehicles all plastered with expo info. The locals are a but sick of it but it was an awesome opportunity for us! We splashed out and got a 3 day pass each and on this we managed to cover 32 exhibitions! The queues were long, not many foreigners and we got stared at alot but gosh it was worth it. There was lots of info about how each country is aiming to become greener. How they will produce energy in the future and how this will affect their country. The rest seemed to be all warm and fluffy to get you excited to travel to or live in their country - it certainly worked for us and we are now trying to work out how to fit some extra places into our itinerary!The pavillions were huge with the whole expo being over 5km squared, needless to say we did alot of walking in the twelve hours we spent there each day! Each country told their story differently with anything from revolving 360degree movies and gondola rides to food, art, coffee and at the nz pavillion a kauri log carving in action.The rest of our time was spent at the textile, glasses and fake markets! It is amazing what you can buy and get made in a short space of time! We are fitted out for our wedding! Let's hope we like it all when we get home in a year since it was too heavy to carry we have posted it all!!On our last day we also managed to sneak up to the 54th floor of the hyatt in Pudong to check out the skyline - incredible!! (we were hanging out with people turning up to an Audi convention - we don't think they noticed us in our sneakers with backpacks!)That is all from Shanghai - have just arrived in Beijing via bullet train so will write more soon.McduffMichele & Tristan