Tuesday 23 October – Today we travelled by Bullet Train from Beijing to Shanghai, a distance of 819 miles.  The Bullet Train travels at 217 mph but you get no feeling of going that fast and it is very smooth ride. There is a limited stop train that only takes 4 hours 28 minutes but we could not get seats on this so went on the train that stops in more places and this took 5 hours 40 minutes.

On Chinese trains you can travel 2nd class, first class or business Class.  We splashed out on three Business Class Seats.  This is like being in first class on an aeroplane.  Very large posh seats that go down into totally flat beds, they even provide a blanket if you want one and there is loads of room as there are only 16 seats in a carriage.

Amazingly there was a cleaner on the train and she spent the whole journey walking up and down, emptying bins, cleaning sinks and toilets, even mopping the floor between carriages!!

On arrival in Shanghai we were taken to our Airbnb Apartment.  This is on the 18th floor of a high rise block of  apartments with great views over the centre of Shanghai.  Its a lot larger and better accommodation than what we had in Beijing.

Across the road is a large shopping mall in which there is a Tesco Supermarket but it is now called Vangaurd as Texco pulled out of China, but locals still call it Tesco. One of the more interesting aspects of shopping in a Chinese supermarket is going to the fish counter and seeing live fish of various sorts, crabs and frogs swimming around in large tanks waiting to be sold to customers!!