I could eat myself stupid here – and that’s without leaving an airconditioned mall. There’s fresh squeezed sugar cane juice next to gorgeous sashimi and shiny dumplings and bubble tea and cheesecake shops then barbeque duck and dim sum ……

Shanghai will now feature on my top ten cities list. It gorgeous and fascinating and characterful and cosmopolitan. Perfect blue skies*. I love it.
*We were here for the hottest days since the 1800’s. They closed subway stations because they were too crowded – by people looking for aircon. Instead, they opened the suburban underground air raid shelters for children and elderly. Creepy. Hot.

We went to the museum which was fantastic – we could have spent hours there. And a cheesey silk factory that the kids loved. They got to play with silk worms and cocoons and feel every step of the process. Yu Gardens – which is like ‘old-china-disneyland’. Exquisite architecture housing tourist utopia. I was tempted by tiny crispy birds on a stick, more xiang long bao, and weird Turkish icecream being pounded with a big wooden mallet which I hadn’t seen since I was in Turkey. Obscure.

We’ve been to the Bund, (Bund, James Bund – as Jack has now said 2000 times) taken photos of Pudong, wandered Nanjing Rd … but it’s insanely hot. People don’t come out until after 8.30pm and then there are (literally) millions of people out on the streets.