So when I came back from my lovely Christmas /  New Years holiday, I was whisked off to China for a week to enjoy the long flight time, airplane food, and ability to get the runs just by drinking water.

As I flew into Shanghai I remembered my last china trip a few years ago, and marveled at the pollution. Not to say that it isn’t the fault of the fat cats in developed countries.

When we landed we were whisked off to Hangzhou for a 2 hour drive to bring the total travel time to 15 hours. We were put up in a lovely hotel which was next to a lake. I managed to get a few nice photos of the sunset and the surrounding area.

So for 3 days we had meetings with a Chinese company, so I didn’t get to see anything. However on our last night we got to stay in Shanghai. We arrived around 2pm and walked downtown to a ‘copy market’ where there was all sorts of dodgy things that could be bought for extremely cheap prices… If you could bargain them down enough.

During the walk, there were many “interesting” vehicles, however I decided this one was my favourite. (A lady on a 3 wheeled bike that is covered in boxes).

There was also a Salvador Dali sculpture, which was rather cool.

Once we were in the market, which was more like a rundown department store, we were berated to by everything from Calvin Klein undies to Rolex watches. And as I was being ushered into doors that opened behind shelves inside cupboards, I decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to take photos.

When we got back, we dropped off our ‘legal merchandise’ at the Hilton ( 24th floor ), and went out for a nice dinner in a American pub… Kinda weird, but had nice food.

The next morning we had to wake up at 5am to get catch the flight, so all in all it was an interesting trip.

Rob.