At least, it would be lovely to think that. It would be lovely to say that I've been saving up everything from the last three days so that I can give you a long, informative and humorous update. That I've been so busy being interesting and adventurous that I just didn't have time to update you.

The truth is ... I've been lazy.

I spent my last day in Shanghai (the 13th) killing time. Literally. All day. I checked out of my hostel (had to hand in my bedsheets at the desk - there was a first. I hope the leg-biting-critter eats them all) and went to find breakfast as usual. Unfortunately I felt extremely sick all of a sudden, and had to spend a large portion of my morning in a shopping centre toilet. At the time, I didn't appreciate how lucky I had been to find one that had western toilets and paper so I could sit and blow my nose and dry my eyes, but a while later I thought I'd be sick again, and I ran for the nearest bathroom, but it was the more regular manky squats with no paper.

I had planned to go to the Shanghai Museum (I had heard you can spend most of a day in there), but I really wasn't up to admiring jade Buddhas and ming vases and such like, and I ended up in Madame Tussuad's instead, where I had the much more enjoyable experience of meeting Barack Obama and taking my own photo with Albert Einstein . Afterwards, my ticket also let me into The Dark Maze (Shanghai's "Terror of Horrids", as my darling younger brother called Chamber of Horrors in London when he was knee high to a duck). It was quite entertaining, as myself, two boys and several squealing young couples were required wear 3D glasses and to hold onto a rope and drag each other through whatever was to come. I ended up being the head of the second rope and my magic glasses fell off so I had to hold them with my other hand, which meant that I had no way of defending myself against the raging maniacs in the Insane Asylum or the shockingly quick reflexes of the Glow in the Dark Axe Murderer. My only recourse was to pull everyone on the rope as hard as I could, which ended up in our line being toppled all over the floor and far more susceptible to whatever gruesome death the lunatic had in mind.

We made it out alive, and I stole most of a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom, and hid it in my bag. The museum was located on the tenth floor of an enormous shopping centre, so I spent a while waiting for the popular glass fronted elevators (I had come up by several escalators to avoid the queue at the Madam Tussuad's lift). When it came, I took it up to the twelfth floor first, for the craic, then all the way back down to one (stopping at every single level along the way). I spent a few minutes going in circles around the jewellery stalls before I found my way back out onto Nanjing road, and then I sat on a bench and watched the world go by for half an hour . In Shanghai, the world repeats itself every two minutes.

1) a taxi blows its horn and everyone else copies it
2) a traffic warden blows his whistle and all the foreign people cross the road (the Chinese and Irish go whenever they like)
3) a hobo sticks his/her head in a bin and takes all the plastic bottles
4) an office worker sits down for a cigarette, takes one puff, then spends the rest of his two minute break on his mobile
5) a gaggle of teenagers gambol around, every one of them on their mobiles and talking to each other at the same time
6) repeat 1-5.

I didn't feel like eating for the rest of the day, being sick and all, so I sat in Starbucks for a while and wrote about how much I hated the food, and "Bercrombie and Fitch" and "Nckia" knockoffs, and semi-transparent ankle socks and sandals on middle aged women, and spitting in the street, and all the other hundred and one annoyances and difficulties a foreigner finds in China. I wasn't in a good mood. I went into a few more shopping centres, just to ride the escalators, then I sat in the street and watched the neon lights all turn on, and was very stubborn and covered my face every time someone tried to take a picture of me.

Eventually it was 7pm and time to head back to the hostel to collect my backpack. The subway seemed to be excruciatingly slow. So was the girl in the hostel . I started to get worried that I'd miss my train to Beijing. I didn't need to change subway on the way to Shanghai Station and because my hostel was located directly opposite the station on the circle line, it was 13 stops either way, so I could just take the first subway that came. I got on and got a seat, but I nearly had a panic attack the whole way. There were two men opposite me, large and knackery, and they were talking loudly and laughing broadly and everyone else seemed slightly nervous of them. I had no idea what they were saying, or what kind of people they were, so I was twice as wary. Beside them was a grandmother, a grandaunt, a mother and a little boy. The women were all speaking at top volume to each other and the little boy started shouting "Dola! Dola!" over and over and over again. I was clutching my backpack tighter and tighter. Sweat was condensing on my forehead. Just beyond that family was an old man from the country with two large bundles, sitting on the floor. His daughter was with him, and since he was deaf, they were also both roaring at each other . Occasionally, he'd spit a gob of phlegm on the floor of the train.

It was with great relief that we all bid farewell to the knacker men about six stops in, and the loud family and 'Dola!' child shortly after that (I asked Ying and she said 'Dola' means "we've arrived" or something similar). The old man was obviously taking a train somewhere, but it wasn't mine, thank goodness. When we arrived, I walked miles and miles through the underground to the Station South Entrance (I knew I had come in from there when I came from Beijing, simply because that's the way I was facing on the map), hoping with every heavy step and sloping floor that I was going the right way and that no one would turn me and my tonne weight backpack around to the North Entrance.

Happily, they didn't, and it wasn't even hard to find my waiting room, though I asked a guard, just to be sure. You just have to follow the train number on the neon sign and the room number beside it, and when it's ready to board, they flash up a platform number too . The other important numbers are your carriage and bed, and since they're the only thing left on your ticket besides departure time, they're also pretty easy to find. I was in carriage 9, bed 3, with a similar combination of passengers to last time, except I was the first one in this time. I made friends with the government missionary across from me and the two students up at the top went to sleep. I watched my iPod a while, slept erratically again, and woke at 5am. We didn't arrive in Beijing until after 7, so I listened to an audiobook and rested on the hard, beady pillow.

Ying had advised me, in her long suffering paranoia about my safety, to take a taxi to her house from the train station, but the queue for taxis was about a mile long, eight people deep and taxi-less. The queue for the subway was similar in size, but at least it was moving, so I got a ticket and joined that one. People were jumping it the whole time, which was extremely aggravating to my refined western sensibilities, but I was tired and concentrating on watching my shoulder bag, and carrying my backpack with my feet, since I didn't trust the changing sea of people behind me . The unfortunate thing was that it was 8am and morning rush hour. When I finally got in and x-rayed my bags and put them all on again, Line 1 was reasonably roomy. When I changed to Line 5, however, it was a completely different sort of hell. I was thick though, and the first one at my door, so I shoved myself and my backpack in anyway, and made a pushy young yuppie get back out and wait for the next train. I had to stand for the 9 stops, holding my shoulder bag with one arm and my backpack with the other hand, so by the time I finally made it to Ying's apartment, I couldn't unlock my arms from something resembling a karate "ready" stance. I showered and collapsed into bed for a few hours.

That was Monday, and I didn't do much else, besides go north and hunt down a Carrefour in Tiantongyuan South. I found it, but it only stocked Chinese food, or Chinese versions of western products, so the only food I actually recognised was Whiskas. I got a few supplies, however and made it back to Huixinxijie Nankou (which I may have told you earlier was Huixinxijie Beikou, but it's not, actually), where Ying informed me that Tiantongyuan is basically Beijing's equivalent of Castleknock or Drumcondra . I ate Tuc and President Cheese, some chocolate chip biscuits, and a few eclairs I'd saved from Marks & Spencers in Shanghai. Yum.

I woke late on Tuesday and moped about the house for a while, wondering how I ever got myself into this situation and what on earth I thought I was doing. I checked my email and found one from Belinda Bi, my Yangtze Cruise organiser, telling me that the dock for my cruise departure had been changed at short notice. I had received it on Monday evening, when I was supposed to be on board. If there was some way I could work this to my advantage, it would be brilliant. Ying had told me yesterday that there was a western food shop in Wangfujing somewhere, so I googled and discovered that the elusive subway station from a week ago was located IN a shopping centre. I finally persuaded myself to leave the house and ended up right beside the shop when I emerged from the subway. Joy! I nearly cried when I saw a pack of skittles.

Wolfing down some sugary coke bottles and gulping an oddly neon orange Fanta, I walked along the shopping centre for a while . It's all posh clothes and sunglasses shops, and even my western-ness couldn't disguise the fact that I wasn't fit to purchase anything in here. I left and wandered up and down Wangfujing for a little while. Maybe it was all the sugar, but I decided I was brave enough to face into a markety type place off a side street. The first half was all interesting foods and smells, but it slowly devolved into knick-knacks, knock-offs and knackers.

"Lady soov-near, look look!"
"Lady you like? Whachoo wan?"
"Lady see, soov-near, iPod?"
"Lady, look, shop!"

Lady was tired and hungry, so she went and found a Pizza Hut. There is nothing as surprisingly and pleasantly classy as a Pizza Hut in China. I had the exact same combination as I had in Shanghai (creamy mushroom and chicken soup and a personal pizza with everything on top - which I took most of off), and left feeling warm, full and satisfied. I did a bit of knick-knack shopping in a souvenir shop, but it's incredibly difficult to buy a Chinese flag in China . No where seems to stock them. Also, you don't generally walk around with your basket of stuff and change your mind about what you have and pay when you're done. Someone always swipes what you're looking at off you, persuades you that you need more, then gives you a little receipt and sends you off to find the cashier. In a little shop, this is generally easy enough, but in a mall or a department store it can be disconcerting and difficult, and end up with you walking in circles for half a day, before deciding that your didn't actually really need seven little light-up cars that roll around the ground and right themselves when they hit something.

I made it home after rush hour, quite pleased with my minor accomplishments for the day. To top it off, I killed two cockroaches and one ant in the kitchen (they get in despite Ying and my fastidious tidiness), and flushed them down the toilet with a great feeling of self-empowerment. I also killed two little crawly things this morning. One was in my toilet bag and another was under my backpack, so at least the war on Chinese insects is going quite well, however the rest of the world may be faring.

It's morning here (well, by my standards) and I don't intend to do anything interesting AT ALL today, besides reading my book, watching some TV and maybe visiting a Lama Temple. Which, as I discovered to my shame in third year in college, is a temple for people, not South American wooly animals.