For the past four days we couldn't access the blog from China so here is everything we did in China!! Last night we arrived in Cologne - Germany and we will be posting another entry tonight all about our first day here!
 
11 July 2016 - Shanghai

Today we arrived in Shanghai at 6:30 AM . During the flight we all tried to get some sleep but we weren't too successful which meant we were all tired today!! When we arrived, we took the Maglev train to the city centre. The Maglev is the fastest train in the world and can reach speeds of up to 500 kph, but it only went 300 kph for us. The photo attached is one we took out of the train window. During the day we went to see two of mum's customers with lunch in the middle.
Lunch was delicious!! We went to this authentic Chinese place and had a variety of different dishes including dumplings, pork meatballs and a chicken chilli dish.

At the end of the day we went to our apartment that we will be staying in for the next 3 nights and it is so cute!! It is in a very old part of Shanghai, down a little alleyway and it is tiny! For dinner we went to an organic salad bar called Sproutworks which had delicious salads and meat.

What surprised me about Shanghai is that the whole city isn't all modern and flashy, most of it is quite run down . But it is still an amazing place and it is very busy!! Tomorrow we are going to the National History Museum which will be so cool!!

From Isabelle

12 July 2016 - Shanghai

 This morning we went to Fu Xing Park and did some Tai chi and dancing which was really funny. Then we went to the supermarket and did a cooking demonstration in the VIP club at city supa. We made an apple tart and apple tea and apple cole slaw. It was really YUM! Next we went for lunch in a Japanese restaurant. We had rice, noodles and dumplings. After the cooking demonstration finished we went to the Natural History Museum with Jackie's wife and two sons - Maggie, William and Za'an. I really liked the safari exhibit (the walk through Africa) with all the african animals. I also liked all the dinosaur skeletons - some of them were real! The museum was really fun and I Ioved it. 
For dinner that day Jackie took us out with his family to a modern Chinese restaurant . The view was spectacular - it looked over the river that splits Shanghai into East and West Shanghai. When it got darker, all the lights on the buildings were turned on and Shanghai looked amazing. One item we had for dinner was a big loaf of bread and the inside was all cut up in squares, with two scoops of ice cream on top. The ice cream soaked into the bread and it was delicious!! We also saw the second tallest building in the world and the largest outside screen in the world.

From Jed

 13 July 2016 - Shanghai

Today mum was working so we hung out with Jackie's family. First we walked along the Bund which is a walkway along the riverside. We took some photos of the 'cityscape' which included Pearl Tower.
We also went to a temple that had a lot of cheap chinese shops inside. Inside the temple there was a big pond that had millions of fish in it and also a few turtles. Then we went inside the Yu gardens in the temple . The gardens were amazing and the designs of the temple was so intricate.

In the afternoon we went to another temple but instead of a tourist one it was an actual temple were people prayed. They pray by burning the end of a handful of sticks and then saying their wish/prayer.

That night we went to the circus which was my highlight of Shanghai. It was an acrobat circus and there were many different acts including girls on bicycles. They did some amazing stunts and at one time there was seven girls on one bicycle all balancing on each other!! Another act was there was a giant metal sphere and motorbikes were riding around inside it - really fast!! They had eight bikes in there at once at the end!! It was quite scary because it looked like they were going to crash.

Tomorrow we are leaving Shanghai and going to Cologne - in Germany.

From Isabelle