Wednesday 28th

The last day and a final early start for our 07:30 taxi to the maglev train station. These were one of the delights on offer at breakfast this morning.  Neither of us partook.

I am super-super-excited about taking the maglev train to the airport for our 11:00 flight.  It takes 8 minutes to travelling at a speed of 380 km/h.

You don’t feel as if you are going a lot faster than the bullet train though it is a much smoother ride than I expected.  I loved it and at only £4.60 one-way if you are flying the same day.   

I wasn’t expecting artwork like this in the airport.

Tried to finish this last post at the airport but ran out of time so uploading back at home on Thursday morning.

Some final thoughts on China - in no particular order:

• There are steps EVERYWHERE
•  We never saw a single piece of graffiti
• The driving is crazy and I'm surprised we never saw an accident
• Very hot and dry in the north; hot and very humid in the south
• In restaurants, Chinese people order a LOT of food and leave lots uneaten
• Public toilets are plentiful though often not great
• You see a lot of men with long nails on their thumb or little finger or both
• Chines people are LOUD and often sound as if they're arguing
• Very hard to find really cold beer
• Chinese officials come across as very rude - actually, they're just very rude
• Like Spain you see a lot of partially complete construction
• Speaking or texting on your mobile phone while driving appears to be compulsory
• German cars in abundance
• There's often a slight smell of sewage - even in Shanghai
• Taxis are cheap
• Internet speeds vary between not great and awful - remember your VPN
• Good food though not as good as Japan, Vietnam or Laos.  Better than Singapore
• Every lift we went into anywhere had CCTV
• Very good roads
• Great high-speed trains
• Our guides were much more open about criticizing the Chinese state than we thought they would be
• You get food on China Southern flights - thumbs up
• No tipping in restaurants - two thumbs up

A good time was had but China suffered, in our opinion,  as we were always comparing it to the other Asian countries we’ve been to and for us it's just not as good - at least the parts we visited.

So with that, again, it’s goodnight from me and it's goodnight from him.

谢谢你，晚安