They think it's all over

…but it isn't quite yet. The bullet train from Ningbo to Shanghai is booked as is the overnight stay close to the People's Square, which is located in the centre of Shanghai. The experience of both will be a fitting close to a fascinating and (from a work and visitor perspective) successful and hugely rewarding experience.

One of the many features we've noticed is the lack of bars. There are plenty of restaurants but very few bars. It appears that it's not part of the traditional culture and perhaps explains the moth balls beer in the only bar we could locate in the area close to the hotel.

To address this, Harry recommended yesterday that we visit an area called Lauwaitan, but this being a city of several million people, it required a taxi ride. Harry provided a post-it with Lauwaitan written in Chinese without which it would have been very difficult. The journey took almost 30 minutes and cost £2.

The area of Lauwaitan has a wide selection of bars and we managed to pull in Shamrock and a Belgian bar. Apparently, Shamrock was the first and since then, and in only a short period of time (change seems to happen very fast in China but that's hardly news), a number of bars have joined the throng. Talking of throng, the bars became very full as the evening wore on and also provided a glimpse of those strange and alien creatures known as ‘Australians’. But most importantly of all, we were re-acquainted with Tiger beer and also managed to track down Tsingtao.

Today was a day to complete the training during the morning and then setup access to Supportworks this afternoon. All seems well and Daniel (my opposite number in Ningbo) and I worked through the first call before lunch. And talking of lunch (of course),  we tried out one of the student canteens (students at UNNC spend the entire duration of their course living in campus accommodation and none provides self-catering facilities for health and safety reasons). The hot meals ranged from 8 to 12 RMB (80p to £1.20) and were pretty good.

This evening we were treated to what can only be described as a banquet in a shopping mall called InCity which has recently opened and has about 50 places to eat over several floors. Our hosts were Harry, Michael, Baker and Sherrie who were great company and I've dropped in a couple of photos below. We passed on fish heads, bullfrog and chicken feet (real and apparently very crunchy) but the only 'unusual' dish we were prepared to try (duck tongue) was off the menu. Suffice to say, it wasn't expensive! And then back to Lauwaitan for a beer (only the one) in the Shamrock bar before speeding back (and trying not to look) via a taxi to the hotel.

The conversations were just fascinating. From the distance Ningbo is from the home cities of Michael and Baker (up to 3000km), the many Chinese dialects (including Ningbo's own), the Royal Family (sorry Charles but you came in for a bit of stick), football (the World Cup is big in China even though they didn’t qualify and David Beckham is revered here) the clampdown on Google due to the 25-year anniversary of Tiananmen Square (and it’s an offence to mention the square that must not be named in public places – I said it once but I think I got away with it; just a minute, there’s someone at the door).

I now need to pack my bag as we check out in the morning before leaving for Shanghai. The scale of Shanghai is mind boggling: the population is 34 million and the population of Shanghai and Beijing (@ 30 million) combined exceeds that of the entire UK. I’m sure Chris and I can see all there is to see in half a day though.

This time tomorrow: Shanghai. And them homeward.