It's hot. Hot is an understatement. Most of this week the days have had minimums of 27-29 and maximums of 36-39. The heat's not the thing that's getting us down though, it's the humidity. We've had to change the way we approach what we're doing, which means less extended walking, and more frequent trips to air conditioned shopping malls just to cool down. Even though the actual temperature's been 36+, the apparent temperature, with the humidity, is about 43 degrees, and the other day it got to 40 with an apparent temperature of 45.

Enough of the whingeing though, we've been having an interesting time so far. The hostel we're in is quite nice, nice staff, clean rooms, free breakfast (yayyy!). However, the area we're in, basically as soon as we're out of the hostel....well....it's a hole. Good thing the train's so close, we've been out of the area every day to find something worth seeing.

Went to the Pearl tower for dinner at the revolving restaurant just above the observation deck. Great view, but it was a huge mistake to go on a Saturday night. Queues like you wouldn't believe, and wait times for lifts going up and then going back down again. The whole difference in personal space expectations has gotten to both of us a bit. I don't like being squeezed up next to people when it's already 30ish degrees inside.

While we were at the Pearl tower, we got grabbed by a random Chinese couple who asked us whether we could take a photo. Fine fine, no problem. Oh....you mean you want to be IN the photo with us? Oh...okay? Random, very random. So I returned the request just so that I could get a record of it. If you know either Yen Hao or his lovely girlfriend, please let them know that they're strange.

More to report soon, we have to run a program to get around the great firewall of China, facebook etc is blocked over here because of the race riots in Urumqi. According to the media over here, everything is fine and the economy's improving, people are buying cars, shops are re-opening etc etc. It's amazing to watch the news sometimes.

Something that has struck us has been the fever about the total solar eclipse that happened earlier this morning. We had no idea it was happening until maybe the day after we arrived in Shanghai, but it seems that every tourist we've met so far is here to see it. We didn't go nuts for it like the others, but we took a walk to an open area to watch it. It's cloudy and raining today, with a much more bearable temperature of 30ish, which is lovely, but meant that we didn't see the sun at all, and weren't sure where to look. Seeing the daylight disappear in a matter of minutes and the dark of midnight set in at 9.30 in the morning was something else though, and despite not being sure where to look, it was dramatic and amazing. I can understand why people in years gone by took solar and lunar eclipses to be omens or signs, it was full on.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Suzhou on an arranged tour with some people from Switzerland. We went to some gardens, a temple and (my personal highlight of the trip) the Number 1 silk factory in Suzhou, where I bought some lovely lovely silk clothes. After shopping and lunch, we had a boat trip along one of the canals in Suzhou, and that was a nice break from the intense heat of the day.

On Monday we went out to the Dong Tai antiques market, picked up a copy of Mao's little red book from 1929, and a fan for fending off the heat. Went to Cybermart and did a bit of haggling for a couple of things. Then had lunch at Xintiandi (French Concession Area) at a place called Paradise, where the waitresses lured us in with "Welcome to Paradise!".

Overall, we're having a great time, heat notwithstanding. Looking forward to going out today, because it's actually weather I can stand, and I was starting to miss the rain!

We're going to Xintiandi today again for lunch, then to Cybermart for some more shopping, then we'll have a leisurely walk along Nanjing Rd, have hot pot for dinner, and check out the bright lights of Shanghai.

Photos of Suzhou and the stages of darkness for the eclipse are coming.

Below are some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23928007@N04/sets/72157621771109360/