Hangzhou is about 200 km from Shanghai. Population: 6 million. Looking through the van’s window, the scenery outside became increasingly rural, with crops and dilapidated buildings aplenty. Ironically, painted on the side of an old building, was ‘ISO9001’.

This morning my mother and I queued at the Shanghai Museum for ONE AND A HALF HOURS just to see a 5 metre-long, famous Chinese painting which was 900 years old.

In the morning, I went for my second cheong sam fitting. Then we went to No. 1 Department store, which was packed with locals. This was where the real shopping was done! There, I finally found something I liked – a classy leather bag to replace the free medical conference laptop carrier I’ve been using …

Suzhou was one of the cities covered in Marco Polo’s travels. It has a population of 1.5 million but 2500 years of history. It has the best gardens in China as well as silk. We visited two famous gardens as well as the No. 1 Silk Mill where we bought silk duvets and bedsheets. Silkworms …

We arrived at the new Pudong Airport which is impressive and efficient [note: see final day’s report]. The ride to the city, however, took over an hour.

Well folks, I’m leaving at dawn for Shanghai, China. The weather looks fine. I hear it’s tolerably cool and very windy with some rain, which means it will be very much like Bristol. I didn’t have time to complete all my applications today so I will send the remaining documents when I get back in …