Part of a series of posts detailing my adventures in China exactly one year ago (give or take a day or two!)

Extract from my journal:
Thursday 8th to Friday 9th March 2007

Not as much to say about the last couple of days. There’s a feeling of tiredness setting in, of the end being near, and people’s patience is just that bit thinner by now. But happily it hasn’t produced any real arguments or division, and we’ve been able to enjoy a somewhat quieter time yesterday in Wuhan and today in Wuhan and then Shanghai.

Yesterday Jessica took charge to give Greg some time off. We went to a Buddhist restaurant which sells vegetarian meals that look and taste uncannily like meat. We went up a pagoda, got a ferry across the Yangzi, lost Holly and Laura when they got off the ferry a stop early, went to the Hankou colonial quarter, were reunited with Holly and Laura, looked round the shops, got delicious dumpling and took taxis back to the hotel.

This morning we visited a couple of historical sites, but were a bit tired to appreciate them. We did a little more shopping, and went to a fast food restaurant, Chinese-style, before heading to the airport to catch our flight to Shanghai.

It was rather strange to arrive in Shanghai a second time, returning to the same hotel (indeed, many of us to the same rooms). We went back to the restaurant where we went on our first night. We share a bittersweet feeling of being sad that the trip is almost over and that we must return to the ordinary routine of work, and looking forward to the pleasures of home and friends and familiarity.