Holiday in Shanghai

Friday was a lazy day - I was a bit tired from the train journey, so I took it pretty quietly until my old mate Kane got home from work. We just wandered up the road to his local 'bar lane' where there is a bunch of restaurants and bars, for a meal and a quiet drink... I should've known not to go out 'for a quiet one' but I did fall asleep very quickly when we did stagger in after 2am.. It was great to let go and relax - the most relaxed I've felt for a while.
Needless to say, after so little drinking practise for so long, Saturday was also a quiet day. We played with the kids and took it easy.
Sunday took my overseas 'cultural' trip to another level in that there was a spare ticket to go to the 3rd Shanghai Formula One Grand-prix. When in one of the populated and busiest cities in the world, why not push your anxieties about being in noisy, crowded places to the limits by going to the Grand Prix?!
It was a pretty interesting experience and I'm glad I've seen one, but I don't think I'll be rushing back. The Chinese organisers haven't quite got the logistics worked out, in that we had to fight to get some real food, and drinks of any sort were sold out in our section within 30 minutes into the race. The pollution in Shanghai is pretty bad and by the end of the day my eyes were sore and I felt pretty 'dirty' from the smog. The experience of driving home in Shanghai traffic made me understand why Ex-pats employ a driver to take them anywhere.
Kane is going to Nanjing for work tomorrow for a couple of nights so I will head along too. Nanjing used to be the capital of China, before the capital was moved to Beijing in the Ming dynasty, so I think that I have to go and check it out. It will be strange for me to switch back to 'backpacker' mode for a couple of nights before heading back to Shanghai for some more ex-pat living.