Shanghai

The first evening in Shanghai was all about the skyline. Today was about everything else.

We started the morning with a proper Chinese breakfast before heading to the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum. This was one of the reasons we picked Shanghai as the start of the holiday. Robots, AI, space exhibits, interactive displays... enough technology to keep both the kids and me entertained for hours. The children probably learned a thing or two about science. I mostly admired the engineering behind everything and secretly wished I still had some of those gadgets back home.

A quick coffee stop at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery followed. I know... travelling all the way to China to visit a Starbucks sounds ridiculous. But this isn't your average coffee shop. It's more like a coffee museum with beans flying through transparent pipes across the ceiling, giant roasting machines and enough caffeine to power a small city. Even if you don't drink coffee, it's worth walking through once.

The afternoon was a complete change of scenery. We swapped futuristic Shanghai for Yu Garden and the surrounding Old Town. After spending the morning surrounded by robots and glass skyscrapers, it was nice to slow down and wander through traditional pavilions, koi ponds, stone bridges and lantern-filled streets. It almost felt like we'd travelled to a different country without leaving the city.

The nearby market was exactly what we'd hoped for. Street food, tea shops, strange-looking snacks that the kids were surprisingly willing to try, and enough souvenir shops to convince us we needed things we'd somehow managed to live without until now.

We finished the day at Jing'an Temple, squeezed between modern office buildings as if Shanghai wanted to remind us one last time that old and new happily coexist here.

Two days in, we'd already discovered that Shanghai isn't just a city of impressive skylines. It's equally about ancient gardens hidden between skyscrapers, technology sitting comfortably alongside centuries-old traditions, and food... lots and lots of food.

Tomorrow we swap hotels for something considerably bigger... our home for the next five nights floats.