The internet's been depressingly slow and it's almost impossible to email anyone. We did try, though! Then we took a bus to the subway shop for brunch and walked back through the side streets and took some photos. It was warm enough for me not to need my jacket, which was a novelty! Oh, how easily we forget! While we were wandering the streets and not hearing too much spitting, we saw more wonderful little neighbourhoods. At one open window sat a bamboo birdcage with a canary in it. We decided to have a look at the museum from yesterday and walked (and walked and walked) for several miles until we found the site. Which wasn't the place we were looking for. A man came out of a building and handed us a card to tell us that the Chinese Sex Culture Museum had moved out of town and was probably at least 20 miles away. We weren't interested enough to track it down!

We took a train to the People's Square and discovered a doughnut shop. It's considered very bad form just to walk past a doughnut shop and we weren't wanting to upset the locals so we had a couple (each) and then went into the square. Which was a bit of a park and a bit of a concrete paved area and some trees and lights and bowls and a funny-looking museum. We walked through the park and into the concrete square and sat on cubes with lights in them and enjoyed the sunshine. At exactly 3pm the fountain around which we were, unknowingly, sitting, began to fire jets of water into the air and some Chinese music rang out through the park. We watched a man swoop a kite in the shape of an eagle around people's heads, some Japanese tourists jump into the fountain for photos, a small girl in a pink dress dance to the music, and about fifty men in green army uniforms pose for pictures with one another before being bundled into a bus and driven off. An old man explained to Mikey that many countries spoke English, including New Zealand, and then trundled off. People tried to sell us things. I ate satsumas. It started to get a bit darker because the sun sank below the level of all the skyscrapers. We took a bus back to the hostel.

The bus was packed, and there was no room to move or breathe, and the driver liked the idea of seeing how fast he could approach the bus stop and screech to a halt, throwing everyone forward. A lot. Back at the hostel, we braced ourselves for the futility of the task and spent a while phoning our banks. Lloyds recently recinded my internet banking account because their memorable data wasn't memorable enough and told me to phone them, and Nationwide took 48 hours to respond to our urgent enquiries, saying they can't deal with them on the internet. So, in brief, at Lloyds, a Glaswegian lady with a cold told me that I couldn't reactivate my online account without going into my local branch, although she thought that with the right ID, a copy of the Power of Attorney my mum has for just such an occasion, and a letter from her, my mum might be able to do it on my behalf. Maybe. And Nationwide say that I won't be able to get cash with my credit card until Christmas, although I can withdraw the last ?0 if I want to. Which is nice. So joy all round, then. But I had a brainwave a bit later and thought that we could buy US dollar travellers' cheques at the Bank of China, using my credit card, which would last us for the next 5 weeks and can be refunded in the UK if we don't use them all. Even the internet seemed to agree with me.

Full of renewed hope, we set out for supper. Mikey even had a spring in his step, but then, he's an optimist and I'm really not. We discovered a shopping centre at the end of the road and saw that it had a restaurant in it. We went through the department store (and through the floor selling underwear and 'oppulent and vigorous' clothing) to the fifth floor, where someone led us into the restaurant. The menu was decidedly fishy, and there was a lot of sea cucumber available, which is supposed to be one of the most disgusting things in the world, like jellyfish and slugs, but we managed to avoid it and ordered something safe with beef and chillis (although we thought green peppers would be like green peppers, not green chilli peppers) and some pork dumplings in a bowl of soup. All very nice. Mikey made me drink some of his beer and I felt a little merry on the way home which isn't necessarily a good thing when traffic sees signals as optional effects.

Before I went to bed, I had a nice hot shower as the water had been cold this morning. And, after a while, I put the plug in the bath and thought that I could have a bath, instead. After about 15 minutes of sitting in an inch of water, Mikey asked why I didn't use the tap, like normal people. I explained that it didn't work, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here, cold, but he turned the tap and nice hot water filled the bath in about three minutes. So I read for a while, and snuggled into my duvet and slept well.