Shanghai: Two degrees of separation!

Number One ( a short one)

Our waitress at M on the Bund was born in Minlaton!!!


Number Two ( requires a little more consideration)

We were heading to Guilin and Yangshuo after Shanghai on a 24hr train journey ( which Mandy is dying to blog about) and had booked accommodation in Guilin but not Yangshuo where we planned to be for about 7 days. We had 3 places we wanted to stay in....they all sounded great and had come highly recommended. I kept telling Mandy that we didn't need to book, that we would get a cheaper price if we just rocked up. She, however, was insistent, so I rang....all 3 were booked out.....you can imagine the consequences!!! To my defence, I didn't know the "Gravesweeping Festival" was on, or that it was holiday time for the International Schools around China.

Anyways, Mandy had booked a cooking class in a village called Chao Long run by an Aussie woman and we confirmed via email and also asked her if she could recommend any accommodation. She booked us into the "Outside Inn" in the village, a guesthouse run by a Swiss lady called Nadine and her Brit husband Mike. We had not heard of it but were grateful for her help.

That night we went to Franck's French Bistro and had to wait for a table, so we went next door into a wine bar, ordered some delicious Chinese wine ( yes Chinese wine can be delicious) and Mandy started chatting to the only other customer, an Indonesian gentleman called Wen. He was living in Lijiang (in the North and was in Shanghai for business). Over the course of a few drinks we discussed the "Gravesweeping Festival" and how it had mucked up our plans and he said "hang on, I have some friends who run a guesthouse in Yangshuo, I will ring them".............and you guessed it.......Wen's friends were Nadine and Mike.

This bizarre coincidence of course demanded another bottle of red wine, which was so good Wen bought another for us to take to Yangshuo to give to Nadine and Mike as a present, accompanied by a letter suggesting they must look after us!!!

Come on! In a city of 12 million people how scary was that!