Ni hao Ningbo

As arranged, we were picked up at 5.45 by Mr Lim (one of Mr Mok's cronies). Two things here. The first is we had to miss a Prince Hotel breakfast (I'll stop mentioning it now) and I have never actually met the Taxi Godfather (Mr Mok). I am beginning to wonder if he actually exists and is instead a mythical creature. Or maybe it's an acronym: 'Man Of Kuala'?

We arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in good time and then proceeded to use the self service booth to generate our boarding passes before checking in our luggage, and then jumping on the monorail to the departure gates, which are located away from the terminal. All very efficient and calmly organised.

KLIA is an modern and very impressive airport. Much like Dubai, it has some very up market shops and the inevitable Starbucks. A coffee and one of the largest pain au chocolat I've ever seen followed.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH388 (a little too close for comfort) transported us north west to Shanghai Pudong Airport. It was a pretty uneventful flight, which is fine by me, and we landed through the now familiar haze that hangs around this area. In fact, the air has a certain industrial quality about it and a metallic 'taste', which is noticeable as soon as you step off the plane.

We soon navigated immigration control and customs, and were met by Mr Mok's Chinese cousin who took us at breakneck speed from Shanghai to Ningbo. It's about 130 miles and much of the time we were travelling at 150 km/h.He also displayed some mad (and, Lou, I mean that in the old sense of the word) lane hopping skills. So much so, that I was utterly confused as to which was the slow lane and which was fast.

After circumnavigating around Shanghai for some considerable time (it's a very big place), passing the now familiar rice paddies, polytunnels and new developments en route, we reached the bridge that crosses Hangzhou Bay. That's 22 miles and the bridge halved the journey time from Shanghai to Ningbo when it opened in 2007. Just to prove this, I've included a photo of the sat nav which clearly shows water, and the sat nav never lies.

After two and a half hours we arrived at the Teckon Ciel Hotel and checked in at the very ornate reception desk. The rooms are much the same as last year but are located away from the busy junction (I imagine you get used to the backdrop of car horns).

The rooms have mod cons but connecting to the wired and wireless networks has been challenging to say the least (as you may gather from the pic below). I had to enlist the help of reception to get connected to wired and have still to get hooked up to the wireless network. And the instructions did not reflect what you had to do to connect, which is all part of the experience - now there's a lesson for us all.

Within 90 minutes of arriving, Chris and I (although Chris mainly) got involved in an MI relating to the China website, which followed us to a traditional Chinese hostelry (O'Reilly's) where we sampled typical Chinese food and drink (pizza and Guinness/Carlsburg). A 20-minute taxi ride returned us to the hotel after the bewitching hour (well, it was Saturday night) for £1.80.