Dear Bertie

I hope you and your friends are well.

I’ve been in Beijing for three months but my time here will soon come to an end- I’m leaving tomorrow! I’ve seen a lot of the sights in Beijing but it would have been a shame if I hadn’t made the effort to see another place while I was in China. So, I decided to make the effort and took a train to Shanghai.

Shanghai is a very big city and with a population of over 24 million people, it’s the biggest city in China. It’s also far away from Beijing; it’s more than 1000km away. Given that I’m working and only have two days off a week, you’d think it would be difficult to get there and back in such a short period of time.

As it happens, China has some very fast trains. The high-speed rail links between Beijing and Shanghai are incredible. I was able to get there in around four and a half hours, travelling at speeds of up to 348 kmph! That’s really fast!

I got to Shanghai very late in the evening and took a taxi to the backpacker’s hostel I was staying at. I had one and a half days to explore the city before going back to Beijing so I made the most of my time by seeing as much as I could.

I’ve made two videos about my stay in Shanghai and you can watch them here:

What did you think? Interesting, right?

I hope you were paying attention to the facts in the video as I’ve made a board game with some quiz questions about my trip to Shanghai. Click here to download the worksheet: Shanghai board game

You will have to ask someone to print it for you:

1. Each player needs a counter placed on the Start position.
2. The answers at the bottom of the page should be covered for the duration of the game. Answers can be checked afterwards.
3. Each game requires a dice. The dice is rolled and the player moves accordingly. A coin could substitute dice with heads moving 1 space and tails moving 3 spaces.
4. The aim of the game is for players to move from Start to Finish.
5. Each player moves incrementally around the board answering the questions as they go. If a player lands on Go forward 2 spaces or Go back 5 spaces, they are expected to follow the command.
6. The first player to reach the Finish position is declared the winner.