About 45 minutes outside Lisbon lies the beautiful hilltop village of Sintra, the former summer residence of Portugese royalty and now a UNESCO World Heritage sight, decribed by Lord Byron as "in every aspect the most delightful village in Europe". It's the perfect daytrip according to the guidebook so with two days in Lisbon still to enjoy, we take a train from the grand station at Rossio and venture out of the city confines to explore.

Lisbon is stunning; what a glorious city to spend a few days in. Its quirky restaurants, beautiful plazas, charming neighbourhoods and terrifying taxi drivers are all seared in the memory. But it didn't start auspiciously. I blame the Night Nurse!!

Ah, the joys of being European!! Today is Eurovision and our taxi driver seems to be trying to get us in the mood by pumping out cheesy Euro-pop as we drive from Lisbon airport to our hotel. Singalonga nonsense soon turns into 'Touch Me' by Sam Fox to Coman's huge delight, followed by 'It Doesn't Have To Be This Way' by the Blow Monkeys. What decade have we landed in?!

There's no faster way to travel on land than Shanghai's Maglev train to the airport. Reaching 431km an hour it speeds you from Longyang train station to the international airport in just eight minutes, the fastest form of ground transport on earth. However we've been warned traffic to the station could be horrendous due to rush hour so give ourselves plenty of time to get the Maglev. Far, far too much in fact.

Come back Hangzhou, all is forgiven! Your strange deserted hotel and eerie unexpected silence are what I need right now. Outside my poky, slightly smelly hotel room are at least four women shouting at each other. It's 6.30am and I've been asleep just four hours. I presume there's some altercation going on, but then comes what sounds like laughter, followed by more shouted arguing.

I don't know whether it's insomina, jetlag or just the general state of Chinese television but they don't half have a world of weird on in the early hours of the morning. Disturbed and unwell from a mixture of exhaustion and last night's dinner I end up awake and flicking through 70 channels of sheer insanity including histrionic soaps, non stop adverts, a synchronised JCB digger 'ballet' and relentless light entertainment including China's Got Talent which has a British Chinese Girl who yodels to mass applause and a pageant involving the Queen and Prince Philip.

Four and a half hours of comatose unconsciousness come to an end with my alarm hammering away. I drag heavy limbs from my indescribably comfortable bed and slowly pull the curtains wide to reveal a lake below my window and grey skies above, pelting rain upon the earth with grim delight. What joy!

It's almost twelve hours later that we touch down at Pudong airport in Shanghai. Sleep has eluded all three of us but as rough as we feel, we're nothing compared to the girl sat at the other end of my row.

Mon 14th May: Ever had that sinking feeling, the heart-stopping realisation that a cock up of quite monumental proportions has happened? Of course you have. It's the cold-sweat time, the head-tightening moment of fear we've all experienced. And as I sit on the Heathrow Express gliding into London with Monday morning rain hitting the windows of the train, leafing through the Shanghai guidebook I bought a few days ago, that sensation hits me fair and square.

One of the curses of getting older is that jetlag seems to get worse with each passing year. The first time I came to New York almost 14 years ago I barely noticed the time difference. Now it screws my sleep patterns to death. So 3.36am and my eyes open, 4.12am I'm still awake and 5.48am I finally give up and decide I may as well jump in the shower.

I've been up for hours before there's any sign of Liz or Simon. Their epic night of Cuban smoke and Scottish malts has put paid to any idea of an early morning stroll through the city, so I fill my time with breakfast, a bit of work and updating my blog.

It's hard to tell whether it was the free booze at the art gallery or the rum cocktails Simon forced upon me but the way I feel at 5am is really quite soul-destroying. Manfully I battle through and manage a few hours work before breakfast, each tap on the laptop keyboard screaming in my fragile head like nails on a blackboard.

Here comes the rain again, its nightmarish rhythm drumming on the roof like a bad dream – which is exactly what I'm having when I wake with a jolt at 4.38am, thinking I've left all my belongings in the back of a taxi while I stand abandoned in some crazy Chinese city. Amazing what the brain can do...