Wolves in Shanghai: Nathan Judah's tour diary - Days 1 & 2

We arrived in Austria with a lot of nerves under a new regime.

We thrived in Switzerland with the Premier League on the horizon.

And now we're massive in Shanghai ahead of a European adventure - the tour diary is BACK BABY!!

It may be our last pre-season tour as a duo, but this is going to be the biggest and best on record.

So much so that I used some of my air miles to bump the Spiersmeister into club class on our farewell adventure.

Great food, champagne on arrival, plenty of leg room and relaxing 12 hour direct flight to Shanghai.

And then someone let three West Ham supporters on board.

Now everyone likes a drink and a chat... But fast forward two hours and alcohol had been banned for everyone on the flight.

Think club 18-30 for three 50-year-olds related to Foghorn Leghorn (old school reference).

Anyway we made it in one piece and were greeted by China 'airport security' who led us to a taxi that was certainly not official.

A bit of bartering and we made it safely to our apartment for the next ten days.

Cue a hilarious exchange at arrival with the guy desperate for a tip, that we were never ever going to give him - but my oh my did he try his best!

Tim Spiers: This was a quite remarkable conversation. The driver spoke into his translator app, which came out with the question "may I have a tip?"

Cue two blank expressions from ourselves. Having paid quite a bit already for the one-hour journey, and with the feeling we'd already been fleeced, a tip was out of the question.

Anyway, the guy thought he was saying it wrong, so tried again...."can I have a tip"? Again, blank expressions. Another translation..."will you give me a tip?". And finally "give me 50RMB", to which we finally replaced "sorry we don't have any money" and quickly departed.

Despite being around a slightly ropey area... The pad is pretty sweet.

Kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a stunning view of Shanghai that looks like a scene from Blade Runner in the night sky.

After a mid-afternoon nap, our evening stroll took us to 'The Bund' with a stunning close-up view of the beautiful architecture on the waterfront - and boy is it impressive.

A heavy rain shower forced us to take cover while still on the hunt for food.

And I'm ashamed to say, our first proper meal in China was a turkey and cheese Subway on Honey Oat bread with peppers, olives and sweet onion dressing.

Hang your head Judah! I was feeling pretty dirty at this point and those of you who know me well understand that carbs at 10pm on a Saturday night is an absolute huge NO!

But I was soon back in my comfort zone as I took Spiers to the Walforf Astoria hotel to finish the evening with a couple of beers and some smooth jazz.

TS: I think you'll find it was myself who recommended the Astoria.

Clearly we were after a bit of Chinese culture on our first night. What could have been more fitting than a Subway followed by some New Orleans jazz music?!

'Judah, Judah, Judah, we've got to get up!' said a slightly flustered Spiers.

My phone charger node had decided to snap into my phone the previous night before, leaving me with zero charge and no alarm call.

'Is it 10am?' I enquired in a sleepy haze after we agreed with a 10am alarm call.

'Errrm not quite, it's 1.30pm!'

And that my friends is jet lag.

First port of call for Day two was to get a supermarket shop in - always necessary to get some base foods for the rest of the trip.

Tim had identified two Tesco's in the area, one being 15 minutes away - absolutely perfect!

So we walked and walked and walked... Surely it's been 15 mins?

Not only had Tim's GPS let him down, we'd gone in completely the wrong direction and were 25 minutes further away than we started.

But we were now determined to get to this store... Nothing was stopping Spiers getting his Pot Noodles in for the week.

And we finally made it, well sort of, kind of, actually not even a little bit.

The shop front was there, but it looked as if they had gone out of business and a quick Google search confirmed our worst fears!

After some more wrong turns we were actually pretty close to our apartment, time closing in on 4pm and nothing achieved.

But the day drastically improved after I sorted my charger problem and we came across another supermarket that had a lot of imported goods.

I have never paid £5 for a peach, £6 for a Greek yoghurt pot, £4 for rocket salad or £16 for one salmon steak... Until now.

TS: The thing I liked about this store is that, to Chinese people, the imported goods are probably a reflection on some of the finest foods the world has to offer.

In reality, you're paying £7 for a small chunk of bland, plain, rubbery, talentless cheddar.

Let's just say after getting the final invoice for our fast track visas and dropping close to £50 for half a bag of groceries, the expenses meeting with our lovely editor Mr Wright may be an interesting one!

Back to the apartment and thanks to our brilliant IT team in Wolverhampton, we managed to finally blast through the China firewall.

By this time the night was moving fast and we just had enough time to meet some of the Wolves media team at a sports bar to watch the closing stages of one of the greatest sporting moments I have ever witnessed.

It was quite surreal watching England on one screen, Federer/Nadal on the other while having a gin & tonic sat next to Steve Bull in Shanghai, China?!!

And what an incredible finish for England it was!! Just amazing!

But as the World Cup comes to a close, our little China adventure is just getting started.

Be sure to check back later this evening for Day 3. It's going to be a corker!