Ferry to Shanghai

Getting from Japan to anywhere by plane is expensive, so we decided to go by boat.  Only 48 hours.

We were quite surprised when we got on the boat, it seemed a bit like a cruise ship, with a nice spiral staircase and a hostess to show us to our room (we'd been upgraded to a curious '1st class dorm').

The trip seemed to pass quite quickly once we'd learnt a new card game and read a couple of books we arrived in Shanghai, the last 3 hours had great views of river life in busy busy Shanghai, and the boat docks just on the edge of the Bund opposite the Pearl TV Tower.

We had some quite good food on the boat, and at reasonable (for Japan) prices.  Only downside is that you can only pay in Yen, so we had to decide beforehand how much we wanted to spend as we don't like changing money.

But for travelling on a budget going to or from Japan from China (particularly one way) we'd recommend the boat.