[March 27, 2007]

Sunday I left the apartment at about 4pm and just rode my bike around and around until about 9:30. I had a vague plan to go along Huaihai Lu to buy the stuff I still don’t have for my apartment (plates, wine glasses, food that isn’t fun-sized Snickers), and also to stick it to the man since you’re not supposed to ride a bike down Huaihai Lu. I didn’t buy anything useful, but I did manage to bike along several miles of that main road, past several police cars, without being fined or shot.  

A Chinglish sign
Just what I’m looking for! 

WoAiZhongGuo left a comment about Shanghai being crap to ride around, and I see his point now. If you stuck to the traffic restrictions it would be really hard to get around the city, and when I was having a quick butty break, I saw 3 or 4 suckers being fined for biking where they shouldn’t so they do enforce the law. The guys at work tell me that my beautiful white face will never get stopped by the cops, and the fine is only between 10 and 20RMB (just over 1 pound) anyway so for the time being I’ll continue being a rebel. 

Speaking of comments, here’s one from Andrew G:

‘Something about China from the pics is slightly off — perhaps it’s the color scheme . It is even slightly depressing. Or slightly suffocating. “Smells” like chemicals.’

Well Andrew G- I think this is the kind of photo you mean:

Under the overpass
Under an overpass, South-East Puxi. There was  weird mist hanging over the city all Sunday. 

Taking increasingly random streets I headed East and South and soon bumped into a big Photography shopping centre where I bought a book of photos from China in the 1940s. There aren’t so many Red Guards administering random beatings on the streets as there was back then, but the laundry and fish hung out to dry over the streets is still here, and there’s a great photo of a drunken western guy grabbing a Chinese girl’s arse in a bar which could have been taken last Friday night [I’ll steal it and put it up here later on].

By the time the sun went down I was about as close to the river as you can get around that area and found myself at an outdoor market. There were woks blazing, live chickens having their breasts’ pinched, women (but never men) wandering around in their flannel teddy-bear pyjamas, and scores of very busy little hair-dressing and foot-massage places. Everyone likes a bit of a trim and a rub down on Sunday night apparently.

Insert wok pun here

I bought a massive bag of popcorn (2RMB), put it in the front basket where I could reach in and eat it without crashing, then rolled through the streets watching the goings on like a film.