ISpyShanghai

Stag do: fantastic, Wedding: incredible.

I’m in Ireland now following the nuptials where I’ve rented a cottage with a few friends to see in the New Year. This is the first time I’ve had access to a computer, and even with all my technical know-how I can’t manage to wizard the photos across from my memory stick to the interweb.

Basically then you’ll just have to wait until around  January 3rd when I get back to Shanghai (on the second I’m flying Belfast -> Manchester -> Dubai -> Shanghai,  should be fun).

By then I’ll have endless photos of me dressed up in a gold waistcoat dancing with every single person at the wedding, sweeping landscapes of the lochs and boats of coastal Donnegal, blurred images of lots of lads drinking too much around York, and hopefully some lovely pictures of my new sister-in-law looking beautiful in her wedding dress.

It’s been quite a holiday so far.

Well after a long journey where my flight, underground train, and then train were all delayed I made it back to the Creegan family home at about 10pm UK time last night.

There’s a nip in the air here in Doncaster and I can understand everything people are saying which is a bit odd. Not much time to get used to that though because in a few hours I’m heading to York to start my brother’s Stag do (Bachelor party). I’m best man so I’ve been organising stuff for this for weeks and weeks.

Should be some good photos from it, he has to wear this- oh you’ll see later…

If you can’t read it, click it.

Ho ho ho!

So I’m at the Supermarket, laden down with shopping and the assistant came over to help me by putting some beer in the basket.”Which one do you want?” she asked me.

And in that moment, I saw a sudden blinding flash and an idea came to me

“All of them”

“All of them?”

“Yes, one of that one, one of that one, one of that one…“.

“Hmm. Oi 张明! You’d better bring a basket. This bald foreigner’s an alcoholic“

See, a few weeks ago- me and Craig had been talking about doing a taste test. Beer in the supermarket is stupidly cheap, 3 or 4 RMB for a can or bottle of domestic beer, the same for Japanese and a couple of foreign brands. Before I came here, I’d never tried any Chinese beer other than TsingTao and I always just assume that’s the best one, but never really sat down and compared what was out there.

Clearly, it was time for a taste test.

So that we weren’t influenced by the eye-catching designs of the cans, or prejudice towards any particular brand, we used paper cups separated into three groups (one for each person). We wrote the names of the different beers on the bottom of the cup, poured some of that beer in, then mixed ‘em up.Simple enough really, but it took a pHd scientist and two Maths graduates about forty minutes to work that out.

To get the results we added up our individual rankings (1-7) and whoever got the lowest score won.

Matthew “Corky” Corcoran. Australian lightweight / beer sipper

The Results
(in reverse order)

Last Place- Reeb
The only beer made in Shanghai, Reeb has a bad reputation, and with good bloody reason.

Meakin “It tastes like….weak beer”

Me “No flavour whatsoever”

Matt “I’d like it better if it had no flavour, tastes terrible”.

6th place- Bud
Cheap, American, freely available- it’s the Christina Aguilera of beer. Didn’t fair well against the locals.

Matt- “I’m so proud that I picked this as my number 7″

Me- “Hangin”

Meakin “(Who placed it as his number 3) It’s alright actually. I’m a boney fidey Yankee!”

5th Place- Premium Suntory

The premium offering from Suntory placed lower than the regular stuff. Some poor sod at this Japanese brewer will have to perform ritual suicide when they read this.

Meakin- “(Who placed it as his number 7) Tastes chemically- I think that board marker is leaking through the paper cups…I’d better finish it off quick.”

4th Place- Tsingtao
The old standby, available at every restaurant I’ve been to, and probably some of the ones I haven’t.

Meakin- “I think Matt’s got tainted cups.”

Matt- “It doesn’t taste of anything”
Me- “That’s beause you’re only drinking the froth off the top, get it down you- you shirker!”

3rd - Asahi
Japanese beer, popular because of the cool silver can, and apparently also because it tastes pretty good.

Meakin- “(Placing it fifth)Hoppy. I don’t actually know what that means, I’ve just heard people say it. Anyway this one tastes fucking shit”

Me- “Well at least it actually tastes of something. That’ll do for me”

2nd - Suntory
It’s got a dragon on the can and a rocket in its pocket.

Matt (delighted to have shown some consistency by voting two Japanese beers as his top 2)- “Fucking Nihon!”

1st - Harbin
Cheap and nasty looking beer from the frozen wastelands of the north where they talk like pirates. This was the big surprise of the night.

Me- “Really nice is that”

Matt- “It’s the new Tsingtao!”

Me- “It’s the new black!”

Meakin “Is there any more Bud left?”

Meakin struggles to keep his mind on the task at hand

So there you have it, the unfashionable, bargain basement brew Harbin wins out when the lights are off.
It just goes to show, something or other.

Harbin Ale- Available at all good Chinese bicycle repair shops and the occasional Supermarket. Cheap.

In Westgate Mall right now (that’s the one just east of Citic Square on Nanjing Road shopping centre fans) Panasonic have a big demonstration of their massage chairs all set out.

If you imagine me in this chair, with a little drool coming out of my mouth- well that’s how it looked.
I was in there the other day buying fabulous gifts for Emma (OK OK, trying on ear-rings) when I saw tired shoppers sitting in these things, kicking off their shoes and generally making an exhibition of themselves. My initial thought was that these people had no shame, parading their socks in public for everyone to see, but then I figured what the hell, you’re only hungover 3 times a week- and tried one out.

Mercy mercy, mercy me- as soon as I turned the thing on it began to grip my legs in a leather upholstered hug, and emit waves of pleasure up and down my spine. For 20 minutes I lay in that chair, ignoring the stares of other shoppers and the requests from the demonstration staff to keep my voice down.

From the brochure- can your chair do soft shiatsu?

Basically if this thing could cook Lemon Meringue pie, I’d be looking into some kind of civil ceremony, and me and Mrs Comfortizer 95011 (with heated seat option) would be very, very happy together.

There are plenty of things I see in China that I can imagine taking off in the UK: paying bills via ATM, traffic lights that count down to tell you how long it will be until the lights change, widepsread government corruption- but one thing I don’t expect to be washing up on the shores of Blighty any time soon are Crispy Chicken Biscuits.

The main reason I can’t see them taking off is that the name sounds horrible.
I like biscuits, I love chicken, (crispiness I can take or leave), but some things should not be brought together. I mean, Chimpanzee tea parties are fun, and smear tests aren’t- but having them both in the same place is a recipe for disaster.

Things get no better when you try one either, they taste like bits of gingerbread that’ve been coughed up by a Cocker Spaniel.

Thumbs DOWN.

For the last one or two years I’ve made a calendar at Christmas. Photography is in my top three hobbies (others: binge drinking, teasing shrimp) so by the end of the year I tend to have 12 shots that I think would look good in a calendar. Let’s face it, only my Mum looks at it, so the bar does not have to be set high.

Anyway, I’m rambling- the point is that whilst looking through my photos for this year’s effort I came across some of the first shots I took of Shanghai back in March 2006.

March 2006, from Science & Tech museum towards Lujiazui 

The way I came to Shanghai in the first place was that I was working in Seoul, South Korea at the airport there. I took a weekend trip across the (<insert name of sea or whatever here>) and had a look around Shanghai, loved the place, and decided it would be a place I’d love to live. My company won a contract at the new terminal here, I told anyone who would listen I’d be prepared to go, and bish-bash-bosh, here I am.

Before I made the big move though I came over for a month in March- partly to introduce myself to the customer, partly to work every hour Jah sent on whatever crisis we had at that time.

A park near the Four Seasons, just off Nanjing Xi Lu

Looking back at the photos I took then is strange. It seems like a really long time ago, and I remember how the city looked very strange; foreign, alien.

I’m sure Shanghai has changed a lot since then, but I’m guessing my view of it has changed more. Some things don’t change though, seems that even back in the mists of March 2006, manbags were all the rage on the streets of Shangers.

The Spring ‘06 collection

Have you heard of the game beer pong? It is apparently how Americans amuse themselves whilst waiting for Association Football to become popular. The idea is that you take a ping-pong table, put an array of cups at either edge, beer in the cups- then throw a ping-pong ball and try and get it in your opponents cup.

If you do, they drink the beer and throw the cup away- you keep going until one side loses all of their cups, or Football finally comes on the telly.

I was with Dr Meakin pHD (AKA popular internet commentator ‘dingle’) in a bar in the early hours when we first played this on Saturday. Our first couple of tries were all over the place with the ball thrown so badly that sometimes it didn’t even hit anything and just floated in mid-air. Eventually though we were on fire and ended up losing to some Canadian / Fillipino chaps by just one cup. By the time Beijing 2008 comes around, I think we’ll be ready for the big time.

All of this was after going to Rojam to see the DJ NuMark from the Jurassic 5. Apparently ColdCut were on first, but we were too busy taste-testing Mojiitos to get there in time for that (test results: Mojiitos make you drunk). NuMark was great though, when he tried to leave the booth at the end of his set, I kept shouting “One more!”, other people joined in, and he came back to do another 10 minutes. So, you know, that was nice.

Judging by the photos, we had a similar tactic with the bar staff.