ISpyShanghai

I got my first photos back from the Seagull camera I bought a few weeks ago.

Using a special magic wide-angle lens (17mm!), here are some photos taken of Shanghainese people and a Shanghai built airport by a Shanghai camera with a Shanghai lens (by a bloke from Doncaster).

The mascot for the 2010 Expo, Haibo looks like a big dopey toothpaste advert.

Some of the lovely people who helped make this whole airport software thing happen

The outside of the terminal. Ain’t it pretty?

Li Jian Wei, one of the manager types on our team.

Maybe more words later, I’m off for lunch now.

One of the things I miss about the UK are the supermarkets. Great food, bakery section, they’ll develop your photos whilst you browse through the CDs and load up your trolley with cut price liquor.

It’s a great day out for all the family, and the king of the UK crop is Tesco’s. So imagine my delight when I saw people walking around my neigbourhood with Tesco carrier bags and realised there was one right on my doorstep.

The sign just inside the door of the place promised I could get what I want. Well I wanted Chicken Kievs, some Wensleydale cheese, Pickled Onion Monster Munch, and a box of Ice Cream Mars Bars.

Amazingly, they had sold out of all of these items. But here’s what they did have:

Some kind of Jelly made out of grass. The way Emma’s (she’s had it before) eyes shone when she said

“Get some. Go on, I dare you to get some of that and eat it.“

made me realise that it probably wasn’t the nicest thing she’d ever had in her mouth, and I decided not to bother.

Meat floss. They had a few different kinds, including vitamin-enriched floss for kids.

It looked like good floss, nice and dry, but I’m trying to cut down, so again I didn’t bother.

Live turtles.

I really, really don’t remember seeing these down at the Bagueley Tesco’s when I was picking up a sandwich for my lunch. They probably keep them in a separate section in the UK, pets instead of food perhaps.

Although Black Sesame is not my favourite dumpling flavour, it’s nice to see the Tesco Value range popping up in China. From here it can only be a matter of time before cheap Spaghetti hoops and Sausage rolls flood the middle kingdom*.

*That’s China Mum.

Tesco- ZhengNing Lu, near Yan-An Lu (ish)

So last night/this morning at about 3:30 Terminal 2 at Pudong airport started working its magic. First passenger in at 6:30, first flight a little after 7.

I’ve been working on this since about March 2006 so it’s good to have the thing actually running now, and with not much fuss at the final push either (it’s been a constant slow panic since last summer mind you).

Here’s a couple of pics, I’m off for a couple of pints.

Ah that one child policy. All of your hopes and dreams invested in one little shiny-eyed kid who wants to watch cartoons instead of hitting the books / track.

No doubt some of these kids spend their weekends being frogmarched to Chess academies, dragged to after-school Maths classes, or stretched on a mechanical rack to reach Yao Ming proportions. It must be tough to be the only roll of the dice.

No pressure

This was nice to see though; Mum, Grandma, Grandad all helping the little one out with her backhand on a Saturday evening- smiles all round.

[A couple of minutes after this photo was taken, junior fluffed a top-spin smash and they beat her mercilessly with a specially varnished paddle. They were quite right to do so, it was a very easy shot.]

I don’t know why it’s funny- I only know it made me laugh.

Waiting for a Space Man (or woman) at Pudong international arrivals

The new terminal at Pudong opens tomorrow. Wish me luck.

For the last few weeks I’ve had a bad neck and shoulder. Massages weren’t helping, binge drinking wasn’t helping, I was almost out of ideas.

Then on Saturday I was limping past an acupuncture clinic and decided I might as well give it a try.

We only really planned to have a quick look at the place; see if it looked clean, any dead bodies covered in broken needles stuffed in the bins, then make an appointment.
The doctor, however, had the bedside manner of a Soweto street hustler and before I knew what was what he had me in his office and was sticking a needle in my shoulder to see which bits made me squawk.

The shoulder pricks were just for diagnosis- once he worked out the problem (too much “jin” blood) it was obvious that the solution to my shoulder pain was to stick a bunch of needles in umm, my stomach, and then put a little beehive full of smouldering ashes on my belly.

It hurt, but only a bit. Little lines of muscle spasm pain that seemed to go away if I concentrated hard on relaxing. The heat from the little beehive got hotter and hotter too, I could smell my little belly hairs burning.
I’m tough, I can take it- and didn’t press the panic button once (well maybe once, but just for fun).

It’s tempting to say that the guy was a total fraud, but you know what? My shoulder feels a lot better- and at 150RMB for the session, I think it was a pretty good deal.

Thank frig Emma was there though, the doctor spoke at a million characters a minute and if you don’t speak Chinese, this isn’t a guy to be messed with.

[Sorry about the quality of the photos, I was caught cameraless and had to use my mobile phone. The quality is so poor you can barely see my rippling six pack]

Dr Lou’s Acupuncture Clinic, Xinzha Lu (a little West of the junction with Changde Lu)- 150RMB

pork butcher

Boy I tell you, the price of pork around these parts has sky rocketed over the last few years. Up 60% in 12 months or something, apparently pigs are dying of disease and whatnot before they’re actually meat.

No wonder this guy can afford to smoke Double Happiness (the good cigs)- he probably drives home in a gold Volkswagen Santana that runs on Chanel No 5.

It’s too sunny to stay indoors dictating this blog to my secretary, I’m going for a walk to the shops instead.