ISpyShanghai

Be warned, the camera falls off the windowsill halfway through.

Still, you get a decent run at it before then. Will try again tonight (and every night until I get it right damnitt!).

This is my nightly commute- Shanghai Pudong Airport to Longyang Station on the “first operational high-speed conventional maglev railway” (says wikipedia).

It’s been clocked at 501Km/h but nomally it tops out at 431Km/h in the daytime and just 301Km/h after 5pm when I take it. On the occasions that I get to ride it at the higher speed it really does feel like you’re flying along- and when it passes the other train going in the opposite direction- BAMN!- it’s a shock to the system.

Normally though it’s just a pretty smooth 8 minute journey to an obscure part of town where I can take the proper metro to get home.

Also on YouTube.
Video is at double-speed, song is “At Your Service” by Harold Fisher.

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

Hello and welcome to Shoe Tuesday, I’m your host Swiss James and today we’ll be taking calls from people whose lives have been affected by footwear.

Our first caller is Lindsey, she comes from Shanghai-on-Sea. Hello Lindsey can you hear me?

Loud and clear James, and may I say you’re even more handsome on the fake phone.

You are too kind. Now I understand you recently had a run-in with a pair of bizarre brown leather strappy sandles is that correct?

That’s right James.
I was just in People’s Square near the Samsung Building when I was almost run over dead by a chariot.

A chariot Lindsey?

Oh I was as surprised as you were James, but there it was, just between the Squid jerky shop and an old man clipping his toenails with a pair of kitchen scissors.

I know the place, it’s hard to tell where the smell is coming from around there.
So what did you see stepping off the chariot?

I saw a perfectly preserved pair of brown suede strappy sandals with high-cube heels and a zip up the back.

How horrible- I imagine you wished you were crushed to teeth under the unfeeling wheels of that ghostly horse-drawn vehicle. Thanks for calling Lindsey.

It was a sight I shall never forget. Tatty bye!

Next up is Corky from Tianjin, Australia. Are you throwing another shrimp on the barbie down there Corky?

James that is a tired and obvious stereotype that- hang on let me turn this didgeridoo album down so I can hear you properly.

OK Corky- so what have you got for us?

Well here in the bush of Tianjin I saw an adult sized baby Sheila walking the streets with her Mum.

An adult sized baby girl Corky?

That’s right sport

And what did this monster have on its feet?

The best way I can describe it is some kind of pink kitten heel with a bow on one side, and a little cuddly toy on the other!! You beauty!!

Calm down Corky!

Sorry mate- no worries.
I couldn’t believe my eyes at first so I went back for a second poke at the beast- cor, what a ripper!

She certainly is a prize catch, congratulations Corky and thanks for calling it in

G’day err I mean G’bye!

Had a bit of a mixed weekend.  On Friday night I went to a pub quiz at O’Malley’s
(sample question: “Which LA celebrity has a tatoo of an angel with her wings spread across the back of his neck?“)
we came a respectable fourth although I have written to my MP to demand a recount of the points.

As I was enjoying a post-quiz cocktail, I received the first of approximately 314 phone calls from work . Things were wrong at the airport and they kept going wrong all the way through Friday night until around 3:30am, then started again at 8:30am on Saturday morning.

To make sure everything was OK I went to the airport on Saturday afternoon, and didn’t get away until 8pm when I went to a friend’s birthday party at Bambou.
After the meal I had promised to go back and sleep at the airport to make sure nothing else went wrong (although how me sitting in a nearby hotel with my fingers crossed would help, I don’t know).

Sunday after getting back home, I thought it would be fun to ride my bike to the Photography mall. Well it must have been 38 degrees in the baking sun and I rode around for 2+ hours getting more and more lost. When I eventually returned home, my black t-shirt was covered in the white salt I’d sweated out and I stank like a Weasel in a rubber catsuit.

“Excuse me chaps, which way to the photography mall?“

Since I don’t post on a weekend, here are some canny links to sites I’ve discovered recently.

1. Dingle Speaks:
   He’s a regular commenter on here, and cheekier than a Vauxhall full of Monkeys.
   Read his personal ad, hilarity will ensue.
   
2. Buy Buy Beijing:
   Interesting stuff for sale and interviews with people in the trades:

   Q: How many knives have you sharpened today?
   A: A few, enough for me to eat.
   Q: Where are you from?
   A: Shandong, on the border of Hebei.
   Q: What do you do when you don’t sharpen knives?
   A: In the fall, I go back home to go help with the harvest.

3. She’s Electric:
   Life as a cool young woman in Shanghai, a bit like Shopgirl but with a smile on her face.
   Lots and lots of photos of naked breasts (not really).

If you remember, the last time we met our turtles they were living in a huge glass ashtray with about 1cm of water, and a couple of stones to while away the hours.

Oh-ho how times have changed. We’ve now got them installed at Turtleham Palace- a spacious glass tank where they can swim freely in oceans of water, shape up their flippers in the gravel corner, and then chill out on a floating rock.

They certainly seem to like it. Last night we were cleaning the tank and when Emma tried to take one of them out, the other one bit her.

We’ve only got ourselves to blame for the biting though, instead of feeding them horrible dried up turtle food pellets, we’ve now got them on fresh (defrosted) juicy shrimp.

Feeding with the shrimp is good fun- if you just chop it up and put it in the water they will eventually eat it, but a better way is to stick a bit of meat on the end of a cocktail stick and then bob it through the water all innocent like until the Turtles hunt it down.

Have a look for yourselves:

If that video doesn’t work for you, here it is on YouTube.

For names, we’ve gone East / West, old and new, long and short. The darker toned, angry-looking one who is so edgy she jumps off the rock as soon as she hears a noise is Svetlana, whereas the dopier, chilled out fella is Kip.
Svetlana and Kip.

And that concludes another fun-packed week here on ISpyShanghai. If you enjoyed it, tell your friends!
Or just hit reload! Either way my stats go up.

Picture the scene, you’re an 11 year old Chimpanzee in Shaanxi province and your husband has just died. A steady diet of bananas and people banging on your cage bars is driving you crazy, so what do you do?

It’s obvious really, start smoking.

The zookeepers turned a bit of a blind eye to Ai Ai’s habit (come on, the lady got problems) but after 16 years they decided enough was enough and it was time for her to quit.

So now the Chinese have the answer to a question that has plagued man throughout the ages:

How Does A Monkey Quit Cigarettes?

Head Chimp Psychiatrist Zhang HouZi explains

She’s served fried dishes and dumplings at every meal, alongside her usual diet of milk, banana and rice.
I also put earphones on her so that she could enjoy some pop music from my walkman.”

So now you know.

Ai Ai recently moved to Shandong province to be with her 17 year old toyboy, where she gave birth to a daughter (presumably) named “Double Happiness”

When people talk about modern Shanghai girls they’re usually saying bad things: shallow, gold-digging, high-maintenance, manipulative etc.

I don’t have any direct experience, but I think the fact that this t-shirt is fashionable says a lot:

N.B. the Santana is a pretty basic Volkswagen model, it’s the most common car in Shanghai

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

There’s a shop on Changle Lu called ACU (hey that rhymes!) - I’ve mentioned it before, but that was in the days before Shoe Tuesday- or “BST” as I call it.

The owner looks like the type of guy who should be taking young American boys under his wing and teaching them the mysteries of old Kung-Fu. Except he wears a hat that reads “We Are The Sub Culture” and fake pink leopardskin Nike hi-tops.

The genius of this place is that a third of the stuff in there isn’t even for sale

“That one is just a sample. Made from organic hemp”
“Yeah? When’s it coming out?”
“Oh it shall never be released to the public”
etc.

Another third are plain leather shoes or hand towels made by brands you’ve never heard of that sell (well, probably don’t sell) for 3,500RMB. Which leaves 5 or 6 items that are reasonably priced and actually look good.

This marketing genius is how I ended up with a pair of black adidas covered in a tomato print (to commemorate a festival in Spain), a Duck-egg blue cordorouy hat that cost the same as two weeks rent on my house back in Manchester, and now these bad boys:

They’re a collaboration between adidas and Pringle; Britain and Germany hand in hand. Just like when me and my buddy Fabien destroy everyone at Table Football in The Beaver.

God save das Queen!