I’ve been here for ooh 20 months now, so it’s about time I started talking about how everything used to be much better ‘back in the day’.

So, Wujiang Lu.

Shopping Street? Boo!

Shopping Street? Boo!

Wujiang Lu used to be a food street where you couldn’t move without tripping over a stall frying up some fish eyes, or grilling a nice Chicken claw kebab.

There weren’t any spaces inbetween the food vendors, but if there were, they would have been filled up by guys selling second hand books, CDs and pig-shaped balloons.

Fellas with monkeys on the end of a bit of string used to walk up and down the street, and if you caught their eye they’d demand money for looking at their monkey.

It was great.

Now it’s been turned into a mini Huaihai Lu: soulless Levi’s stores, glossy coffee shops, Subway sandwiches, people washing their hands after going to the toilet.

Then: Monkeys

Then: Monkeys

Is that progress I ask you? Bah.

Now: Children

Now: Children

Then: Crowded

Then: Crowded

Now: Space

Now: Space

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