ISpyShanghai

I’m back in the U-U-UK, on dial-up, full of ginger bread and ale. It’s all talk about credit crunch and ballroom dancing back here, and I’m off to do the rest of my Christmas shopping.

As always when I go back home to visit my family, the blog is going to more or less shut down. Don’t take it personally, I’ve also given up shaving, wearing matching socks, and making my own cups of tea.

Really, it’s not you, it’s me.

Taken by my little niece, Catherine

Is this the most evil looking fruit you have ever seen?

eVil

Apparently it grows underwater, is green and hard when young and turns hard and brown when it’s ripe. No idea about the English name for it.

The taste of the white Cocunutty flesh is somewhere between a Crab and Apple (although nothing like a Crabapple).

Looks like the kind of thing you’d find in Freddie Krueger’s lunch box. Grim.

After going down 3 to 1 last week (congratulations Robert), I’m dusting myself down and picking myself up for another challenge.

This time the entry comes from a Mr Andrew ‘Andy’ Best of the Wirral.

He writes:

As a kung-fu vegetarian I find the constant promotion of your leather agenda sickening.

Do you know how many kung-fu cows dye to make just one pair of boots? It’s probably something like a million.

Here are some good shoes that don’t leave blood on your feet. 

Crocs, done right for once?

Yes they are Crocs, but I think the fur trim and Buffalo Stance means that they actually look good for once.

Well- I take your point that some animals were harmed during the making of Shoe Tuesday, and have been out spotting other alternatives to “thigh high patent leather boots” (hello Googling perverts!).

Leg warmers on jeans? Only in Shanghai! (and possibly Tokyo, Seoul...)

This young lady is wearing nothing but a simple pair of heels, but booting them up with a pair of crocheted leg warmers, thus reducing the amount of leather required. The force is strong in this one.

So- make your choice, Crocs, or boot warmers?

Boot warmers

C-C-C-Crocs

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Legal Note: All opinions expressed by Andy Best are not necessarily shared by the actual Andy Best.
In fact, I just made them up.

What the hell is Shoe Tuesday? This the hell is Shoe Tuesday!
Do you want to be featured in a future Shoe Tueday battle?
Send a photo (or two) of some cool shoes to j_creegan@hotmail.com 

This weekend I took a trip to the water town of Tongli. 

Actually that’s a lie, I went ages ago, but only just got the film back from the shop. Anyway, enjoy the pics.

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The thing about the cold in Shanghai is that you feel absolutely cold to the bone, and like you’ll never be warm again, but it’s only about 3 degrees Celsius.

I don’t understand it, something to do with humidity, wind chill and this pesky HIV that I can’t seem to shake off no doubt.

Regardless though, I don’t think there’s ever an excuse to wear this:

It’s called the “Esteem”, ironic really because I think a sense of self-esteem is the main thing preventing most people from wearing one.

Esteem: For when you've just given up

Every month or so in my office, we abandon the staff canteen and go out to a restaurant together for lunch.

Since there is nothing of interest in the area around the airport (in fact it was all water a few years ago), we drive to a town nearby called Chuansha. 

The main tourist attraction in Chuansha is a place where you can buy train tickets. It’s not exactly buzzing. However they do have a very cool “farmer style” restaurant.

Farmers like to eat

  
I’m not sure why they call it “Farmer style”- maybe it’s because everyone in there stares at foreigners, just like a farmer.

The food itself was presented as a kind of buffet- except you ordered what you wanted as a woman followed you round with a notepad, and then the dishes were delivered to the table. 

They had enormous bubbling pots of soup filled with pigs heads, a kind of fried pastry desert that was the size of a football, a genuine Indian guy cooking Paratha, and charge 18RMB for a kind of Crab that you pay 150RMB for on The Bund (I know, I paid it a few weeks ago).

Tasted like a fried yorkshire pudding

There are constant rumours that Disney are going to build one of their massive theme parks in this town. It’s a good idea as far as I can see- the place is handy for the Maglev, and no-one is going to miss such cultural treasures as the Scrap Metal Alley, or Construction Worker Shanty Town.

No doubt the price of Crabs will shoot up, but that’s a price that I think is worth paying.

A more blinged-out pair of calculators?

Welcome one, welcome all to Shoe Tuesday.

This week in the Shoe World, I’ve been having a huge heated argument with a young chap called Robert. It started when he threw a brick through my window at 4am last Thursday.

Sellotaped to the brick were a bundle of photos he’d taken of a young hipster who was daring to break down the age-old boundary between shoe and trainer with a white number that was pointed at the end, had a slight touch of brogueing, and yet is still basically a trainer.

Shneakers

Clearly this was an invitation to battle and I needed to think over my options.

As I picked the glass out of Emma’s hair, my mind reeled with the thought of where this thing could end. All-out gang warfare? Shoe gangs carving up Shanghai into territories? A bullet to the back of the neck?

And then I thought screw it- if he can find a hipster on the bleeding edge, then so can I.

Check these out:

High tops

Extending the trainer upwards, ever upwards, this guy is channeling the spirit of the 1980s Reebok Aerobics show, but putting it in a muted slate-grey form, over McClaren / Westwood plaid bondage trousers.
Whilst waiting for his Mum outside KFC.

But now it’s up to you to judge who found the best shoe wearer of the week- my high-top, plaid trouser Dandy? Or Robert’s Pointy Toed, Shoe / Sneaker (we’re calling them “Shneakers”) hybrid?

Vote below.

 
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