ISpyShanghai

It’s October holidays here- 8 days off for China, although I will be posting every day as normal.

In fact I’ve got something fairly special planned- so don’t lose the faith comrades…

Every hipster in Shanghai has a pair of either Warriors or FeiYue. They’re awesome and comfortable, but pretty soon Russell Crowe is going to be spotted wearing a pair and the jig will be up.

When that dark day happens here are three alternatives:

Shoes that say “I L <crown> VE Shanghai”

Pros: Excellent ankle protection against shopping trolleys and sniper fire.

Cons: Ugly as sin, make you look like a golf club.

Ying Yang Shoes

Pros: Buddhists believe

“Maitri or Metta in Pali (Loving Kindness) and Karuna (Compassion) to all living beings including animals”

and since these shoes aren’t leather- you’ll have Pali coming out of your ying-yang

Cons: Shoes appear to have been a pile of wet laundry in a previous life.

Electrician safety shoes

Pros: Protection from faulty cables up to a maximum of 250Kw, assuming dry conditions.

Cons: You don’t think they actually work do you?

I gave the gifts below to my good friend Balticninja (not his real name) on his birthday many moons ago.

He left them at my house and has never returned to collect the booty, so I’ve taken out an advert in Enjoy Classifieds.

For Sale:

One beautiful photo of a cat who definitely knows something. The way he’s looking at you with those eyes. Those deep, penetrating eyes. Oh he knows alright.
And he’s going to tell his little friend the Buttefly.

Also got heart pills.

25RMB or swap for a Yo-Yo. Pick up only.

http://enjoyshanghai.com/buy-sell/barter/3d-cat-picture_179378.htm

Link to a google map

Does anyone know anything about these places?

Huzhou
Yixing
Mashan
Wuxi
Changzhou
Danyang
Zhenjiang

Are they worth visiting as a tourist?

I like food, views, log flume rides, and not being hassled by people selling stuff.

Emma also asks:  ”Is there a boat from HuZhou to Changzhou or Wuxi?”
(She always speaks in italics)

Is that the most mashed up 1RMB note you’ve ever seen? You can barely buy a bowl of rice for 1RMB but someone has taped up two sides of it- which is pretty tragic. Then I put it in the laundry by accident.

I’m tempted to put it out of its misery in the office paper shredder.

Anyone who isn’t marching with iPod’s clone army can turn away now, as I’m just going to talk about cool stuff I’ve found on iTunes.

If you’re still one of those people resisting the march of the iPod by the way, I apologise. I resisted until this summer, but just couldn’t find anything else that had a big hard drive but fit in your pocket.
It’s a crying shame- and once They figure a way to communicate directly with our brains using those white headphones, it’s all over.

The new podcast episode is up now. We have no way of telling how many people listen to it you know.

Here’s some great stuff I’ve found on iTunes:

• The Fontanelles- Three Finger Salute. 
  If you just want to dip your toe in, have a listen to E-thing, or Told- but the whole thing is great tuneful, smart, limber indie-rock music.
• David Sedaris is one of my favourite authors, and there’s a (FREE) recording of him reading from “When you are engulfed in flames” on iTunes. Lots of other authors too, including Simon Winchester banging on about China.
• The Bugle is the best podcast I’ve heard so far. Please don’t listen to it in close proximity to anything I’ve done.

Oh and any bloggers, Microsoft’s Writer program is fantastic- way easier than the online Wordpress tool.

It’s a one day weekend in China this week! Hooray for Communism!

Here’s an idea for the October holiday- go to Kunshan, take a taxi to the lake, and eat the famous  Hairy Crab.

Hairy Crabs are a speciality of the lake at Kunshan (Yang Cheng Lake) and, rarely for a Chinese delicacy, are delicious. They’re in season right now, and for the next few weeks so the peaceful waters and empty restaurants that I visited a few weeks ago are probably swamped with people right now. Happy, hungry people.

Here’s what you have to do to get your crab on:

Shanghai to Kunshan

Take the train to Kunshan- there are plenty of them and it’s only a 20 minute trip but hey, this is China so you might struggle to get tickets on the day. Buses are an option, there were certainly plenty of shifty guys selling bus tickets back to Shanghai at the train station- the journey is about 60Km.

Kunshan to YangCheng Lake

You can flag down a taxi outside the train station (I make it a principle to always ignore anyone waiting outside their car saying “Hello! Hello! Taxi?”), it’s a lovely 50RMB drive out to the lake.

Depending on your level of Chinese you can either tell your driver

The west side of YangCheng lake good man, and don’t spare the horses!”

or just make little crab pincers with your hands and shuffle side-to-side.

Choosing a restaurant

All of the crabs should be coming from the same lake*. At most of the boat/restaurants hybrids they keep the crabs in cages right there in the water until you order, so I don’t know how much difference it really makes.

My mate Christina picked the one with the highest rating on Dianping.com- it’s called Cheng Ao (tel: 1380 6260886 and hand to the taxi guy for directions).

*There was a scandal recently where some of the Crabs were said to come from other places, and then put into the famed Yang Cheng lake for the final few days on earth. Maybe some of those half-fakes are sold in restaurants in this area? Still you did all you could to get the real ones.

Price

70RMB for a pair (one male, one female, like a lovely crab marriage where the bride and groom get eaten) seems pretty standard for one person.

The owners of the restaurant told us we could get the more expensive 100RMB crabs which have a bigger body, but the same amount of actual meat (suckers!)

Since we went before the season properly kicked off, the owners of the restaurant offered to take us out on a ride across the lake.
We ordered our food first (well, Christina’s parents did- they ordered like crazy, it took 45 minutes), picked the crabs (do you know how to look for a good crab? Me neither) then took a little boat trip whilst the food was cooked.

Sweet.

Eating the crabs

Hmm well now, this is the thing. Eating a Hairy Crab is a bit like trying to solve a very spiky Rubik’s Cube, except your fingers get full of yellow gunk.

At first it seems like a lot of work for a few scraps of meat- but remember that pretty much the whole thing is edible given enough time, effort, guile and pointy metal tools.

The best set of instructions I’ve seen are these from SH magazine.

The restaurant can arrange a ride back to the train station- we set off at about 3pm and were back home at about 10pm the same night- full of crab goodness and the joys of autumn.

Return train tickets to Kunshan approx. 40RMB
Taxi fares approx 100RMB
Crab feast, about 100RMB per person

Toilet signs from the bit between Pudong airport T1 and the Maglev station.

Sit

Squat

Two things here-

1) Is it still OK to find this funny? I’m 31 for flip’s sake.

2) In the girls toilet, does the stick figure wear a skirt?

The urge to try on a suit is a deep and primal one that can strike at any time. It comes without warning like a thief in the night, and woe betide the man who ignores it’s sudden calling.

Obviously though it’s hard to tell whether a dark two-button ensemble goes together when you’re wearing a pair of Nike Rorschach or some such casual footwear. So what does a man do?

G2000 have the answer with this pair of dressing room shoes.

One size fits all, no need to do up the laces. Genius.