ISpyShanghai

I’m back from Kunming! It was great!

(Although I burnt the top of my head.)

Sticking it to Buddha

 If you click this picture it gets bigger and looks better.

My Spam filter is going haywire, I think it’s classified the whole of China as a “Spam network”. Not ideal for a China based blog.

I don’t have time to fix it right now, and if I turn it off we’ll all be buried within the hour.

Sorry kids. Patience is a virtue.

A spam factory, China

I’m in Kunming today, it’s a city of 6 million people in Yunnan province. In China they call it “Spring City” because this is where 94% of the world’s bed springs are made.

All packed for Kunming

I’m here for work and we had a meeting this morning that was so entirely in Chinese, that I had to drink 6 cups of tea to stop falling asleep, and then had to pee 4 times. Luckily I don’t think anyone noticed though as I craftily pretended to have an important phone call every time I went to make toilet.

In fact they probably all think I’m insanely popular and important, I find it’s important not to let the mask slip too soon

A man who may or may not be a minority. I find it hard to tell

N.B Yes I was joking about the Spring City thing.

It wasn’t quite as seamless as I’d hoped, I’ve lost maybe 50 of your comments, but now I’m being hosted from a lightning fast server farm in Hong Kong, instead of a damp basement in Lithuania.

If you live in China this means that when you try and post a comment, it won’t just work 35% of the time. If you’re me it means the fingernail-tearing agony of writing a blog that crashes every 20 seconds should be over.

I’m very sorry that I lost the stuff you wrote over the last week or so. If you can forgive me, feel free to go comment-crazy from now on.

Me and the Godfather

ISpyShanghai is now brought to you by .
(Cheers Eric)

Last night I was on a stroll down Nanjing Dong Lu- China’s Number 1 Shopping Street (TM).

Except it wasn’t a stroll, it was a gauntlet run through the hawkers, gawkers and stalkers that are constantly trying to sell you fake tat on that street.

Watchbag! Watchbag! Looka! Looka!

They bleat. It’s annoying because as soon as you fend one of them off (tip: carry a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter) the next one is on your back. Did you not just see my tell your buddy to do one? Have I really changed my mind since 3 steps up the road?

It wouldn’t be so bad if they changed up the pitch from “Watchbag” to, oh I don’t know…. Shoebag!

Shoebag!

(Just pulled it back from the brink at the end there didn’t I?)

Yowzer! I bought a new camera lens.

But you know what, I’ve lost the post that went with it, and nobody seemed to care about all of that stuff anyway, so I’m just saving us all some time and getting straight in with the funny photos.

Lewis

Yi

Lewis is a guy who was just visiting this previous weekend.

The other two are people I’ve known for ages, but they don’t read my blog so I can say anything horrible I like about them.

Wow, this is an intoxicating feeling. Ummm.

Yi is a former child lap-dancer.

Fabien

Fabien likes to tie up street urchins and throw them into the Huangpu river.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens, 4850RMB
Camera Mall @ Xietu Lu, LuBan Lu (near Lupu Bridge)

So I’m XinTianDi (posh place full of tourists and suckers) enjoying a happy hour or two with some friends, when we decide to go and get a Pizza Express.

Who should be there but my blog buddy WoAi Peter Guo, quietly stalking one of the waitresses.

He joined our happy crew and we dined on dough balls and whatnot, enjoying a couple of cases of red wine. At some point during the meal (it all gets a little fuzzy for me around this time) the staff came up to present me with a free gift. This handsome MP4 (it’s like MP3, but one better) player.

Thanks Wolf Blass!

MP4

Who said that drinking heavily on a school night was a bad idea?