ISpyShanghai

Gillette are running these adverts in the back of taxis. As you can imagine I almost dropped my pad and paper trying to take notes.

I know the Asian chap tends towards more of a wisp than a beard, but surely the basic tecnhinque is common knowledge by now?

It costs 1,500RMB (150 quid) to fly return from Shanghai to Seoul right now.

Good eh? I went on Friday.

Seoul is a lovely place, nestled in the mountains, on a Sunday afternoon it feels like a sleepy little village compared to Shanghai.

The nightlife is good though- all little independent bars tucked away down alleys where if they don’t have the tune you ask for, they’ll download it.

I used to live in Korea for 3 or 4 years- I forget how long exactly, this is back when I used to drink too much.

Now I’m a little older and more sensible I try not to go too crazy- in fact I have a strict rule: once the sun comes up, no more shots.

Originally I’d planned to go to the wedding of an old workmate. But it turned out to be far away, and I had a hangover that could fell a tree so I just stayed in the city and stared at the increasingly bizarre outfits of the Korean metrosexual.

The guy in the his’n’hers pink sweatshirt is the butchest looking man in the photo

It’s terrifying how camp the Korean guys look these days, terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, they pull it off and the street fashions are, well, streets ahead of Shanghai. But the levels of camp are off the scale- two examples, the guy below, Bae Yong Joon is one of the biggest stars in the country.

This image is taken from his role as spokesman (honestly, it is a man) for a cosmetics company.

and this (here on youtube) is an advert for a cellphone featuring another two popular stars. Aside from wearing outfits made entirely out of tinfoil, they come within about one Banana Daquiri away from making out at the end of the ad.

Oh and did I mention that the phone they’re advertising is called “Magic Hole“?

If you’ve never been, I really recommend a trip to Seoul- if only for the fact that walking around the place makes you feel like a manlier version of Wesley Snipes.

As you can probably imagine, I’ve had a lot of interest in my advert for a 3d portrait of a cat.

As yet I haven’t really pulled a trigger on any particular deal, but I thought I’d give an update as to how the negotiations were going.

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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

Here’s one for you- a message sent to me via a popular expat message board:

Since I’m inevitably sliding away from film and into digital, and the smallest available memory cards now being 4 Gigabytes apparently (I remember when my computer only had 48Kb), I’ve got a lot of photos that I don’t post.

Including some photos that illustrate what a couple of you have been mentioning in the comments. First up:

If I remember rightly the glass covered hole looking down is way smaller the atrium itself, you know … so you are looking down from close to the centre and you see a spiral as the balconies have these sort of indented parts that are staggered.

Andy

It's a long way down

you’re not wrong Andy- here’s the spiral in question. I’m not a big fan of this kind of sheer drop, if there wasn’t a piece of perspex in the way I’d have lost my camera and lunch.

The bit at the bottom is where you check-in to the world’s second highest hotel (beaten by the new boy next door), the circles are the guest room floors.

By the way it costs around 2,500RMB a night to stay in the Hyatt in the Jin Mao, and around 3,600RMB a night to stay in the Hyatt in the SWFC. (Alternatively, I’ll let you have the broken bed in my spare room for 2 bottles of Tsing Tao and a copy of Viz). 

Next up, our old good friend WoAi who says

That park [People's Park] is packed with older people trying to find husbands and wives for their younger relatives every weekend.

WoAi

Shopping for love

CV for a BF

He’s right you know- every weekend there are people trying to pimp out their grandkids, kids and clients. Full translation of the advert above here, and to read what I already wrote about this here market, try here.

(btw I think it’s polite if we assume that WoAi hasn’t been trawling the trees himself, and instead just happened to notice the signs as he strolled from one designer boutique to the next)

Any other photo requests?

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

Well it ain’t over yet, but by next Tuesday it will be. So this is the time and the place to take a look at how the three big sh-sh-sh-shoe people faired at t’Olympics.

adidas

Made the best advert before the games (and was then royally ripped off by Reebok), but some of the athletes appearing in the ads seem to have been cursed- or at least that’s what the occasional person on the internet is saying. I saw a great Olympics display they had in the center of Beijng though.

Display outside a Beijing shopping centre

Nike

Lost out to adidas for the official sponsorship but countered by bringing out a wicked set of 5 shoes to match the 5 Olympic mascots (presumably with a sole that makes it looked you’ve stomped on the annoying little gremlins) and a shoe for every possible event including a black boot with a spike at the back for the Equestrian stuff. Kinky.

Fuwa (mascot) shoes- for kids only unfortunately

It takes some nerve to bring out 28 different shoes for an event you’re not even sponsoring, and I wonder how many pairs of weightlifting shoes they actually sold. Still though, that is one cool boot.

Equestrian Nikes

Puma

Shod 100m champ Usain Bolt- who then held up his gold spikes for the cameras like a good little sponsoree.

However Bolt’s laces came undone (cheers Bozzley for telling me this!), which Mums everywhere will tell you is the major cause of Childhood falling-overness.

Undone shoelaces cost lives

Forget Asics- that Japanese rice-shoe marathon woman I was banging on about last week didn’t even get a medal. Reeboks are, as ever, for losers.

When the adidas adverts for the the Olympics first started showing up, I thought they were amazing:

Clearly Reebok thought so too, here’s their latest ad campaign on Nanjing Dong Lu:

Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t feel bad for adidas; they weren’t exactly the first people to hit the same idea:

Turkish battery company for Euro2008

Portugese Sports TV channel for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

I suppose I’m no better, for some of this post I ripped off http://www.joelapompe.net/