ISpyShanghai

I’m sat in the airport wearing my heaviest possible clothes with the baggage receipts for 9 (nine) suitcases weighing down the boarding pass. Leaving on a jet plane to old London town (and then Manchester).

That’s right- this is the final blog entry for ISpyShanghai, your favourite Shanghai based Ukulele blog about shoes (well, top 10 anyway).

Because I’ve got a girlfriend now, this move was actually pretty organised; we left the house yesterday and slept in the airport hotel.

As you might expect though from a man who thinks 3D pictures of cats are a great purchase the house was completely filled with tat that we couldn’t take with us.

In the end we gave away so much stuff to the neighbourhood recycling chaps (i.e. the ones who pedal around streets ringing a bell, looking for scrap cardboard) that a queue formed outside the back door. At one point- and this is true- there were so many people fighting over our left-over salt and half broken badminton rackets, that a guy set up shop selling roast potatoes to the crowd.

Anyway we got it done, paid the excess baggage (one million dollars) and take off in about half an hour.

Thank you, goodbye and Merry Christmas Shanghai- it’s been a blast.

Jamma out

Me with a volunteer

Admittedly, in the past I’ve slagged off the Olympics. They’re just an overgrown sports day, any real sports (Tennis, Boxing, Football) have their own, more important competitions, and for the minority sports: well, there’s a reason no-one normally stays up late to watch Water Polo.

On the other hand, it’s only 4 years, and I wanted to see some action damnitt.

So on Friday night I met up with WoAi, his workmate Neil, and He Who Must Not Be Named (as he gets embarassed when workmates look him up on the internets).

We got to the hotel a little after midnight. The staff there, and I assume everywhere in the capital, were in a security frenzy- photocopying all of our passports several times, searching our luggage for who knows what (luggage searches at hotels now?!), until they eventually let us go to our rooms. (Interestingly, two chinese guys had brought prostitutes to the hotel and managed to check in without any ID whatsoever. Ho hum).

Highlight of the night (other than some amazing late-night Chinese food) was talking to an American guy who was so drunk that he claimed to speak “United Nations, Asian, and other languages”- he then started talking about the word “Bloke” and how offensive it is to English people. It didn’t seem to matter that 3/4 of the table were English and told him it wasn’t offensive at all.

The next day we met up with a few friends including Chas, a mate of WoAi’s from back in the day (WoAi lived in Beijing for 5 years). We talked about going to various events; (mens) Beach Volleyball, Rowing, Sailing, Cycling but then Chas got a call from someone who was prepared to sell let him have two tickets to the athletics for face value.

Me “Is there anything good on tonight?”
Chas “Well, the men’s 100m final…”

WoAi shows the goods

I’ve always thought of the men’s 100m final to be the event in the Olympics. The race to be the fastest man in the world is the purest expression of sports I can think of, and I can remember races going back to when I was a boy. Linford Christie, Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson- it doesn’t get any more tense than the silence just before the starting pistol as the best sprinters in the world take their place.

Chas was happy to go and see other stuff whilst we had his tickets and for that Chas- I stand up and salute you (note: I am literally standing and saluting as I write this).

We still had two tickets to find and, long story short, we got them for about double the price on the ticket (OK OK- actually we went to a ticket agency in a pub bought two tickets for the athletics today and then two Fencing tickets as back up. Sold the Athletics on for a profit, and offset that against the 5,000 the guy wanted for the other two tickets).

Touting (scalping) is open and easy at the entrance to the secure zone, and since the tickets are security scanned very close to where you buy them, there was practically no risk. In fact WoAi and I waited with the tout and only gave him the money after the other two guys were through security.

Once we got through that first check point we had to take a subway (the new line 8 ) to the complex with the Birds Nest stadium, Water Cube, Olympic TV tower and whatever else they have in the grounds. The atmosphere was buzzing, people were taking photos of and with me in my Union Jack British get-up, and the sun was shining on 100,000+ happy people.

Usain Bolt's 9.69 new World Record

Since John and WoAi are as geeky as me (between the four of us we had 4 laptops, 5 cameras, and enough paraphenelia to be arrested and hung as spies) we spent a good hour outside the stadium taking photos of this and that. I expect we’ll see the results from those two in 6-8 weeks after they finish tinkering with the white balance and photoshopping out any minute specks of dust on the lens.

Neil and I eventually got bored and went to the stadium to make a start on those 30RMB beers I’ve been reading about.

The stadium is as enormous, impressive and buzzing as you’d expect a 91,000 capacity venue to be. Everything is new and well built, and although the staff serving up the snacks and drinks were pretty clueless (I think for some of them it was the first time they’d tried to pour liquid into a cup) there were so many of them that the queues were short and sweet.

After watching long jump, 800m and shotput competitions the time finally came for the main event. Tyson Gay had gone out in the semi-final so all eyes were on Usain Bolt, the Jamaican who had already broken the world record several times.
Presumably you all know what happened next.

The crowd went beserk- it was an insanely fast race with personal bests and national records being broken all over the place, but no-one was even close to Bolt who is the first man ever to break 9.70 and did it whilst stopping with a few metres to go and moonwalking over the finish line (kind of).
An amazing thing to see live, we were still talking about it as the sun came up and we finished our last drinks at 10:30 am Sunday morning.

Ticket for Athletics 1600RMB
Windowless Hotel Room in Beijing (per night) 600RMB
Flights to Beijing (return) 2100RMB
Union Flag (thanks WoAi!) 60RMB
Beer in stadium 5RMB

An advert in the new terminal at Pudong Airport

Is anyone else sick of hearing about this frigging Olympics already?

Yes yes, it’s great that China can put on the world’s biggest Sports day, but when all is said and done I just honestly do not give a toss who can throw a discus the furthest.

Here is the list of the Olympic events that I stole from Wikipedia:

The very fact that Softball is on there should tell you all you need to know.
Tickets are selling like hot dumplings over here, and yet I can guarantee that the suckers who paid top RMB to get into the Cycling Velodrome are going to be bored ringless ten minutes after they send their first smug

“I M @ OLMPCS!!! LOLZ!”

text message.

Bah humbug.

Following the success of renting a couple of bikes in Suzhou, Emma has finally been convinced that this (and not the stupid ‘bus as she has previously insisted) is the only right and proper way to get around Shanghai. Yes there are scores of roads you can’t ride down, yes you have to have a bit of brass neck to be on the bottom rung of the Shanghai traffic ladder (blue trucks driven by shirtless workmen, finishing off a 12 hour shift being at the top of the pile)- but it’s still more fun than a barrel full of wet monkeys, and the best way to get to know your neighbourhood.

People I talk to are amazed that I still haven’t had my ride stolen in, what, 7 months? So I told her what I’ll tell you know- the secret to not getting your bike stolen in Shanghai: put loads of crap in the basket.

Old popcorn, broken chopsticks, empty carrier bags- throw the lot in there, you’re aiming for a look that’s somewhere between the front lawn of a council house, and a Jackdaw’s nest.

And with that, we loaded up our bikes and headed off through the streets, ringing out a peal on our bells in the clear Autumn air.

A woman collecting boxes. Jing-An district, Sunday afternoon.

Bike, 160RMB (plus basket) from Carrefour

Spoon lampshade

During my recent two-week outage, when I lost the last three months worth of posts (AKA ‘The Fortnight Where I Wished I Was Dead TM‘), I had some time to reflect on what it is that would make a blog about Shanghai worth reading.

The answer soon became clear: photos of lampshades made out of spoons.

This is at Bella Cafe, a place where they’ll soon be having a photo competition called “China Next: China’s Future”.
My entry is this thought provoking piece entitled

“Future leaders; making their mistakes today”

I’m pretty hopeful of at least 3rd place.

Saturday morning I awoke a nervous wreck. Hadn’t managed to get a wink of sleep all night because I was worried about the very  critical security situation in my province. Most of you will have already learnt about this from the 24 hour news bulletins and special editions the International press have been putting out, but just in case you’ve been living in a cave, here’s the 411.

To try and regain some inner peace (and pick up concert tickets), I rode my bike down to Wukang Lu, about 10 or 15 minutes easy cycling from my place. The air was sweet, crickets were singing in the trees and shoe thieves were the last thing on my mind as I rode around this lovely old French Concession district.

Sometimes you come across a place where it’s hard to believe you’re still in Shanghai (although slightly easier when you ride around the corner and some fellas is using his bike to tow a cage full of live chickens).