ISpyShanghai

Funny weather in Pudong today- swirling clouds, strong winds, something’s up I tell you that much. Yesterday there was a massive thunderstorm just by the airport with rain coming down so fast that when I went out at the end of the day, the security guards had sandbags ready in case of flooding.

My workmate Ryan reckons it’s because China launched a rocket into space yesterday

“Now China is number 3 in the world!”

There are three people in the rocket and at some point today, one of them is going to go on a spacewalk. I’m not sure which one is supposed to leave the capsule first, but having been on the Shanghai subway at rush hour I’ll guess it’s a 45 year old woman with very pokey elbows.

Next week is Golden Week- the time when everyone in China has a week off work (except subway employees and astronauts) so I’m going to England to visit that baby that’s keeping my brother up at night.

Am still trying to decide what present to take for little Eve. Probably not milk powder.

Here’s a fun fact- everybody in China thinks that the tastiest part of the fish is the cheeks.

Cheeks: eaten

I think it’s because as they “Bob bob” along in the water, that’s the bit that’s always moving.

In England most people think that the ideal Chicken would have no beak and 18 breasts, but in China they reckon that bit is dead meat because it doesn’t move around when the Chicken walks.

According to a guy I work with at least, the best bit of the animal is always the bit that moves around the most.

Here’s a handy reckoner he gave me to take to restaurants, you might like to cut it out and keep it with you at all times:

My sister-in-law had a little girl yesterday- Eve Erin Creegan. No photos yet, apparently some things are more pressing for first time parents than updating your facebook profile? A poor excuse.

I’m flying back to England in a few weeks to visit the new family anyway, congratulations to my big brother Andy and his lady wife Sharon!

I’m at my wits end with this blogging lark.

Don’t know if it’s the same when you try to leave a comment but every time I attempt to update a post, add a new photo, change the way something looks, or basically do anything at all- the thing crashes and I get an error message.

Being a computer geek I’ve been trying all kinds of things (I got shell access to look at the CPU usage, have optimised the MySQL tables, reloaded the admin code from scratch, deleted spam comments, changed themes, ran traceroute etc. etc.) and I just don’t know what the problem is.

Thinking about moving to another host, or even ditching wordpress and trying something else. What a palaver. Anyway, I don’t want to whinge…and in fact I’ll stop.

Here then (hopefully) are a few more of my favourite photos from Beijing.

Olympic TV Tower

This building looked pretty cool- it overlooked the Olympic Green: the Watercube, Birds Nest training track for the athletes etc.

Unusually for an Olympics, the ticket security was done before you could get to into the whole green- so instead of having anyone with a vague interest milling around the area, you’ve just got ticketholders on their way to an event.

McDonalds (who have the only ‘restaurant’ in the green) aren’t best pleased apparently, neither are other sponsors who built big exhibition sites for casual observers to ‘absorb the brand experience’ and all of that twaddle.

To me it made good sense to keep the riff-raff out, although inevitably, the odd one slips through the net:

WoAi Refuels

If you ever find yourself at an Olympics, I highly recommend taking your national flag with you.

After the 100m final anyone with a Jamaican flag outside the stadium was mobbed by people wanting their photo taken with a genuine Jamaican. Wearing a big Union Jack around my neck meant photo ops galore all day, including one with Miss World as we left the stadium (she was nice enough but would she buy me a Typewriter for my birthday?), and even though I didn’t see any British success (wish I’d been there yesterday to see the Women’s 400m!) it still felt good to be one of Her Majesty’s representatives. God Save The Queen what what?

The top three medalling nations at Beijing 2008?

Birds nest

In non-Olympics news, the turtles were fine when I got back from Beijing.

Once you put them in a big water tank, those things take care of themselves- no food, no changing the water for two days in the heat and they still look happy as larry. When I was in England, Emma took them to the vets when one of them had a slight cough, but I reckon the laidback approach is best.

If only Amphibian upkeep was an olympic event.

Is Emma going to be mad at me for going to the Olympics whilst she’s on holiday in England?

Have I been eating (delicious, nutritious) babyfood for the past 3 weeks?

OK- here is a running count of the apologies I need to make after my trip to England:

1. My brother Andrew who thinks I was having a pop at him. I wasn’t mate, honestly
2. Breeny for “bumming London”. Your flat is great fella and I still love Manchester / the north
3. Neal for stealing a photo of James Blunt from his excellent photostream on flickr

Stay tuned for more.

When you’re from the North of England, like what I am, having knowledge of the South is frowned upon. It’s OK to know that there is a South, and that it contains that London (you might even have to go there occasionally if your football team gets to the final of a cup) but knowing the exact location of Egham, or being able to name two or more lines on the subway basically marks you out as a class traitor who should be put to death.

It turns out, however, that London is really good and I’d like to live there one day.
Damnitt!

I went to visit my mate Liam who moved down south last year after finally kicking his teaching-English-in-Japan habit. The drive to Streatham where he lives was pretty hellish as it took me within touching (cloth) distance of the London Congestion Zone- put one wheel into that fearsome zone and the Lord Major will come knocking on your door for a 25 pound fine. Soon enough though we were out on the town, dahn to the fackin’ East End to have a bit of a knees-up wotcha (that’s cockney talk).

First stop was a bar that had- not just one, not just two, but bloody loads and loads of foosball tables. Enough tables for everyone in the place to play whilst they listened to salsa music and sweated in the ferocious heat. I was on fire and scored three thousand goals against everyone, any forthcoming comments that say otherwise are pure lies.

After getting into a few more VIP places because everyone thought Liam was (popular UK singer-songwriter) James Blunt, it was time for a re-fuelling stop at one of the all-night bagel bakeries on Brick Lane.

I think it was sometime between tasting my first hot salt-beef bagel (with pickles and mustard) and discovering that you can buy the Sunday papers at 1am on a Saturday night that I decided I realised I could live in London. My suspicions were confirmed when we went to Spitalfields market the next day and I had a fantastic plate of Lamb tagine with couscous for breakfast, followed by Curried Goat for dinner. Manchester and Shanghai are pretty diverse, but the only city I’ve seen that rivals London for cosmopolitanosity is New York.

Spitalfields Market

Not only that, but apparently this woman called “The Queen” lives there.
They say that if you play your cards right, she’ll invite you over to her house and you can try on her hat. Sounds good to me.

Anyway, enough London talk- do you think my mate Liam looks like a one-hit-wonder, ex-army, wet flannel pop star?

[poll=5]

I spent most of my holiday in England up north. Flew into Manchester, and then spent most days driving East to West between my parents’ house in Doncaster, brother’s place near Huddersfield, or back to the hostelries and ale houses of Manchester.

It’s great scenery to drive through, limestone country with Sheep farms and desolate moors. Even in the heart of Manchester (3rd biggest city in England) you’re only a 10-15 minute drive from a country lane surronded by dry stone walls and wind-battered Sheep.

My brother has just moved into a new home with his new wife whilst he waits for his new baby. It’s a lovely stone building in a tiny village called Armitage Bridge- no shops, one pub, and a cricket pitch with Duck races in the summer. Sharon is due to have an unspecified flavour baby in September and she’s looking great- I secretly reckon that a lot of women overplay the difficulty of the pregnancy thing because they know men can’t argue back.