ISpyShanghai

Due to a broken thermostat somewhere in Chinese heaven, the temperature recently dropped 8,000 degrees. On Halloween night I was dressed like this and sweating, today I’m in a sheepskin jumpsuit, 8 hats, sat under a hairdryer with my teeth chattering.

It’s so confusing that this morning I saw someone wearing summer shorts, a wifebeater vest and long thermal underwear. I’d show you a photo of him, but this is Tuesday. We look at shoes here on Tuesday, always have.

So here’s a similar confused young lady- riding line 2 in her summer flip-flops but beating the sudden cold snap with wooly socks. 

You might laugh now, but it’s the kind of quick thinking that we’re all going to need when the apocalypse comes.

It’s Halloween coming up- the time when condemned souls walk the earth, rivers run with blood of unknown provenance and children will find their plastic Vampire teeth mildly uncomfortable.

I was walking around by Yu Yuan at the weekend (the old town really- those side streets near Yu Yuan) and I spotted a bunch of halloween decorations for sale.

Deeply chilling I’m sure you’ll agree- I would give the address for the shop but when I went back to find it the next day…IT HAD COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED*

I’m still in two minds about my costume- a lot of people have said that when I take my shirt off I look a lot like Jason Stackhouse from True Blood, but others have said I’m a dead ringer for Don Draper out of Mad Men.

*Not really- in Nanshi (near the Bund) try:
225 FuYou Lu near Anren Lu
福佑路225号 近安仁路

If you’re in Gubei / Hongqiao you can get decorations at my buddy Steven’s parents place:

Star Box
Shop E16 Hongqiao Flower Market

   the Barbietini

It says something that Shanghai was chosen to open the World’s first Barbie megastore. It says something alright, and I hate to think what.

The store itself is a nightmarish riot of pink plastic, blonde hair and spoilt children. I could happily have lived the rest of my life without visiting it.

But how can you resist the bar on the top floor which sells drinks called the Bubblicious and Ken-tini? 

You can’t. I went last Saturday.

Maybe it’s best not to think about whether it’s OK to have a fully stocked bar at the top of a Children’s toy shop.
Staggering drunkenly past a 5 year old girl eating pink cupcakes is weird-  I haven’t done that since I got fired from Disneyworld for puking in my Mickey Mouse head. 

David Laris runs the place however, and if anyone knows anything about selling Martinis to gay men, it’s him.

The drinks (45-55RMB for cocktails) are delicious, the service was bang on (very friendly, free shots), happy hour (5-7 every day) is a 2-4-1 bargain and the burgers on other people’s plates looked good.

“John” and friends

Here’s the main point though- next weekend is Halloween. Can you think of a better, camper place in the world to kick off a fancy dress party?

Barbie Cafe (6th Floor)
550 Huaihai Zhong Lu, near Chengdu Lu

Opening hours: the website says till 2am on Fri & Sat, 10pm on a school night. I’ve read 9:30/10pm elsewhere though.

Call on 6171 6036 to make sure, or reserve a table.

Here’s my round up of the year. 

jANUARY

I started off the year in in Letterkenny, Oirland where I was pitched up in a remote cottage following my brothers wedding.

It was great craic (fake irishmen: please note the spelling) although if you want to get a Chicken Tikka Masala at 3am on January the 1st, I’d recommend not being in a village of 250 toothless fishermen. 

On returning to Shanghai, Emma convinced me to take a trip to the freezing wastelands of Harbin where they brighten the place up once a year by holding an ice festival. 

“How cold was it James?” 

I hear you ask. So cold that there was frost on the end of my eyelashes. 

So cold that when I saw a man peeing in the street, I wanted to shake his (left) hand for bravery.

Very, very, cold.

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It's John McClane what was in Die Hard!

So this is my John McClane, Bruce Willis in ‘Die Hard’ Halloween outfit.

If you’ve never seen Die Hard then, well you really need to re-appraise your life, but also you won’t understand the costume.

John McClane is Bruce Willis’s character from Die Hard part 1, 2, 4 and parts of 3 (although I wash my hands of the scene where a huge burst of water sprays him and Samuel L Jackson out of a pipe).

I estimate that of the 200 people who saw my costume, three people “got it” without any explanation, so in any measurable sense it was a massive failure (especially since Shanghai taxi drivers are not keen on picking up guys wearing a dirty vest covered in blood).

The Shanghaiist party was cool, I saw the Pope, a guy dressed as Super Mario, Earl Hickey and a couple of middle aged Chinese guys dressed as cops who…

Oh wait a minute, that actually was the cops- they shut down the party at about 1am.

Emma had a huge toy spider on her back- the wire legs wrapped around her as the giant arachnid sank it’s fangs into her shoulder. Lots of people loved that spider and kept shaking its legs and grabbing its little spider thorax.

The moral of the night seemed to be that if you’re going to hang out at a dark crowded club built inside an old bomb shelter then no-one is going to notice ultra-realistic touches like writing the terrorists names on your arm in marker pen, or the fact you’re not wearing shoes in a bar covered in broken glass, but they will notice a 4 foot spider attached to your back.

p.s. Liam- I’m in for Mo’vember.

I don’t know if any of you are planning to go to the Shanghaiist party tonight, I’m excited about it, got my costume sorted and everything.

If you see a guy whose feet are cut to ribbons, that’ll be me- say hi.

Photo by Nad

He’s a manrabbitpimp with a string of he-whores

Halloween isn’t really much of a holiday in the UK- we don’t seem to understand the fine difference between “Trick or treat” and “Your money or your life“, but I like to see people making the effort all the same. At Harleys in XuJiaHui last night they had a Halloween party- the whole place was cobwebbed up and full of people in costume to see a beat combo and dance to some gramophone records. 

Banana Monkey

This’ll be the band then, Banana Monkey- a four piece from, umm I guess Shanghai. I thought they were good, but a lot of their stuff kind of sounded like riffs taken from other people (Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines)- and the overall sound was a lot like Jet mixed with The Strokes. When I said this to Emma though, she pointed out that a band that sounded like this back home would be a bit lazy, but these lads are digging deep into a totally different culture.

There are no proper CD shops in Shanghai (or at least, I can’t find any), the internet has got more blocks than a game of Jenga, there’s no NME, no Rolling Stone. These lads are your equivalent of the original kids back in the 1950s in England; getting Little Richard 7″s on mail order, listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bed covers, forming a skiffle band called The Quarrymen.
The bass player had great hair too.

And here is the re-incarnation of Jam Master Jay providing the sounds for the revellers.

Best costume of the night for me was the lady dressed as Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral. I went over to commiserate her on her loss which she took very gracefully, but didn’t want to get my camera out at such a private moment of grief so you’ll have to imagine the scene yourself.