ISpyShanghai

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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<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

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?)

After a heavy Friday night (for which I blame Baijiu, B52s and The Beaver), and a more restrained Saturday (Comedy night@Racks, The Spot, The Shelter, home early) I had a good day of wandering around on Sunday.

If you ever feel like you’re insignificant in this world, that life passes you by and nobody pays attention to you, try setting up a tripod and camera on Nanjing Dong Lu. There’ll be a crowd of people watching you within a few minutes.

(If you’re white you can achieve the same trick by just sitting down next to an empty seat on Nanjing Dong Lu. A steady stream of Chinese bumpkins who want to have their photo taken with a genuine laowei will be along shortly.)

Here’s another timelapse video:

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/

I’ve been into the idea of timelapse photography for a while now- ever since I saw this cool video by a fellow Shanghai expat called Lifemage.

You take a series of photos every so often, then string them together to make a movie clip at 24 frames per second (or whatever). Time is sped up, everything moves fast, flowers bloom before your eyes, fruit rots as you watch, people gasp in astonishment.

The idea has been around forever but what with digital cameras, the Internet, smokeless fuels and the Macarena now freely available, anyone can have a go.

Sitting around pressing the shutter every minute for 16 hours is a bit of a pain though so on Monday I bought a battery pack for my camera to do the timing automatically. I set it up on the balcony and recorded the sun setting over the grey sky West of Jing-An.

Not bad for a first try, if a bit murky.

Now I know how to do it, I’m thinking about making a clip of my journey to work, the sun rise out of the back window of my place, Nanjing Dong Lu pedestrians, me drinking a whole bottle of Rum, the decline of Western Civilisation- the possibilities are endless(ish).

Geeks-only information below. Click if you want, but no complaining

I’m off to Harbin this weekend, the freezing cold city north of Beijing where they hold an annual ice festival.

In preparation for the weather in Harbin
[oh Jesus I've just looked at the forecast, it's going to be between -23 and -35 degrees celsius- why the hell did I agree to this?!]
Emma had been given a tip about where to buy cheap duck down coats. Just the ticket.

Buying a jacket in a place like this is about as pleasant as getting your finger trapped in a car door.
The rails are packed into the available space so people shove and elbow each other out of the way to get where they’re going, staff are all on commission so are on you like ants on a Fruit Pastille, and when it’s time to pay you have to queue up at a separate cash counter for the best part of a week- waiting for someone to rubberstamp a sheaf of sales receipts for you to take back to the harpie with your jacket.

“That was like being on the ‘Titanic‘ ” Emma said as we left. She had a point.

The jackets were cheap- 300RMB for hers, 400RMB for mine. In the end, though,  it was a false economy since we spent 400RMB on afternoon tea at the Four Seasons to recover.

Duck Down jackets, 300-500RMB. “Palace Of 100 Products” (or something) Department Store, Nanjing Dong Lu