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.

February

Spring Festival time again- out with the Pig, in with the Rat (or was it Mouse?) 

Spitting, flags, fireworks. They're all here!

I spent Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. Took the overnight sleeper train from Shanghai to Shenzen (and I’m still getting google hits for it) which was almost as much fun as the destination itself. 

"Hello is that Disney's copyright department?"

Hong Kong really does deserve its reputation as a great place to shop, it’s also a fantastic city to eat, and if you’re looking for a place to watch fireworks explode over Hong Kong Harbour- it’s absolutely world class.

Hong Kong Harbour

March

I came to Shanghai to work on the new Terminal 2 at Pudong airport, so you can imagine my relief when Terminal 2 actually opened and didn’t explode. 

Terminal 2 at Pudong

In the end it turned out to be kind of an anti-climax, I was on the second shift of engineers who clocked on at around 7am to clear up any problems that happened during switch over. But there weren’t any real problems.

Damn. If only I’d been working on Terminal 5 at Heathrow instead.

The other big news of the month is that I saw two middle-aged Chinese guys being nice to a cat and neither of them were WoAi. 

No, they weren't fattening up their dinner

April

The Smiths sang “November Spawned A Monster” but I say it was April15, 2008. 

That was the date when I decided to take two random photos I’d taken at the weekend, and pretend they were part of an ongoing feature called “Shoe Tuesday”. 

The first ever Shoe Tuesday image

Oh I thought it was a laugh at first, but yesterday I spent 10 minutes of my life chasing an 11 year old girl up three floors of a shopping mall because she was wearing a plastercast in the shape of a giant roller boot. 

I’m not sure who’s laughing every Tuesday, but it isn’t me I can tell you.

May

This was the month when Emma left her bag in a taxi on the way back from the airport. The driver fell asleep, I ended up in the back of a police car. 

You’ll really have to read the whole thing.

It was a strange incident that, in a way, shows the full spectrum of what life as a foreigner can be like in China.

Especially since the way I think about that night depends on whether I choose to remember how nice the police guy in the station was 

Please don’t think badly of China, we are trying to find your bag, I hope you have a great time here.

I like Lady Diana.

or to remember the attitude of the Emergency phoneline operator (i.e. the 999 / 911 woman)

Emma: Hello, I’d like to report a missing bag

Hatchet faced old Witch: Why are you in China? Do you have a visa?

It was also the month of my trip to a resort (called Xanadu!) near Hangzhou. Ahh, good times.

Xanadu in Hangzhou

June

During the merry old month of June I got heavily into timelapse and spent an entertaining (for everyone around me) hour or so stood on Nanjing Dong Lu taking a photo of the street every 20 seconds. 

Some results can be seen here, and another result was that I owed the long suffering Emma a trip to Beijing, my first time in the capital.

Three Bald Men

It’s lovely there- a lot more peaceful than Shanghai, and with cheaper sandwiches too.

July

Back home for the summer and a barrage of questions from friends and colleagues:

So do you have some kind of shoe fetish?

Seriously, what’s with all the shoes?

etc.

Once again, it’s a joke that somehow got out of hand- I’m as confused by the whole thing as you are.

July was also the first time I played the world’s greatest video game: Rock Band, got lost on my bike and nearly drowned in my own sweat, realised I could feed my turtles with a toothpick, and discovered how monkeys quit smoking. 

a t-shirt for evil hags

August

OK I’ll admit it- I was totally wrong about the Olympics. 

At the start of the year I thought the whole thing was nothing but hype and minority sports that no-one cares about. I was ordered to spend the opening ceremony from a secure location in the airport to defend from any cyber-attacks on the software (true story) and was blown away by the spectacle.

As the games wore on it felt like something historic was really happening, and that I’d be a fool not to take the short plane hop over to Beijing to see it for myself.

Three great sporting nations

In Beijing I had an amazing weekend, got tickets to go to the Birds Nest stadium, and saw something I’ll never forget: the first round of heats for the Women’s Pole Vault.

(Oh and Usain Bolt winning the 100m final)

September

I was in Nanjing enjoying a terrifying weekend of cable cars and taxi queues when I heard the news that my brother’s first baby, Eve Erin Creegan had arrived.

September was also the date of the first ever 150 club night out (a night out where the total cost of all of your clothes must be less than 150RMB), a free business trip to Kunming and the Stone Forest, and the month in which I bought a cool new lens for my camera.

Yi in wide-angle

On balance though, I’d still have to say that Eve’s arrival was the highlight.

October

Medical emergency! This is the month when I was rushed to hospital (well OK, I rushed myself to hospital) when my elbow suddenly turned infected and swollen. 

If I’m honest, part of me thought that the doctor was going to cut open the wound and millions of baby ants would crawl out of it. Instead though, they gave me some pills and it just sort of got better by itself.

Disappointing.

On the upside- I did get time to fly back to England and say hello to the new arrival. 

Eve Erin Creegan

Looking at this photo again, she looks so tiny! The beautiful smiling Eve I was playing with at Christmas must be twice as big as the newborn here.

Ah it won’t be long before she’s stealing cars and writing poems about how no-one understands her.

November

I started the month picking glass out of my feet following my disastrous halloween costume: (John McClane in Die Hard), but ended in triumphantly raising a good solid chunk of money for Prostate Cancer research by growing an awesome ginger moustache.

Me as John McClane

Me as Tachey McAwesome

 
 
Truly it was a wonderful Movember.

December

Shoe Tuesday turned ugly as a series of battles broke out: high-top sneakers versus shoe/trainer hybrids, boot warmers versus furry Crocs.

It’s a disturbing trend and no-one quite knows where it’s going, but we’ve opened Pandora’s box now, and it’s no use crying over spilt milk.

With a couple of friends away, we looked after Shanghai’s fanciest turtle- Dos, who spends his getting flipper manicures as he eats peeled Shrimp at Turtleham Palace.

How the other half swim

Let’s hope he enjoys it whilst it lasts- by the time this econmic crisis is over, he’ll have been boiled up for soup and served up at an Investment Banking soup kitchen.

• The first 3 months (13 comments)
• Shoe Tuesday: Apocalypse (11 comments)
• Shoe Tuesday – Olympics roundup (8 comments)

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?)

• 2008 (3 comments)
• Shoe Tuesday- the next level of Chinese shoes (8 comments)
• Shoe Tuesday / FeiYuesday (24 comments)

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:

• Timelapse photography (18 comments)
• Timelapse- drinking in the Beaver (33 comments)
• The Maglev, Shanghai (14 comments)

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/

• Shoe Tuesday – Olympics roundup (8 comments)
• Olympic medals are for losers (11 comments)
• 2008 (3 comments)

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).

Here’s what I used-

The timer settings were 1 per minute x 99 shots = 98 minutes in real life, 22 seconds in the clip.

Jenis brand battery grip for Canon350/400d – 750RMB
Tripod – 100RMB
Bottle of rice wine – 5RMB

• What (else) I did this weekend (15 comments)
• Timelapse- drinking in the Beaver (33 comments)
• What do you eat for your tea James? (16 comments)

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

• 2008 (3 comments)
• What do you eat for your tea James? (16 comments)
• What (else) I did this weekend (15 comments)