ISpyShanghai

Since I don’t post on a weekend, here are some canny links to sites I’ve discovered recently.

1. Dingle Speaks:
   He’s a regular commenter on here, and cheekier than a Vauxhall full of Monkeys.
   Read his personal ad, hilarity will ensue.
   
2. Buy Buy Beijing:
   Interesting stuff for sale and interviews with people in the trades:

   Q: How many knives have you sharpened today?
   A: A few, enough for me to eat.
   Q: Where are you from?
   A: Shandong, on the border of Hebei.
   Q: What do you do when you don’t sharpen knives?
   A: In the fall, I go back home to go help with the harvest.

3. She’s Electric:
   Life as a cool young woman in Shanghai, a bit like Shopgirl but with a smile on her face.
   Lots and lots of photos of naked breasts (not really).

If you remember, the last time we met our turtles they were living in a huge glass ashtray with about 1cm of water, and a couple of stones to while away the hours.

Oh-ho how times have changed. We’ve now got them installed at Turtleham Palace- a spacious glass tank where they can swim freely in oceans of water, shape up their flippers in the gravel corner, and then chill out on a floating rock.

They certainly seem to like it. Last night we were cleaning the tank and when Emma tried to take one of them out, the other one bit her.

We’ve only got ourselves to blame for the biting though, instead of feeding them horrible dried up turtle food pellets, we’ve now got them on fresh (defrosted) juicy shrimp.

Feeding with the shrimp is good fun- if you just chop it up and put it in the water they will eventually eat it, but a better way is to stick a bit of meat on the end of a cocktail stick and then bob it through the water all innocent like until the Turtles hunt it down.

Have a look for yourselves:

If that video doesn’t work for you, here it is on YouTube.

For names, we’ve gone East / West, old and new, long and short. The darker toned, angry-looking one who is so edgy she jumps off the rock as soon as she hears a noise is Svetlana, whereas the dopier, chilled out fella is Kip.
Svetlana and Kip.

And that concludes another fun-packed week here on ISpyShanghai. If you enjoyed it, tell your friends!
Or just hit reload! Either way my stats go up.

Picture the scene, you’re an 11 year old Chimpanzee in Shaanxi province and your husband has just died. A steady diet of bananas and people banging on your cage bars is driving you crazy, so what do you do?

It’s obvious really, start smoking.

The zookeepers turned a bit of a blind eye to Ai Ai’s habit (come on, the lady got problems) but after 16 years they decided enough was enough and it was time for her to quit.

So now the Chinese have the answer to a question that has plagued man throughout the ages:

How Does A Monkey Quit Cigarettes?

Head Chimp Psychiatrist Zhang HouZi explains

She’s served fried dishes and dumplings at every meal, alongside her usual diet of milk, banana and rice.
I also put earphones on her so that she could enjoy some pop music from my walkman.”

So now you know.

Ai Ai recently moved to Shandong province to be with her 17 year old toyboy, where she gave birth to a daughter (presumably) named “Double Happiness”

When people talk about modern Shanghai girls they’re usually saying bad things: shallow, gold-digging, high-maintenance, manipulative etc.

I don’t have any direct experience, but I think the fact that this t-shirt is fashionable says a lot:

N.B. the Santana is a pretty basic Volkswagen model, it’s the most common car in Shanghai

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

There’s a shop on Changle Lu called ACU (hey that rhymes!) - I’ve mentioned it before, but that was in the days before Shoe Tuesday- or “BST” as I call it.

The owner looks like the type of guy who should be taking young American boys under his wing and teaching them the mysteries of old Kung-Fu. Except he wears a hat that reads “We Are The Sub Culture” and fake pink leopardskin Nike hi-tops.

The genius of this place is that a third of the stuff in there isn’t even for sale

“That one is just a sample. Made from organic hemp”
“Yeah? When’s it coming out?”
“Oh it shall never be released to the public”
etc.

Another third are plain leather shoes or hand towels made by brands you’ve never heard of that sell (well, probably don’t sell) for 3,500RMB. Which leaves 5 or 6 items that are reasonably priced and actually look good.

This marketing genius is how I ended up with a pair of black adidas covered in a tomato print (to commemorate a festival in Spain), a Duck-egg blue cordorouy hat that cost the same as two weeks rent on my house back in Manchester, and now these bad boys:

They’re a collaboration between adidas and Pringle; Britain and Germany hand in hand. Just like when me and my buddy Fabien destroy everyone at Table Football in The Beaver.

God save das Queen!

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:

Sorry- I wrote this when horribly drunk and don’t want to keep the original thing posted.

Is this a menu item or a frigging cryptic crossword clue?

Good food in this place though.

I forget the exact address but it’s a Chinese restaurant in Beijing, shouldn’t be hard to track down.