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Published: December 2nd 2007
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Starbucks - Anytime, anywhere
Amy having her caffeine fix at Xi Tian Di. Hello all....
On popular request (okay, no one asked, but humour me) on this eve of our fourth month in Shanghai, I'm going to write about our neighbourhood...it seems a topic that is long overdue, and besides, I'm running out of ideas...so keep those cards and letters coming in. Seriously though, thanks for all the supportive comments -- and if I haven't got back to anyone replying, it's because it's becoming very difficult to get in to Travelblog.org. Let's hope that it's not shut down -- as China has been known to do to blog sites -- so for what it's worth, here is my 7th entry, on our locale....it's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, la, la la........and we LOOOOOVE China :-)
SO! We live inside a box of one-way streets - Huangpi (Wong Pee) to the west, Jianguo (Jingwah) to the south, and Fuxing (Foo shing) to the north. This means we can jump on our bikes and go anywhere in the city; and one weekends we've biked to the fabric market near the Huangpu River, taken the ferry to Pudong (or Pu WEST) the Shanghai Museum on Huangpi Bei (north), the Art Street (a labyrinth of
Mao must be rolling
Proganda posters sell side by side with old Shanghai's cigarette girls in the antique market, which shows no favourtism. trendy cafes and art galleries), Starbucks of any number of western restaurants in Xintiande -- our escape when we need a western fix, and a short ride takes us to our favorite haunts where we can plop ourselves down in front of a coffee or white wine, and watch the world pass by. After our morning coffee today, we explored the plant and insect market and antique street...and these are both within a short jaunt, too.
Our bikes have replaced our cars back home. Shanghai is not a pedestrian friendly city, so we figure when in Rome...:-) In any case, with our bikes we have joined the sizeable population on wheels, and find this a fun and efficient way to get around. Believe it or not, even safer than being a pedestrian, since most of the other million or so bikes and scooters feel free to ride on the sidewalks. But on our bikes we find Shanghai to be very accomodating. For one thing it's flat as a pancake, and for another it's rife with bike lanes (Toronto take note!), and finally, it puts us on par with the mobile set! But, we've had to learn a few tricks
Roel striking a hard bargain
Negotiating: offer half and be prepared to walk away. We've learned this the hard way. along the way, like stay mid-pack and don't ride too fast, or too slow (kinda sounds like driving on the Don Valley, no?)
Even though we are a short hop from Xintiande and the downtown we do live on the wrong side of the tracks, so what makes our neighbourhood unique is that it seems to not be slated for immediate demolition. Enire streets are being torn down at an astonishing pace in Shanghai and one of the major reasons we chose our apartment was the promise from the landlord that for THIS year at least, our street apparently is safe from the wrecking crew. So far, apparently, that remains true -- but this doesn't mean that every bang and clang I hear doesn't make me think, "Oh no...a year of ëven MORE dust and noise has arrived on our doorstep!" But so far, so good...according to "That's Shanghai" a popular English magazine, the rate of growth in Shanghai is so incredible that the ongoing construction of one of the biggest highrises in the world is already being trumped by the neighbouring lot.
So, presently we live in old Shanghai and this means that we get to witness
Maggots anyone?
A delicious sidedish...for people or birds? many astonishing things -- particularly each morning when we walk to our bus pickup. In the hustle and bustle of early morning there are the quaint sights of cooks flipping pancakes on the street corners, and older people practicing tai chi everywhere. And people walking their dogs and not p--- and scooping (oops, not so quaint) and deliveries being made to local grocery stores and bags of food being left on above same, disgustingly filthy sidewalks (...am I sounding a tad disenchanted?) Well, currently I'm recovering from my second bout of stomach upset, so I'm a little squeamish about the dirt...which is, unfortunately, part and parcel of life in Shanghai. So the disenchantment is genuine, but it's still rubbing elbows with utter enthrallment, and depending on the day, time or temperature (and how my stomach is faring) my response to all of the above is very dependent on my mood at the moment. But I'm having to learn how to shrug off a lot...ie. on our morning jaunts the dimming of lights for the local brothels, as we have just discovered that we live in the red light section of town. So seeing the red lights turning off as the
A bird in the hand....
....is worth? We're not sure, we only fed this guy at the Plant, Bird and Insect market. bakeries, convenience stores and legitimate hairdressers open up (the prostitutes' stores also sport flashy barber poles) one HAS to shrug and think, hey, China is booming, and there are 34,000,000 people by some estimates, in this city, and everyone has to make a living. And with that, I'll end this installment, and let you be the judge and jury. I'm too tired to figure it all out...and tomorrow it's back at the salt mines. Which may be the subject of my next blog!
'Til then,
Zai jian.
Amy & Roel
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martha
non-member comment
maggots?
Ok!!! You had me at Starbucks coffee but lost me at the maggots. You guys look great in the pics, I enjoy reading your blog, its great. Love Martha