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Shazza's fav Tourist Tunnel photo.
This is a REAL photo. No filters, no flash, no nothing. Just the special lighting of the Tourist Tunnel over to Pudong. We think this would look really great on a canvas.......... The answer it would seem lays in the region of ten or so. We don't know why this is, however it's certainly a fact that there are a LOT of people here all joining in to undertake jobs of work that to our mind could be done by one or two people. Some examples:
1) Today we walked along the road and saw 9 men (NINE!!!) replanting a 6 foot tree. None of them were standing around either - they were ALL involved, passing the 2 spades between them and walking round the stump advising each other.
2) We have never seen so many waiting staff in restaurants and shops, however none of them are that busy (the employees that is). We reckon there might be as much as a three customers to every member of staff ratio. Now - we aint no statisticians, but thats HIGH!
3) Police directing the traffic. There are red & green men lights at every junction - along with at least 2 cops helping things along with their whistles and waving arms. It helps a bit to have these coppers, but not that much. You still get drivers running red lights, almost sending pedestrians
Chinese Laundry
Our hotel room after Alan did all the washing in the bath on Sunday. We missed the laundry 3 times and we were desperate for clean stuff to wear! flying. We've yet to see any arrests for this behaviour, so what enforcement part do the police play?.
4) We already mentioned in a previous blog about all the guards on the train we took from Honkers to here. Of what purpose could all these people possibly be serving???
What is the answer? Who knows - but its surely got to have something to do with Capitalism and Communism - those two age old enemies who have patched up their differences for a bit and are rubbing shoulders together very nicely indeed here in China! All this said, it's not like there is NO unemployment in Shanghai - there are hordes of beggars who scuttle from who knows where each evening to follow us Westerners along the roads with plastic cups, clutching our arms crying ' money money money' (- and they aren't even getting the tune right! Benny & Bjorn would be raging if only they knew). The ones that really get to you though, are the women who sit by the side of the pavement and send their infants over to pull on your trouser legs and tug your jacket begging for cash from you. It's difficult
Alan's Rolex
We eventually relented to the constant 'wanna buy a watch' Gauntlet cries because Alan did actually need a new watch. We bought this fake for a couple of quid and it didn't work properly for the first few days but now it seems to be OK. It's one of those ones that doesn't take a battery - you just shake it about a bit and it winds itself up. It does need a new strap though as this one is a bit plasticky. We'll see first if it breaks down or stays working before we spend more money on a new leather strap. It has a nice face and has good weight about it so fingers crossed.... to say no in these circumstances. The wee ones don't know what they are doing, but they're being trained to become the beggars of tomorrow. It's such a shame.
On a lighter note - as I type along - there have been some spectacular fireworks banging out for the last 10 minutes along the road from us above the river. The windows in our hotel won't open enough to let us take any decent photos, so we can't show you how good it looks - but given the Chinese' skills where fireworks are concerned - take our word for it - it has been pretty darn magical!
Now where was I? Ehhm.... Oh yes, was going to write about what we've been up to this last couple of days. Well, Sunday was good - we found the Old Town proper (hurrah) but again we got a bit lost on the way so it took us an extra hour to get to our destiantion. It's fairly 'touristastic' place down in the Old Town, which basically consists of tons of souvenier & traditional shops, teahouses and bunhouses (plus the ubiquitous MacDs and KFC) all served up to us via lovely
old style houses with the curvy ornamental roofs, laquered paintings and animal embossing. We bought a tea set in the bazaar - a lovely little blue and aqua green glazed set with a nice traditional Chinese design and a wicker handle. (All the boys reading this will by now have switched off at the mere mention of 'tea set shopping', but the girls would all love it. Looks like something out of Habitat ten years ago.) At night we went out for a 'quiet drink' and accidentally got completely and utterly plastered in this little bar round the corner from our hotel, called The Wine Library. The problem here wasn't so much to do with the volume we drunk, but more to do with the fact that we both have full blown colds now and are suffering a bit, so naturally the booze went to our heads faster and more lethally than usual. And if you believe that then you'll believe anything. No, but really we do have the cold (pity us, pity us, pity us....).
So Monday was a write-off for two reasons. The first being to do with our terrible colds / hangovers / whatever you want
to call it, and the second was to do with the weather. It was pants. Very rainy, gray and driserable. Yes that's right, 'Driserable' there is no better word for it. Constant gloomy doomy darkness, and smoggy, foggy, thick pea soupy air did fill the atmosphere around us. We stayed in and watched telly, looked stuff up on the internet, sent emails and jokes (sorry about all the jokes that Shaz has been sending out by the way - it's a novelty at the moment which will no doubt wear off!) and played computer games. Alan has a new game called 'Half Life' which he's now addicted to like a junky (Shaz is a Half Life Widow) and he plays it at every single available opportunity.
Tuesday saw us take a trip on the MAGLEV train. For those of you who don't know what the Maglev is, its a train which is powered by magnetic levitation. I'm tempted at this point to not give you any more information on the Maglev, and let our Gary take over the scientific explanation via a comment? Are you up for the challenge Gaz???? BTW - Alan kept saying how much he wished
he'd been able to take the Maglev trip with Gary as he is the only person he knows that would have appreciated it as much as himself. He was slightly wrong however because Shaz had a ball too! It's SO smooth - and we reached a top speed of 431kms an hour! WOW. The Mag only runs at the moment from just outside the city centre directly to the airport with no stops in between, but we made a point of going on it anyway - such was our enthusiasm. Incidentally, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was visiting Shanghai this week and took a trip on the same Maglev train as we were on - what a coincidence! Here's a wee story and picture:
German Chancellor Visit And just incase Gary couldn't be bothered playing nerd boy - here is a link to info about the Maglev trains and how they work. All VERY VERY interesting!
MAGLEV What else we been up to? Well, we took a trip to the French Concession part of town (we call it French Connection) and visited the First Meeting Place of the 1st National Congress of the Communist party. T'was OK,
Shanghai modern architecure #2
The Aurora building has images lighting up the lower 3 quarters of it at night. The tall building behind it is the Jinmao Tower - one of the most beautiful buildings we've ever seen which has the Grand Hyatt hotel within it but there were no English subtitles except for one sign, so we could have been looking at any old photographs of Chinese people in the 1920s and thus we hadn't a clue who the guys were or what eventually happened to them. We left a message in the comments book to ask them to provide English pamphlets for visitors. Somehow we think our request might fall on deaf ears.
We had dinner in an Italian restaurant along the road called 'Truffles' - the food was great and the service impeccable, if a little conspicuous (too much filling our glasses andfootering about with stuff on our table by the waiter) but we had a great time. Bruschetta for starter, then Al had Lasagne and Shaz had Spaghetti Milanese with asparagus, lemon and chicken. Very nice. Also pushed the boat out and had dessert (we're blaming the hangover /cold) and had Tiramasu and strawberries individually filled with vanilla ice cream. Mucho Yummo!
Last night we had a really lovely evening in a posho restaurant called 'M on the Bund' which is as the name suggests, situated on the Bund. It can't be beaten in terms of views along the river,
with all the twinkling lights and glowing advertisements, however the food was fairly average for an upmarket restaurant. By comparison with some restaurants at home in Edinburgh, we'd say it would fall slightly short of the Outsider but was better than Ricks. Alan had 'twice baked crab souffle, followed by baked beef with croquettes & spinach timbale, sthen a rhubarb shortcake and cream layered thing. Shaz had crab gumbo, salt crusted leg of lamb with roast tats, broad beans and salsa verde, followed by mango souffle with coconut ice cream' The souffle was exquisite. We sat next to this nice couple from Chicago who were on their last night here in Shanghai, and we enjoyed their company. We mucked up at M on the Bund however as we took our little Kyocera camera instead of the Cannons ( The Kyocera fits into Shazza's handbag) and the power failed on it so we couldn't get any photos. It was disappointing, as we had a great view over the river at our outside table. A top tip if you are planning on coming to this restaurant - book a few days in advance and ask specifically for a table outside with a
good view. They do try to honour your request.
Anyway look - a Jimmy Bond film has just started on TV (The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan - the best Bond!) and we love Jimmy Bond films when they come on the telly, so we'll bid you goodnight. Tomorrow we catch the 20:10 train to Beijing. We arrive there at 10am on Friday, and are booked into the Oriental Garden Hotel, which looks to be fairly central, for one week - then it's back to Honkers for 5 days. From this Friday it's a mere 2 WEEKS till we are back in the UK for our wee visit. We are looking foward to it all.
Nighty night then,
Shaz & Al ............ Shaken, Not Stirred xxxxxxx
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Elly
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You will soon love Gordon
Shaz, I became a Half Life widow about 8 years ago. By Half Life 2 you will soon get to love Gordon Freeman!