Bund at Night - Part 2

Took some views of the bund from the other side last night. Really is an amazing view in the evening -simply breathtaking. You can see the old HSBC Buiding, The Shanghai Club Builing, The Customs House and a lot of the new buildings - unfortunately they turned the lights off (10pm) just before I was going to take the picture of the far end of the bund - including the Bank of China Builing. Hope you like the photos. I've included a diagram showing what the buildings are. If you double click on either picture it will give you a full size view.

Shanghai beach

Feeling the need for some fresh air, sun, sand and salt water, I caught the bus out of town on Saturday to one of Shanghai's beaches. Bihai Jinsha Beach(贤碧海金沙水上乐园) is the Fengxian District of Shanghai, apart 1 hour 10 minutes by bus out from the centre of the city. The beach isn't natural but they've done a pretty good job creating something similar to a picture postcard scene. The name translates into English as "Blue Sea, Golden Sands" and they've managed to achieve part of this by importing white sand in from Hainan province, however the Sea (despite a much lauded "water filtration" system") wasn't especially clean.

When we got to the front gate of the beach I was asked for a health certificate to prove that I was "safe to swim". When I said I didn't have one I was told I couldn't come in, I said that I hadn't paid £10 for a ticket and travelled for over an hour (with a bit of a hangover) to be told I couldn't come in, so just walked straight past the guy. Caused a few bemused looks.

Saturday wasn't the warmest day to choose to go to the beach (19 degrees) but the water was still amazingly hot - maybe it is heated. The beach was quite crowded in places but you could find a few more quiet places to relax if you wanted. YOu could do things like canoeing, jet ski-ing, parasailing. They really have tried to make it exactly like a beach in a western resort and plus being a Chinese beach it comes complete with it's own Karaoke stage and KFC of course! The singing and dancing on the karaoke stage goes on till 10pm on a Saturday with a the last bus coming back to the city at 11pm.

Not as good as the "real thing" for sure but still a good way to relax for a few hours on a saturday. Plus at the moment there is a comic and "cosplay" show going on down there which makes it even more interesting than usual.

Clothes the Chinese Wear

Shanghai is known as the "paris of asia" in some parts. I guess this conjures up images of amazingly fashionable people strolling along glamourous shopping streets wearing louis vuiton, channel etc. That is probably correct of about 5% of all people in shanghai.

The vast majority still wear some absolutely cracking fashion disasters.

The latest trend is for boyfriends and girlfriends to wear matching t shirts with realted slogans (above). One famous example is a shirt with a wallet on - the boys version reads "I make money but I don't spend no money" whilst the girls version reads "i make no money but I spend money". You also get ones that say something along the lines of "i eat the rice but I don't make the rice"/"i make the rice but i don't eat the rice" etc etc. Some have pattens that join together when the pair are walking side by side along the street. It really is alarming the amount of people that you see wearing these when you walk around on a saturday afternoon.

Of course you still get your standard "chinglish" t-shirts where they've bought a shirt thinking it is fashionable because it has some english writing on and they have no idea what it actually means ( - I guess this is no different to people in England getting a Chinese Character tattoo though when they have no idea how to read or write chinese). Two classic examples below but really have seen too many to list; one good one I saw on a girl read in big black letters "FLICK MY MAGIC BEAN"....charming.

First Quarter Results...

So as of 12 July 2009 I turned 25! Christ, I feel old just saying that. The fact that most chinese people seem to think I look much older doesn't help much either (they place me at around 30 years old on most occaisions - just because they all look 5 years younger than they actually are!) . To celebrate my friends and I went out to dinner a lost heaven - a restuarant that serves spicy yunnan cuisine. The restuarant isn't too flashy but I'd been there before and thought it would be a nice place to go for a quick meal that wasn't too expensive.

After the meal we headed back to my apartment where we had a bit of a "house party". I'd bought plenty of beer, a few bottles of gin, vodka and then some mixes and we also had some champagne to celebrate as well. Interestingly a big bottle of gordans gin out here is £6 and a can of tonic is 30p - is that cheaper than home?! One thing that isn't cheper is imported beer - I bought 3/4 bottles of ale from the international supermarket and think they were £3 or £4 each! Shocker! Luckily I had my two bottles of TYDD STEAM that i carried with me from the brewery on day of departure to keep me satisfied. Once we'd polished off the gin, champagne and majority of the beers we headed off to Bar Rogue.

I'd never been to Bar Rogue before and, as i've written below, I wasn't too imprssed at the beginning. For starters, it cost 1ooRMB to get in - the most I've paid in Shanghai for anywhere where you still have to pay for drinks and when we got in it was completely packed busy and the music wasn't great. I was all set for leaving and going somewhere else but was persuaded otherwise. As the night went on the bar emptied out and the music got better and I soon started to see why people like the place.

Being one of the most famous bars in shanghai it has its own signature drink where they pour lighter fluid around the bar and down a series of glasses before setting fire to it. I'm not sure what alcohol was in the glasses (possibly baileys>?>>!) but whatever it was, was bloody hot after the inferno had finished.

When dawn broke we all sat down and watched the magical sunrise. Definitely a birthday evening I will never forget.

The sunrise got me thinking a bit about the last couple of years and the year going forward. Moving away from home to Leeds, buying a house, motorbike, moving to Shanghai, getting my competition job for when I return to home. Exciting times ahead. Lets hope the next quarter century is as enjoyable as the first.

Bund Views

Went to Bar Rouge - one of Shanghai's most famous bars on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday. I wasn't amazingly keen on the place at first as I thought it was over full, over expensive and populated by an annoying mix of pretentious snobs, wannabees and prostitutes *is there ever a good mix of those three categories of people?* I was all ready to leave and move somewhere else within about 30 minutes of arrival but was convinced to stay a little longer by Xuan as he had only just got there. I'm glad he did as as the night drew on the bar emptied a little and as the sun came up the terrace gave us the most fantastic view of the bund. It was lovely - a birthday I'm sure never to forget. I've just put some photos of the skyline here - i'll include more of the actual evening later.... the view made me wish I had a *proper* camera... I really like how you can see the hole in the top of the world financial centre and also the pearl tower looming large in the foreground.

Football birthday

Each week I play football with a group of Chinese lads ("Matrix FC") at the Jingwen Stadium. Not only does it give me some much needed exercise it always allows me to practice my mandarin/shanghainese. We usually have about 21 Chinese players and occaisionally a few other foreigners - although I've been the only "international" player making appearances lately (I think it is too hot for the others!).

The teams are split into teams of 7-a-side. Most of the lads have been playing together for 10 years or so so teams are in established units. There is an "argentina" team who all come from the Chongming island just outside of shanghai, a "France" team and then a "netherlands" team who were the original founders of the group. Seeing as I always wear my tangerine kit I got grouped with the Netherlands team. I tend to play an attacking full back role, which I really like but always results in me being cream crackered by the end!!

We play from 9.30am every sunday. The matches we play usually last 30 minutes each and then it is a case of winner stays on - if it is a draw the match goes to a penalty shoot. You can't stay on for more than 2 consectutive games and you wouldn't really want to in 40 degree heat. The games usually finish at 12.30pm and then we go for lunch and some drinks.

As last sunday was the week before my birthday the team threw me a surprise birthday party. We played until 12.30pm as normal and then went for a large dinner at a sichuan restuarant. They took charge of the ordering so I was treated to some of the spiciest food I have ever eaten in China and also some of the strangest; bullfrog, ducks neck.

They were quite shocked at how much i ate though and even more shocked that we eat rabbit at home. I explained to them that my parents are farmers and I think they understand. They were really kind and each team bought me a present - Kevin (my best friend on the team) bought me a really nice watch, the argentian team gave me a Chinese tea set from their island and the french team bought me a large birthday cake.

It was a really great day and I hope I can buy them all some new "english" football kits before I leave to say thank you for their hospitality. No more of this "argentina" malarky!!!