Charlie in China

Final Match

2009-08-31T01:29:00.000-07:00

the team in matching kit - Blackpool wasn't available!

This being my last weekend in Shanghai it meant that I made my last apperance for Matrix FC. I've been down to play football with the lads just about every weekend I've been in Shanghai - only missing the occaisional week when on holiday on busy with work. All the lads have been really welcoming to me so to thank them for their hospitality I bought them all Liverpool Kits so they can have matching shirts when they play against other teams. Kevin, one of the leaders of the team, marked the occaision by reading a speech that said I was the "first official sponsor of Matrix FC". I then handed out the shirts and gave them the card that is below.

my card - someone on the train tried to correct one character!

This is the speech that Kevin made to the rest of the team (i like the part about my knee!):

开场白：
对矩阵来说今天是个特别的日子，因为矩阵将会得到第一次正式意义的私人赞助。赞助人是Charlie Markillie.查理2009年初开始在矩阵开始活动，今天是最后一场在矩阵的活动，然后他将返回他的祖国，英格兰。

Today is a specail day, MatrixFc will accept first officail sponsor and his donor shirts.The sponsor's name is Charlie Markilie.Charlie join MatrixFc in the year beginning, today is the last game for him in MatrixFc, and then he will be back to his contry, England.
在矩阵里，查理的膝盖在肯定是最差的（虽然我们希望他会尽快恢复），活动前一天的平均睡觉时间也是最短的（一般老外星期六晚上睡觉也都比较少），不过貌似这都不能阻止他来踢球。In MatrixFc, his knee is the worst one(though everyone hope he will recover totally soon), and most of saturday he sleep less compare all of us, but it seems nothing will stop him to the football game.

这是一个足球狂热者。也是一个友好的热心人，他很早就提出，他希望赞助我们球衣能让我们分成各个支队。我很认可他的想法，不管出于卫生和风阻系数来说，用穿背心的办法分队都很不舒服，最主要的，穿背心还是让人感觉有点乱。He is a creasy football fan. Besides, he is a warm heart person. One monthes ago he told me he will buy some shirts for MatrixFc so we dont need to wear the bibs. I agreed with his opinion and i think the bibs is not good at all.

但是矩阵分队比较灵活，所以今天我们将赞助的球衣统一成利物浦队服，同时我们也接受所有队员的闲置队服的赞助。今后我们将合理利用这些赞助队服，进行分队。But we often chang sub-team players, so we decided to accept Charlie's donor all as Liverpool's shirts and then we will gather all the donor shirts from all the Matrix players.We will try to use them instead of bibs.

感谢查理到来，他的真诚，他的贡献，今日所发生将会被记录到矩阵史册，请大家共同鉴证今日。We appricate for Charlie's coming, his honer and contribution, everyone will remember today.2009年8月30日Augest thirty year two thousand 9.

1. 接下来请________,________记录捐献球衣发放。_________and__________will be invited to send shirts to everyone

2. 请____________记录接受捐献球衣登记，并接受各个队员今日捐赠的球衣和将要带来捐赠的球衣。___________will in charge of recording the donor shirts, and for the future donor.

Last Weekend in Shanghai

2009-08-28T02:46:00.000-07:00

Whilst this weekend isn't my last in China, it is the last I will spend in Shanghai before returning home. It's quite sad as many of my friends are leaving this weekend or the start of next week and it really feels like our time here is coming to an end. To make sure we go out in style we've got a pretty action packed weekend planned. Keeping off tonight - hopefully very soon *it is already 6pm here* - at Dishuidong; one of our favourite chinese restuarants on Changle Lu. After that we're heading to Emma's new apartment for a few pre-game drinks before heading to a bar and then some karaoke. Then after we've filled up on Karaoke we're heading to a club and then Bar Rogue to watch the sunrise. Should be awesome and a great way to spend our last friday night together.

Tomorrow, once I wake up, i'm meeting with my football team friends as I'm buying them a new kit to play in. At the moment they have a mixture of different shirts which can get quite confusing so for £60 I've brought them enough footy shirts to deck out all 25 of the players. They are calling me their first ever "official sponsor". After that I thought I might head to moganshan or xinle lu one last time.

In the evening i've got another chinese wedding! (see report earlier of the other one I attended) HOpefully more turtle but less who wants to be a millionaire questioning. This time it is the turn of Monica (who has also just announced that she is pregnant!) so the HongBao is taking a proper hammering this weekend!!!

After the wedding I'm heading to YuYingTang with the others for a Brit Pop night. SUnday morning will be football and sunday afternoon I might actually get time to update the blog with my holiday stories. Who knows??!

Flight to Kunming

2009-08-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Despite all the worry about typhoon Morakot delaying the flight we boarded the plane to Kunming from Shanghai on time. Took off and everything was going normal but then 30 minutes in there was an announcement over the intercom that there was a problem with the plane and we were going to have to make an emergency landing - we turned round back to shanghai and went back. The captain said there was nothing wrong with the plane itself but that the radar had broken and then moments later the plane dropped what seemed about 10 feet - everyone started panicking and kids started to cry. When we eventually made what was a bumpy landing they kept us on the plane for about 10 minutes and insisted that we'd be resuming our flight on the same plane, several of the Chinese complained about this and eventually they decided that we wouldn't be carrying on on the same plane. When we got off the plane several emergency vehicles rushed to the plane and started working on the plane from each side - definitely more than just the radar that was wrong. We boarded the new plane and took off for Kunming - think everyone was a little nervous but thankfully this flight went without hitch.

Holiday

2009-08-05T00:04:00.000-07:00

Most of my office is on holiday at the moment so I thought it would be a perfect chance for me to have a break before coming back to England. Last time I was in china I managed to travel to most of the places I wanted to go to in the centre and east of China but never got a chance to travel to south of the country so I'm taking the oppotunity to explore Yunnan Province.

Yunnan, close to Thailaind, Burma and Vietname, is meant to be one of the most beautiful provinces in China with amazing scenary and beautiful wildlife. I'm going to spend two weeks there exploring. I fly into Kunming on Saturday and stay there for one night (just another big chinese city) before catching the 8 Hour bus to Lijiang. We'll spend 4 days exploring Lijiang, 2 days at Lu Gu Hu (a lake village where marriage doesn't exist), 2 days at Tiger Leaping Gorge (arguably the world's deepest canyon) and then onto Shangri La for 4 days. Really wanted to go from Shangri La to Lhasa for a couple of days in tibet but it would have been too much hassle with visas so have decided to spend more time in Lijiang.

Will try and take some decent pictures and keep you up to date with what i'm doing. After I come back from holiday I have about 2 weeks before flying home.

The Battle of Nanjing

2009-08-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

Those of you that read this blog regularly will know that since I've been here I've satisfied my desire for live football by going to watch Shanghai Shenhua. This weekend Daniel and I went with the Lan Mo (Blue Devil) Ultras Supporters group to see them play in Nanjing. I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks and it didn't disappoint.

Unfortunately my mate Cameron, who was acting as our "in" to the Lan Mo was ill and unable to come, So just Daniel and I formed the Laowai Lanmo for this trip. We meet at the train station for 8.15 and boarded the Nanijng Express. I think we were both feeling a little uneasy about meeting up with football "hooligans" that we'd never met before and with whom I'd had only brief telephone conversations but we were still looking forward to a great weekend.

We arrived in Nanjing at 11.15 and made our way to the hotel. Instantly surprised by how nice it was - 4* European standard - had a few problems checking in - as didn't know the name we were booked under. We weren't technically allowed to be in Nanjing on the Saturday - the police had banned us from travelling so unsurprisingly we hadn't booked the hotel under the group name "shanghai FC ultras".

We asked where to go for lunch and were suggested to head to the KFC around the corner - nice touch - we made our way out to find something a bit more local. We got the call about 12.30 that the boys had arrived at the hotel. We made our way back and saw about 100 people (mostly lads) milling around in the lobby as one guy took cash, distributed cards and did a general roll call. This was "top boy" Frank - leader of the Lan Mo - Daniel named him "Chairman". Each member of the Lan Mo has dog tags with how long they have been in the club - Most just say Member, or if you are especially high up leader - Frank's said "Pioneer".

Frank quickly told us the plan of action for the weekend, when we were allowed free time, the fact that they'd told the police we weren't arriving in Nanjing until the Sunday, the fact we had to keep things low key so as to not be detected and the fact that we should meet in the lobby later for a big celebration meal as tomorrow was his birthday!

Frank said that the afternoon we were free to explore nanjing- he put a ban on any football clothing until tomorrow and just said to be back in time for dinner. We went out to the Massacre Memorial museum which was interesting and was glad I went as it was closed previously when I was in Nanjing. Afterwards we joined up with the lads fo dinner. We were the last to get to the restaurant due to a useless taxi driver. We had 2 tables in the front of the restaurant for the "youth" and then two more in the back for the "top boys" and "youth leaders". We were put on the youth leaders top table.

We were in a private room and despite wanting to remain off the radar for the time being this meant we frequently broke out into song. One of the lads told me that the "youth" outside were on the look out for if any Nanjing fans turned up. There was loads of food at the banquet but very little got touched as we just focused on toasts and gangbei-ing each other. As the meal went on various people stood up and made speeches in honour of "the chairmans" birthday. Then came my turn. I introduced myself in Shanghainese (which got a laugh) and then went on to say in Mandarin that Daniel and I loved Shenhua and would die for the cause. Later Dan was asked for his turn and lost for words he just downed his bottle of beer which was met with a response in chorus of 'di yi ping, di yi ping!' (the first bottle). After this the "youth" went home and the top lads carried on drinking, we were moved to their table and they started singing English football songs at the top of their voices for us. Despite Dan and I insisting otherwise Chairman Frank paid for dinner as it was his birthday. Bonus.

After a drunken dinner round a table with topless guys, we started to have other 'things' on our minds, so we headed to a very Chinese bar/club. The standard combination of four bottles of whisky and a plate of watermelon was brought to the table. Dice games were the order of the night, I was so hammered by this time that I could barely count the dice though. Some of the lads went off to find Frank a girl for his birthday but the place was overran by blokes so think they failed. We finished all 4 bottles of whiskey between us and spent most of the evening singing Shenhua songs as loud as possible above the music and trying to incite a reaction from the locals- failed.

The morning of the match was met with military precision. 9am meet downstairs for breakfast. No colours allowed. Haven eaten some fairly awful Chinese breakfasts before I was quite pleasantly surprised by the selection on offer, but I joked to Dan (who is Jewish) that there was no bacon. 10 minutes later a waitress came out and presented me with a whole plate of bacon - more than one person could ever possibly manage to eat! At this point Frank and the other lads came down stairs and told us that the team coach had been attacked on the way into Nanjing so things could get "interesting" at the ground.

we boarded the coach at 10am and drove some 40/50 miles out of nanjing to meet up with the further 10 coaches of Shenhua fans and their police escort. We waited there for about 30 minutes and then they all turned up and we were escorted to a town called JuRong for Lunch - a place that according to its sign is 'China's no.1 tourist city'. Never heard of it, nor has Lonely Planet, nor, I doubt, has anyone who doesn't live there. All 700 fans or so were taken to the same restaurant. It was quite some sight. Once again we were taken to eat in a private room with the top boys. After my drinking exploits from the night before i was christened "Charlie:King of England" and force fed beer at an extraordinary rate. In the 40 minute stop for dinner I had 5 bottles and they gave me another for the coach. Dinner came to 20RMB per person - starting to see why JuRong is a potential tourist honey pot!

At the restaurant everyone got into their Game clothes. As the group is called the blue devils everyone has to wear blue. Some of our favourite t-shirts worn by the ultras said such things as "WELCOME TO THE HELL" - "WONDERFUL SHANGHAI, WONDERFUL SHENHUA, BLUE JIHAD" - "SHUT UP" - "LETS HAVE A FIGHT, NORTH VERSUS SOUTH" - "WE WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING, ONE LOVE, ONE DESIRE, SHENHUA" - "SHENHUA; PERSUASION AND LOYALTY". Quite different to England where some of the more "hardcore" fans wear anything but club colours.

Then we are escorted by the police to the stadium. Despite leaving the hotel nearly 6 hours before the match started we still managed to miss the kick off by 10 minutes due to the ridiculous police searches that went on outside the ground. Unfortunately all flags, banners and drums were confiscated. We all walked into the ground without anyone asking for a ticket!!!

The game itself was spent standing on the seats the whole match. The mighty Shenhua had a player sent off after half an hour and then went a goal down. But then we equalised which set off crazy scenes in the crowd. Of course, Daniel and I thought it only right that we take our tops off and go crazy with the rest of them. The good spirits soon turned sour again after Nanjing went a goal up with only 5 minutes left. Yet somehow the ten men of Shanghai managed to get their equaliser and almost nick a winning goal at the end. With the equaliser the Shenhua fans attempted to "get at" the Nanjing fans only to be met by the Chinese Army complete with guns and riot shields. Breathless stuff. All in all, 2-2 away in Nanjing with ten men was a good result.

The atmosphere in the ground was decent - we stood with some of the lanmo that had befriended us and we joined in with all the songs and baiting of the Nanjing fans (Sa Bi).
After the match we had to wait around for ages as the police and armed riot police set up outside. There were hundreds of them. Almost one policeman for each of the 700 Shenhua fans. They obviously saw Daniel and I and thought we were pretty threatening to the rest of Nanjing. The Nanjing fans made several attempts to get at the coaches but were held back by the police - from inside the stadium concourse we could occasionally hear huge roars as the fans rushed at the armed guards. Even after being kept behind for 30 minutes they were still waiting for us when we left.

We were escorted out of Nanjing by the police where we experienced scenes of bottles being thrown at our coaches and a couple of opposition fans doing a 'Tiananmen tank man' and standing in front of our coaches so we couldn't move. I tried to get some of our lads to get off the coach and "deal" but no one obliged.

The long ride back to Shanghai still had one remaining highlight...after a few hours drive we stopped at a petrol station only to find that the Shanghai Shenhua team bus had also stopped for a break. More crazy scenes as we got the players off the bus for photos etc.

A quality weekend at a total cost of £30 - well worth the money!!

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum

2009-08-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

We had a little spare time on saturday, before the drinking commenced, so took a trip to the Massacre Memorial Museum. I had wanted to visit last time when I was here, but the museum was being rennovated. The rennovations have now been completed and the museum is a fantastic memorial to all those that lost their lives. Of course it is heavily biased to the chinese - Japanese are referred to as "devils" throughout - but nonetheless it is highly informative and worth a visit for anyone with an interest in (Chinese) history.

In the six-week period following the Japanese capture of Nanking on December 9 1937, 80,000 women and children were raped by the Imperial Japanese Army and hundreds of thousands of people murdered.

The names of 100,000 of victims that died in the massacre are inscribed on the wall surrounding the memorial

The number 300,000 is every where in the Museum - even donations made by benefactors were done in mutliples of 300,000 Yuan. A constant reminder of the number that died.

The memorial is built on the burial site of 100,000 of the victims. The bodies are laid

out in state, the sight is quite horrifying. After the hall you progress into an area where

there are candles lit for the victims.

The last area of the museum is devoted to ongoing relations between

the japanese and chinese and the last thing you see as you leave is the sign of peace -

和平 - He Ping - Peace

Bund at Night - Part 2

2009-07-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-07-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-16T00:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

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!!!

Bao Shan Lu - Second Hand Markets

2009-06-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

BaoShaoLu in northern shanghai is an area entirely composed of second markets. You can quite possibly buy everything that you ever wanted there. The outside markets concentrate on industrial goods such as chainsaws, vices, washing machines, linishers, electrical wire. Inside they concentrate on electrical goods such as computers, car stereos, hifi's, mobile phones etc and other household appliances. I'm not sure how much is genuinely second hand and how much is just stolen - i'm guessing most of the bikes are "hot" though - but it was really intersting to go round and take a look, I don't think any where else other than China would have such a market where things scavanged from the road side and dumps are sold as valued commoditites. Everything has a price in China and nothing goes to waste. Next time I need a pair of heavy duty bolt croppers I know where to go!

YuYingTang 育音堂

2009-06-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

The bar I spend most of my time in, in Shanghai, is definitely YuYingTang. A live music venue, it hosts a different band most nights of the week and has a good mix of chinese and western music. Some of the Chinese bands I've seen in YuYingTang include Happy Avenue (one of the most famous chinese rock bands with the most famous rock star in china, Wu Hongfei, as their lead singer), Teddywish (Blink 182-esque pop/punk/emo but actually quite good), Reflector (Beijing punk rock), IDH (from inner mongolia - a 2 piece with extremely wierd singer) and the most accomplished band out of the lot The Honeys (signed to Sony music and described as the Chinese REM - they have supported Coldplay). I've also seen western bands such as Have Heart, Turdus Musicas and a few others including a chinese/western band - The Rogue Transmission.

The best things about YuYingTang are that it only usually costs 30/40RMB to see a band in YuYingTang so you don't mind going along and giving it a try - a big difference to england where gig tickets are usually around £10 even for smaller bands. Beer is only 20RMB (£1.70) for a small 300ml glass going up to 70RMB (£6) for a 1.5litre Jug - the last time I went there i ordered one and they asked "how many glasses" - I replied none and just drank straight from the jug. I think they were a bit surprised. The best thing about it is that it is set in a park so that between bands you can go outside get some fresh air, chill out and enjoy the evening. Really does set it apart from other places of it type in Shanghai. The worst things are the air con (none), the slippery floor - not good for dancing - and perhaps the fact that it is really small (but this is also perhaps one of the best things about it too).

Other decent music venues in Shanghai include LiveBar - a little too far out of town though - The DreamFactorys -massive new venue - and LoGO - really decent small venue.

BabyFace

2009-06-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Now that most of us out here have got jobs secured back home (just one or two others waiting for the call - fingers crossed) I think most of us have decided to un-wind a little for the last few months and try and have a good time before the *serious* work starts in September. This doesn't mean we are working any less hard, but might mean that we are just a little more tired when we are working.

BabyFace is China's most succesful Clubbing Chain. We visited one in Beijing when we were there and this one in shanghai is almost identical in every aspect - music, decor, clientele - but it is still fun. It is open everynight of the week and whilst the weekends are the most popular nights (for obvious reasons) it seems to be consistently busy throughout the week. The music it plays is the usual mix of chinese pop, R&B, Hip Hop and then mega dance tunes. They also get world famous DJ's to play there every now and again - DJ Tiesto, Judge Jules, Armand Van Bueran et al. Whilst this isn't exactly my cup of tea, i can dance to it every now and again if I've had enough to drink.

The best things about babyface though are that it is in the same complex as a McDonalds so ideal for relieving those 4am hunger pangs, there are millions of girls there, and it is only 2 minutes walk back to my house - so no need for a taxi afterwards. The worst thing is that, like most chinese clubs, they have a minimum spend policy if you want to sit at a table - that basically requires you buy a whole bottle of spirit with mixers (a long way away from Mazzo club in Shijiazhuang where they used to let us drink for free) and on a friday and saturday night it is like a meat market with far,far too many foreigners.

Other clubs we've been to in Shanghai are Muse, Muse 2, Shelter, Richy and DKD (drink as much as you like for 100Y every night). So there are plenty more for us to check out in our remaining couple of months here. I can feel the headaches just thinking about it now.

NEW Oven - 窑

2009-06-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

My apartment comes "fully furnished", however one glaring thing it was lacking from the kitchen was an oven. I've promised that i'd cook for the people from the office but I really wasn't sure how I'd go about doing this with only 4 hobs and a microwave so I eventually crumbled and purchased myself a mini oven. It is actually a pretty amazing bit of kit -cost £20 - is about the size of an average microwave and comes with the attachments to turn it into a dedicated chicken rotisserie! As it is electric it also heats up in no time whatsoever - i learnt this as I left the complimentary oven glove that they supplied (a lovely lemon yellow in colour) on top of the oven for about 2 minutes as it heated up and soon smelt the burning!

Any how, see below for the first attempt at cooking with the oven. Chicken breast stuffed with mozarella cheese and wrapped in proscuito ham, served with pasta, asparagus, carrots and broccoli. The chicken was dirt cheap - 90p for two breasts and the vegetables were again near free but the western type foods i.e. pasta, mozarella and proscuito were hideously expensive but it was nice to be able to cook at home and enjoy a home made meal. Only bad news is that I now had 12 hungry colleagues waiting to be fed.

notice that my "fully furnished" apartment comes complete with plastic fork

Anji - Sea of Bamboo

2009-06-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

A few weekends a go the group of us hired a minibus and headed to Anji for the weekend. Anji is in Zhejaing province and is about 5 hours drive from Shanghai. Anji is famous for its 60,000 hectares of bamboo groves and it produces 12 million commercial bamboo poles annually, making it China's biggest producer of Bamboo. Because of this everything in Anji is bamboo, it is literally everywhere. Bamboo hats, bamboo boats, bamboo houses, bamboo models, bamboo chairs they even produce bamboo beers and of course they eat bamboo for dinner as well!

The first day of our trip we went to the Bamboo Garden Museum. Which is a big park containing the largest number of different bamboo plants in China. The park was quite peculiar, in a typically chinese way, as it had a bird show (with singing parrots and a peacock throne) and other strange attractions such as zorbing and a rodeo bull. It even had a go-kart track which we thought about testing our skills on but then we saw how ridiculously slow the karts were going, however one chinese guy did manage to completely total one of the karts into the tyre wall and seemed to give himself an aneurysm. The best thing about the park was the lake and we took a bamboo boat around the lake for an hour or so. I've tried punting once before in Cambridge and was quite awful so this time stuck to the rowing part, xuan and I let Dan take part of the more tricky punting task. Our boat faired rather better than that of the girls who seemed to spend most of their time stuck on the side. After the boating was finished we looked at the panda exhibition and then made our way out for some dinner - bamboo all round!

Next we went to a river rapids. These were hardly the most dangerous river rapids I've ever been on but they were probably the most fun. It was basically just one massive water fight. I thought this might be the case when we got off the bus as they were selling water pistols and buckets but nothing could really prepare me for the onslaught that came. Every time we got near a chinese boat they would shout "GET THE FOREIGNERS" and lie in wait for us as we approached. I was sat on the front of the boat and got absolutely soaked every time. One boat gave up on rowing around the lake and just waited in the middle for other boats to attack! The whole thing lasted the best part of 90 minutes I think and by the end I was wetter than I have ever been before. We all got on the mini bus absolutely dripping from head to toe! Luckily our hotel was among the best I have stayed in in China (and only 70Yuan for 3 person room) so we could all shower and get changed in comfort. The food in the hotel was awesome and we discovered that apart from Bamboo Anji also grows a lot of potatoes! So that evening we feasted on fried new potatoes and pheasant casserole!

The next day we went to the forest where "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" was filmed and then went to a mountain / waterfall park (which again turned into a massive water fight between Xuan, Emma and myself). The views here were absolutely stunning and when we got to the top of the mountain it was amazing to see how the locals lived in such a rural environment. By the time we got back to the top it was already park closing time so we were "escorted" out by a friendly guard - meaning we had to take it at slightly quicker pace than we had possibly wanted; this did however mean that most of us were more than ready for a good sleep when we got back on the mini bus to come home.

Anji Pictures

2009-06-17T02:00:00.000-07:00

one of the many beautiful waterfalls

workers at the top of the waterfall preparing bamboo to eat

Bamboo in the forest is marked so they know how old it is

boat lady on the river in the bamboo park

bridge across the river

Beijing - 北京

2009-06-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

I was working up in Beijing a few weeks ago for a couple of days so had the chance to re-explore the city where I spent so much time when I lived in China previously. A lot has happened in China since March 2006 (when I flew out of Beijing airport to return home) most notably of course, the Olympics. When I was last here the government was shutting down mass number of factories and taking cars off the road in order to improve the air quality ahead of the olympics. As far as I'm concerned this must have been a terrific success as the 3 days that i was there I was greated by blue skies and bright sunshine - not one smog cloud - and the whole place was much, much cleaner than Shanghai (which is currently undergoing its own facelift in preparation for Expo 2010). I dropped into Tianamen Square but as it was the day before the 20th anniversary of the "incident" (don't want to get shut down - blogger is already banned in China) people were banned from walking there and the opportunities to take photos were extremely limited. I've seen TV reports that showed undercover police man blocking the shots of news reporters with umbrellas pretending to be tourists whislt carrying CS Spray and a pistol.

The rest of the time in Beijing was spent shopping and catching up with old friends. A good friend of mine, Lisa, is now studying at law school in Beijing so I said I'd call in on her for a catch up. In order to make sure the students study and don't go out too much they locate the college as far out of the centre as possible - it was right near the radiant mountain. It took me 1 hour on the metro and then an additional 20/30 minute cab ride to get there.

Once I arrived we jumped straight back into the cab, as there is absolutely nothing in the area at all. For lunch we went to a people's liberation army themed restuarant. The whole place was decked out with communist propaganda and the staff were dressed up as either army officers or farm hands, on the hour every hour they performed all the old traditonal Maoist songs. We were eating at 12noon and I was amazed at how full the resutaurant was. Everyone else there was over the age of 60 though! Each audience member was given a red flag to wave and most of the people joined in dancing and singing along - unfortunately photos were not allowed to be taken.

After eating with Lisa she had to go back to school for class so I caught the taxi into town to meet up with another old friend, Vivien. Vivien was a teacher at No.42 School when i was there and has now married and is living in Beijing. She is no longer working as a teacher but would like to return to it and also misses Shijizahuang a lot!

auf wiedersehen carsten - 经常联系啊！

2009-06-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

One of the key players in our little group for the first three months was Carsten. A german who is qualified at the American Bar and had previously been in the navy, he had an insatiable appetite for sausages and beer and a huge amount of stories to keep us entertained. In Shanghai Carsten had been working for Freshfields as part of a 3 month internship before going back to Germany to take his German law exams. In order to celebrate his time with us and bid him all the best for the future we had a series of nights out to wish him all the best. The first came on the night of the Champions League Final - a night which will go down in History as Carsten's second final night i'm sure.

The second night we went for a rather nice meal at Ye Shanghai in Xintiandi with a few of Carsten's friends from New York. I must say that rather than being remembered for the quality of the food or the environment of the restaurant (both of which were superb I must add) the evening's most memorable feature will be some of the ridiculous comments that Carsten's female friend came out with. The best being *you get male pandas? so do pandas have a penis?* and (to jo's husband) *so you do things with science things right? we could have a lot in common - Jo replied "yes, you could, but you won't".

After the meal we went back to my house for a few bottles of champagne and other celebratory drinks inc. bijou and red bull, a little dancing a few drinking games before heading out to the warehouse party. As said before the party was pretty good fun and a lot better than we expected but the music was pretty "underground" so we didn't stay for any longer than a couple of hours. After we finished there we went on to Zapatas - a mexican themed place with a lovely garden where they encourage you to dance on the bar - for a few chilled drinks before hitting another club. All in all, it was a great night and a fitting way to say goodbye to the large german sausage.

Take care mate, hope to see you soon in Hamburg!

Warehouse....PARTY

2009-06-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

As part of Carsten's going away celebrations we ended up at a Warehouse party in quite a rundown part of the city. The story of how we ended up there is quite protracted but might as well enlighten you as I have nothing better to do. I received a message from someone I know on Facebook telling me there was a "secret" warehouse party taking place and telling me to bring friends but not to tell many people as the chinese police had a habit of shutting these things down. The next day the same invite appeared on a blog i read but with the same warning and then on the day of the party it was posted on a major shanghai website advertising events. We thought we'd been duped by pretty clever guerilla marketing but as we turned up there were signs telling you to go straight in and not make too much noise and it was taking place in a warehouse so I guess it was pretty much as described. The music was good and the drinks were cheap so no complaints from me anyway!

Below is a photo from another blog showing the warehouse in daytime....

Champions League Final

2009-06-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that it kicked off at 3am in the morning i was never going to miss the chance of seeing Man Utd getting embarrased on the world's biggest stage so a few mates and I made our way to O'Malleys (a large Irish Pub) to watch the Champions League Final. You had to pay 100 Yuan (about £9) to get in but that included your first two pints and despite this there must have been 300/400 people there. The atmosphere was pretty amazing: being Asia the pub was mostly full of man united fans but there was also a good pocket full of Barcelona supporters who gave their all in trying to compete in chanting competitions.

Obviously we all know the result by now, but I was amazed by how ordainary Man Utd were made to look by players like Iniesta and Messi. People speak about the domination of English football but our champions (also this seasons champions) were swept aside effortlessly by the Spanish - I think Blackpool might have given them a better game! Anyhow it was a great night - by the time it finished it was 5am and we were high on euphoria and the 6/7 pints we'd drank so made our way to McDonalds for some breakfast and to watch the sun rise - laughing at the crying manchester united fans on the way....

The Blue Devils - 蓝魔

2009-06-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

I posted a while back about going to see Shanghai Shenhua and how it wasn't possible to get tickets for the more exciting parts of the ground - when the more "fanatical supporters" sit - as those seats are exclusively for season ticket holders. I've found a way though. I bought my last tickets off a tout for a block about 2 around from the "Lan Mo" and then used all my stealth (nil) to climb over the barriers into the intersting section. Much, much better watching the game from there. Said to say when the football is so bad you do often end up watching the supporters rather than the crowd. Once again they did mexican waves which went around the whole stadium - i voiced my displeasure on the issue.

I'm going away with the "ultras" for the away game to Nanjing in August I think and hopefully to Hangzhou before then. Should be good fun. Will be interesting to see what it is like in China as an away fan.

Here is one of the songs that they like to sing at games (I'd best get learning all the words):

Lan Se Rong YaoWo men ba huan le bei shang gei niZuo ni zhong shi yong huWo men yong na hai feng kuang ge sui niZhan dou cong bu ting buOle! Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!Nong lie de xue zai liu tangBen xiang sheng li de fang xiangOle Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!Zhan dou hao jiao yi chui xiangTa ding qian jin de bu faOle Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!Lan se de xue zai liu tangBen xiang guan jun de fang xiangOle Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!Cheng shi de zui yan rong guangHan wei wo men de xin yang.

Blue Glory

We leave our happiness and sorrow with you,To become your loyal fans. We follow your steps with screams and cheers,Battles are going on. Ole Shenhua! Ole Shenhua! Blood is running. Towards the triumphOle Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!The call to arms is on. Moving forward steadily. Ole Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!Blue blood is runningTowards triumphOle Shenhua! Ole Shenhua!The dignity and glory of ShanghaiIs protecting our faith.

Shanghai Stuff

2009-05-30T22:52:00.001-07:00

Recently found an English pub named the park tavern. I know it may sound fairly sad but after 3 months of being outhere it was amazing to go somewhere where they had BBC on the TV, cooked up a meat pie and chips and had Old Speckled Hen and Abbots Ale (even if they were £5 a bottle). Went there for watch all of the play off final games and will probably go along next weekend for the England World Cup qualifiers as well.

Walking along at the local market the other day - this caught my eye - not a foggiest what it means.... any ideas? Somewhere to hide your money in the inner confines of your bra?

More tokyo pictures...

2009-05-30T22:45:00.001-07:00

Tokyo

2009-05-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

The last day of the work trip was in Tokyo - in the evening when we got to Tokyo we were left to our own devises so we went to a decent little restauarant near the hotel for more sushi and some other delicious dishes and then we headed out to a hot spring (onsen). This place was amazing - open for 24 hours it was basically a hot springs disney land. You take your pick from 15 different Ukata and then you make your way around the various different attractions and spas. It was superb. There was an outside walking pool - which was like walking on nails - inside steam pools and then outside relaxation pools. There was also beaches, pebble gardens, massage places and so on and so forth. You could also play games, do archery etc whilst wearing a kimono. Once you've had your fill of hot spring mayhem you can then eat at one of the many 24 hour sushi restuarants! Amazing place.

The next day we visited our clients headquarters there and then had a nice meal to say thanks and plan the next steps. That all finished about 2pm so I was then free to explore the city by myself for the next few days. Moving from the 5 star hotels that the client had provided to the hostel that I was paying for myself was quite a shock though!

I had 2 full days in Tokyo and a half day either side so tried to fit as much in as possible. On the thursday afternoon I settled in to the hostel and met a few nice people and then we went out for some grub in a cheap local restuarant - even though this was cheap by Tokyo standards I think it still ended up being about £14 a person!. I was staying in Asaksa which is famous for its old temples and history so I explored the local area and found my bearings a little.

On the friday morning I and a few of the otehrs got up at 4.45am to go to Tsukiji fish market (築地市場). This is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world and also one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind. From 5am they run several fish auctions which are a great sight to see - unfortunately we missed the live fish auction but we caught the fresh tuna and the frozen tune one. The tuna they had there were the size of a ten year old child and it was quite funny to see the shop keepers dragging them away on trolleys before slicing them up into different size steaks. After we had explored we then went and had sushi for breakfast - at 7am! So fresh - delicious.

In the afternoon, after sleeping for several hours I then went to the Sumo Wrestling. I was quite lucky here as there are only 6 sumo tournaments a year in Japan - and only 3 of them take place in Tokyo so to be in town when one was happening was a bit of good fortune. The wrestling starts at 8am and finishes at 6pm but the main "superstar wrestlers" don't come on until 3.30pm. I went to the auditorium at about mid day and enjoyed watching the learner wrestlers as the venue was empty so you could go sit right up close to the ring. In the afternoon the place was packed and the atmosphere was awesome.

The next day I explored ueno park, went to see the imperial palace and then went to rophonghi hills for a look around. Then went up the Tokyo tower (which is a blatent copy of the blackpool tower- and painted tangerine in its honour) and styaed there for several hours to see the sun set on the city. In the evening I went out with some of the guys from the hostel and got in at 9am - i was checking out at 11am so didn't really see the point of going to bed so just hung around in the foyer chatting to the friends i made.

On the way to the airport - which due to my being hideosly hungover took a lot longer than the 90 minutes advertised - i met a mexican! I was suitably scared that I would get turned back at Shanghai airport! I told my colleagues about this and they spent the next two days avoiding me for fear of contracting swine flu and even went so far as to put a safety mask on my desk!

Nara - Akita

2009-05-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

On day two we went to visit a science institute in Nara where they are working with genetically modified crops that can be grown in arid deserts in places like botswana. They had developed a modified potato that after 1 month in the soil had experienced a 30/40% increase in photosynthesis and a 3.5x increase in productivity - I'm not sure what that actually means but I was quite impressed. We went there as they want to carry out some research for our client. After the institute we went to headquarters of Panasonic Japan and pitched to one of their head honchos who said he was interested in investing. Unfortunately we didn't get to see much of ancient Nara - and this is somewhere that I would like to revisit properly.

In the afternoon we flew up to Akita. Akita is quite a small town but it is famous for its excellent sake and tasty chicken - so we took full advantage of this. We went to a really nice restaurant in the evening (where thankfully the low tables and a recess underneath so you could stretch your legs out) and ate truck loads of chicken and then onto a traditional karaoke bar afterwards where we tried about 4 different types of Sake. I wowed the locals with my superb karaoke skills - of course.

The next day we went to visit the biofuel plant in Akita - which was absolutely fascinating. We were picked up from our hotel in a 100% biofuel powered Mercedes EClass. The guy has a small refinery at home and so runs his car on nothing but old vegetable fat. To see how the machinery works was really interesting. There is talk about running a trial of their machinery in northern UK next year - so I'll definitely be signing up to save a pound or two!

Japan - Kyoto

2009-05-30T21:07:00.001-07:00

We flew from Shanghai to Osaka - the most memorable things about the flight were the swine flu questionnaires (have you been to mexican, met a mexican or worn a sombrero in the last two weeks) and also the inflight entertainment which consisted of a live camera of the planes view on both take off and landing - quite a scary sight.

It was lunch time by the time we got to Osaka, got through quarantine and collected bags etc so we stayed in the airport to get some grub. I was quite worried about this as both my travelling companions were huge Sushi/Sashimi fans and I don't really even like fish (unless it is covered in batter and mushy peas) - but with a week of Japan ahead of me and some client dinners coming up everyone thought it was best if I tried it now and decided what I liked, so we ordered a huge plate of mixed raw fish. I didn't expect to like it at all but it was delicious - I think we had eel, salmon, tuna, yellow tail, mackerel, roe and a few others. Occasionally i got a huge mouthful of wasabi which takes your breath away a little but overall it was amazing.

After eating we got onto the bullet train and headed straight to Kyoto where the clients were meeting us. Kyoto was the only major city of Japan not bombed during the second world war - it was saved due to its history- and as a result it still has a lot of its original post war buildings. That evening we went to a restaurant in the oldest part of Kyoto - Gion. The streets around here were tiny little alley ways lined with Geisha houses, Monastery's and old restaurants. We were taken to a place that was over 600 years old and apparently where Shabbu Shabbu Beef was invented.

The surroundings for the meal were superb - it was just like in some of the old japanese movies. We were told that the antiques and decoration were all original and that many of the items on display were the same age as the building and worth up to 10million Yen (£1m). I got told not to touch anything - wise advice. For the meal we had to sit on the floor cross legged for the duration - the table was low and there were no chair backs. After about 20 minutes my legs were killing and I had to break etiquette by sprawling my legs out all over the place.

The beef was fantastic. Shabbu Shabbu is basically thinly cut carpaccios of wagyu beef (a special beef known for its marbelling and fine taste) that you then dip into boiling water for about 3o seconds before applying various spreads and dips - like chinese hot pot. The beef tasted so fresh - it was delicious. You also throw into carrots and potatoes and other vegetables to complete the dish. It's called shabbu shabbu because of the noise that you make when you wash the beef in the water.

After the meal we stepped out of the restaurant and i was amazed to see a Geisha pass me by in the street - i didn't really think that they existed anymore other than in films - we followed this geisha round the corner and were lead into an original Geisha house. Here three young geisha and their old mistress (whom used to be a geisha herself) spoke about what it meant to be a geisha and they played guitar and sang songs for us. The older lady said she was quite saddened how westerners saw geisha as prostitutes when they are really just confidants and friends.

My boss told me afterwards that we only got in to these places because of the clients we were with (some of them work quite high up in the Japanese government) and without them no foreigner would be allowed anywhere near the restuarant or the geisha house, no matter how much money they had. Boss said it was one of the best experiences he had in Japan in over 20 years of visiting. After the geisha house we headed back to the hotel - I had some work to do on the back of the meeting and it had to be done despite the huge amount of sake and whiskey imbibed. Once i had finished I went for an explore of the city and then to bed.

Sorry..

2009-05-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

for the lack of updates. China has decided to ban Blogger for a little while, as it so frequently does. Can still post at work though - as the computers are on UK servers - so will try to update you on the past couple of weeks now.

Carlsberg don't make business trips, but if they did...

2009-05-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

In my previous seats I've had a few days out of the office - Oxford being the joint highlight, tied with Hambleton on Poulton Le Fyled (near Blackpool). The lowlight probably being Wakefield.

Tomorrow I get to go on a weeks trip to Japan to visit the client's premises all over the country ! A slight improvement!

We're flying to Osaka then heading straight to Kyoto by bullet train. Tuesday we go to Nara (oldest city in Japan) and on Wednesday we fly up north to Akita. Thursday we fly back down to Tokyo. I'm not sure what I'll be doing but should be good fun just to be there.

We finish the work aspect on Thursday and my boss is going home but I thought I might as well make the most of the chance and spend a weekend in Tokyo. I've got a friend who lives near there whom I hope to be able to meet up with.

I'll let you know how I get on next week some time.

FLAGS

2009-05-10T03:18:00.000-07:00

MIDI Festival 2009

2009-05-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

MIDI is china's biggest music festival and runs over the May bank holiday every year - lasting for three days
This year was the tenth anniversay of the festival and so it was moved from its usual Beijing location to Zhenjiang in Jiangsu province. Zhenjiang is about 2 hours from Shanghai on the quick train or 5.5 hours on the usual slow train - we opted for the fast train. It was going to take place in Shanghai itself but the permit got turned down.

We had friday off work (rather than the monday the UK had and so we headed to the festival as soon as possible. Unfortunately the quick train was sold out on the sunday so we had to come back saturday afternoon. Meaning we only got to go to the first day of the festival. The festival was well attended on the first day when were there but apparently on the saturday a lot of people went back to shanghai (as we did) so there was less than half the attendance of the first day.

I'd say that the main differences between this festival and ones I'd been to in the UK are that tickets were £5 per day compared to £70 a day in the UK. the Chinese food on sale here was reaonably priced and actually tasted of something, the campsite was immaculate with tents in perfectly straight lines and rather than just having the crowd stand all at the same level they had it staged on a slight slope so everyone could see much more easily. Reassuringly the toilets were just as awful.

The line up was a mix of chinese and candian/american bands. My favourite band was playing on the sunday - so unfortunately didn't get to see them. The ones I did see were good though - including the Chinese "godfather of rock" - Cui Jian - who finished his set by inviting 20 girls on stage to dance with him. Despite being 50 he still has the right idea!
Definitely worth £5.

Grab a few beers and get in The Van

2009-04-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

After the expo I went to a Beglium beer teasting in a new bar called Kai. The beer list is about as long as my long with 60 to choose from. Unfortunately because they are imported they all cost about £5 a bottle. Lucily enough we didn't have to pay that at the tasting and also luckily we didn't have to try all 60 - just 5. We had quite a good selection - I was a little dissapointed that a couple were standard beers you'd get at home like Leffe and Duval but it was still good fun and set me up for a decent night out afterwards.

Saturday night we went to a mini music festival called "Get in the Van". The idea of which is that you get to bar, pay £6 to get in, get given some free beer, watch 4 banks, then when the final band finishes every loads into a van - you get given crates and crates of free beer to drink whilst you're ferried to the next venue to see more bands. It was a pretty good fun evening. The van didn't leave until the first gig until 1am and it was 3am by the time the final band finished at the second venue. DJs then started playing until the next morning. I left after the final band as had football the next morning at 9am (need to get up at 7.30am). Was a great evening though!

Shanghai Motor Expo 中国会展服务

2009-04-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

The Shanghai Auto Show was in town last week. With the credit crunch going around a lot of the international shows ahve been cancelled - making Shanghai the biggest one to take place this year. It was held out in the International Expo Centre in Pudong - near the Maglev train station. As soon as I got off the subway I realised I was in the right place as there were thousands of hawkers trying to sell me tickets and blocks wanting to give me backies on their motorcycles. I'd been warned about the crowds trying to get into the Expo (especially on the saturday-when I went) so in order to avoid the queue I bought a ticket from a tout for just under face value.

The press was predicting millions of visitors to attend the expo over the course of the exhibition - i think most of them went on the saturday at about the time that i visited. It was absolute chaos in some areas and there seemed to be no order what so ever. The hall where the major foreign cars were (Bently, Ferrari, Lambourgini etc) were was absolute bedlam. I can honestly say that I've been in football crowds or concert venues that were more ordered. It was a case of head down, arms out and get through it as fast as possible - meaning I didn't actually get to see the New Porsche, BMW or Jaguar that were uncovered at the show.

this was actually one of the less busy halls

The whole place was absolute overan with people - I don't think I've ever seen as many in one place before and what ever direction I was trying to go in always seemed to be the wrong one. The mess was unbelievable as well:

dan maund will be having kittens at the sight of this

The main reason for going to the show was (apart from seeing some of the absolutely stuning models showing off the cars) was to see some of the Chinese knock off models that I had heard about. I'd heard stories of copied Rollers, Mercs exhbited in hall 1 whilst the genuine articles were being shown in the next building. The Chinese, always better at imitating than using their skills to produce something better themselves, didn't dissapoint. The Rolls Royce knock is ridiculous - I believe action is being taken by the company!

Rolls Royce Phantom? Complete with Spirit of Estacy - Only £30,000

Mercedes CLK?

Mini Clubman?

Hummer?

St Georges Day Dinner

2009-04-30T21:50:00.001-07:00

I realise that no one really makes any fuss over St George's Day back home but for me it represented the perfect opportunity to cook my first meal, so I trundled off down the supermarket in search of ingredients.

They serve asparagus in quite a lot of the restaurants over here - usually stir fried with garlic - but seeing as dad is currently spending most of his days pulling the stuff out of the ground it was a perfect ingredient. As you can see they let it grow a little longer than they do in England and because of this it was quite strong tasting. Anyway one of these bundles cost 30p - quite a bit more reasonable than what dad sells it for to the supermarkets!!!

lú sǔn 芦笋

For the rest of the ingredients I managed to get some Potatoes, Broccoli, Runner Beans, Carrots and for the meat element some Australian Steak from the City Store down the road. All the vegetables came to about £2 in total and then the steak cost £2 as well. THe most expensive aspect of the whole meal was the bloody masher for the potatoes - it cost £10! Worth it though as the mash was quite delicious. I'll have to make sure to get good value out of it.

胡萝卜hú luó bo (carrots) , 土豆 tǔ dòu (tates), 牛排 niú pái (steak)

Because of the masher it was one of the most expensive meals I've had in China so far - but it was worth it. Good to have a taste of home. It was a little tricky to cook as don't exactly have all the utenssils that I would have at home - substituted a steamer with a culinder held over the top of a saucepan - used the saucepan lead to keep the heat in. Will try and get more stuff and then I can cook for the other trainees and the people from work.

好吃 hǎo chī!

New Watches

2009-04-26T03:37:00.001-07:00

I went to the market in the Underground station a few stops from me on tuesday night and managed to pick up these two watches. Here's how the bargaining process went:

shop guy: 1,180 yuan each.
me (all in bad chinese) : i've been told not to pay more than 100 yuan
SG: ah, you're not a tourist
me: no, i work here.
SG: OK what do you do
Me: I work in a law firm
SG: (looks a bit sheepish) Ok, Ok. How about 400 yuan each
Me: No 100
SG: Ok 200
Me: no 100
SG: OK - how about two for 300?
Me: [sigh] fine.

I promised that i'd be bringing in lots of clients and other business people. I don't think £15 quid is that much to pay for any watch - even a cheap copy - so was quite happy. Spoken to people in the office and they said that was about the right price to pay. They are still working fine at the moment and they've certainly lasted longer than my Mao watch, which I bought last time here and broke on the first night! Any orders?

Chinese Grand Prix 中国大奖赛

2009-04-26T02:47:00.000-07:00

The day after the Wedding was the Chinese Grand Prix. The weather had been fine all week and was beautiful on the saturday. Even until noon on the sunday they sun was out and it was reasonably hot. As soon as we took our seats in our uncovered grandstand it started to pour down with rain - and it didn't stop all day. It made for a great race (as the drivers could barely see where they were going) but it also made for some pretty soggy spectators.

The track is one of the most challenging tracks in F1 and is the most expensive circuit on the calendar. I think that most of the money must have been spent on the hospitality boxes etc (ala wembley) as I was quite dissappointed by the facilities and there was hardly any stands or stalls, such as those you get at European grandprixs. We sat on corner 6 which usually wouldn't be the best location but due to the weather we had some pretty big crashes in front of us which kept us all entertained. Even the girls, whom weren't really looking forward to it seemed to get quite into it - although that might have just been because they thought Jenson Button might win! WHen the force india crashed right in front of us you could actually feel bits of schrapnel from the car scatter in the air around you - quite cool.

My 10p umbrella didn't quite make the entire 56 laps of the race - giving up about lap 35 so I got completely drenched. Carsten and I kept ourselves well stocked up on beer though - no matter how wet you get , as long you have a evefrything is OK! Carsten sang a few german F1 related songs in honour of Vettle which went down quite well - and then we all got to sing the British National Athem because Red Bull were the winning contractor.

Chinese Wedding -

2009-04-26T02:16:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues Stella got married last week. She was kind enough to invite me to the wedding, which is really nice of her seeing as I've only known her for a couple of weeks. The wedding was in Stella's home town - Huzhou - which is about 2 hours from Shanghai. They ran buses from Shanghai so all their friends were able to attend. After the night before I woke up to the ringing of my telephone to find that I had overslept and that the bus was waiting for me before it left. I quickly threw on some clothes and ran for a taxi to the bus stop. Luckily I wasn't the last person to arrive and even more lucky was the fact that I could sleep for 2 hours on the bus there.

Chinese weddings are done a bit different to English weddings. Stella and her husband were actually granted their wedding certificate 4 months ago, then they had their wedding photos taken a few months later and they were the ceremony. This was quite a western styled wedding - but with a few subtle differences. Before the couple came down the aisle we had a "this is your life introduction" for both of them - videos and photos of the two growing up, them metting and then a montage of their wedding photos.

One of the more interesting aspects of this wedding was that in Stella's home town it is tradition that when a daughter is born the parents will bury a bottle of wine underground. When the daughter is married they will dig up the wine and drink it at the wedding. The wine was brought round for all the guests to sample and I can honestly say that it was much better tasting than I thought a bottle of wine that had been underground for 25 years would be!

The whole ceremony took place whilst we were eating. The majority of the food was pretty standard fare, but after two or three courses they brought out the speciality for the wedding - Roast Turtle (with the shell on). You eat this a bit like an oyster - pikcing up the shell and biting out the meat - it was awful. I also past up on the Chicken Leg and Ducks Neck!

After dinner they had a "who wants to be a millionaire" style quiz about the couple. They'd randomly placed cards under peopls chairs and if you had one of the cards you had to answer a question. Sods law decides that I ended up sitting in one of the hot seat chairs! I got up and with the help of one of my colleagues was asked to answer the following question:
Which of the following is not a nickname that the husband uses for Stella:
1. Little Darling 2. Little Stupid 3. Little Wife 4. Little Cook. Bare in mind that I have only known Stella for 4 weeks and her husband about 4 minutes I had to be quite careful as I didn;t really want to insult them. I plumped for option C - at random -and got it correct somehow. It turns out that Little Wife means second wife - so would mean that he was calling her his mistress. Lucky guess!

After the wedding the shanghai visitors were taken for a boat ride down the river in the centre of town and then went to the park for a little while. The weather was beautiful and the boat ride was relaxing - in all it was a lovely way to finish a really enjoyable day.

I;'ve got some great ideas for Rugi and Kate's big day in October now - think i'll leave roast turtle off the menu though.

My New Local Team 上海申花

2009-04-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

Suffering from football withdrawl, the boys and I decided to go and throw out backing behind our local side - Shanghai Shenhua. Shenhua play in the Chinese Super League, the league is comprised of 16 teams from all over the country and each team plays each other twice in the season. The league starts in March and finishes in November = so hopefully I will be able to get to most of the games. The game we went to see was against Shenzhen Jianlibao - both teams had started the season strongly so we were hoping for a close match.

Shanghai play at Hongkou stadium in the north of the city. The stadium has capacity for 33,000 supporters. The average attendance is probably only 10-12,000 though. The squad is mainly chinese players but there were also several australian, spanish and brazilians in the mix. We got tickts for £5 (the cheapest available from normal retailers but if you join a supporters club you can pay £15 for the whole season - so think I will look into that), they were on the second tier and about mid way around the pitch. You could get touted tickets really easily too (plus for a lot cheaper) but becuase we were working on the friday we didn't know if we'd have time to get these at the ground.

Before the game we went to the club shop and found you could buy about 5 million different types of shanghai shirt. Confused and astounded Dan plumped for this seasons Asian Champions League shirt for 50Yuan and I plumped for what was apparantly last years shirt for 150yuan (i preferred it as it had a chinese sponsor). The official shirt for this season was 550 yuan (more expensive than kits at home!). At the ground there were several sports outlets selling western shirts and kits as well.

After we were kitted out we snuck a few beers into the stadium and got ready to enjoy the game.
The more vocal fans - the chinese Ultras - or "Blue Boys" as they call themselves - congregate behind the goals at each end. They had quite a good collection of banners and flags and at each end of the ground they had two or three drums. One flag borrowed the liverpool motto - you'll never walk alone, we will be together forever - and others featured Bruce Lee and Che Gueverra. The atmosphere was quite good behind both goals with the fans singing a mix of local and european style football songs. They even did a verision of Popey the Sailor man! You can't get tickets for behind the goals unles you are a fan club member or season ticket holder and where we sat it was unfortunately quite quiet despite our best efforts. There were no away fans at all so the home fans were quite vociferous in their baiting of the away team. The whole idea of having "football ultras" when there are no away fans is quite bizzare.

The match was reasonably entertaining - not the greatest of games! The standard was not quite up to Blackpool's league but it was good fun. Shanghai ran out 4-1 winners. When Shenzhen scored the whole ground fell into complete silence but it was in reality a stroll in the park for Shanghai. Shenhua have never won the Chinese Super League but they are currently second so lets hope that this is their season.
The only thing I don't like about them is that they some loose affiliation with Manchester United!

After the match we had a few celebratory beers in one of the supports pubs near the stadium and then went on to a bar called mural where it was £10 all you can drink. One of the trainees had loads of friends over from Hong Kong so it was quite good fun. I wasn't meant to be driking too much as I had the wedding the next day but got a bit greedy with the ten pound offer and had a bit more than I had wanted to! As usual.

Ski Saturday

2009-04-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

I've never been skiing before. Its something that has been suggested to me on quite a few occaisions but I've never had the time/inclination to learn how to do it. Before coming to China I had decided it was about time to have a try and was prepared to have a few lessons at the local indoor centre in Castleford. Lessons there are about £70 a session, so when Xuan announced that Shanghai had an indoor centre where you could ski all day for £20, including ski and clothes hire I thought it would be worth a go just to see if I could at least stand up on the boody things.

Carsten, Xuan and I all decided to to have a go. Both Carsten and Xuan are experience Skiers. Xuan has been skiing since he was little and Carsten grew up in the German/Swiss Mountains (i think) so has always skied. They said they'd give me any tuition i needed. Sods law dictates that the day we decide to go and play in the snow indoors actually turns out to be the hottest day of our tenure here by some distance - an absolutely stunning afternoon. The centre was about an hour from where we lived - all the way at the end of my metro line and from the outside it looked like a former communist building.

On the inside the decor was slightly more up to date but the clothing or equipment supplied was still a decade or so behind - please see Carsten's lovely pink suit! The slopes weren't as much snow, more tiny grains of ice but it was soft and didn't hurt too much when you fell over (as I did quite often), however as it was ice you did get quite wet and cold. The slope was 400 odd metres long but not that steep so quite good for learners. The first thing that my tutors tried to teach me was how to stop - a "snow plough" they called it - i was useless at this. I couldn't get the hang of moving the front of you skis in and pushing the backs out. Just couldn't manage it so we quickly moved on - I mean, who needs to stop anyway?!

Despite not being able to stop I made my way down from the top of the slope. Xuan and Carsten just told me to throw myself over if I needed to stop - I didn't really have much choice on this and found myself on the floor quite a few times. It is quite difficult to get up with skis on though so thought I'd better improve quickly. Luckily there were hatfuls of chinese people who in comparison made me look like a granstand competent skier! I sooned realised that skiing was like motorcycling that you just need to keep your head up and look at where you want to be going - as soon as you look down you fall over. I managed to have one run from top of the summit to the bottom without falling over and turning at the bottom in order to stop. The feeling when your going so fast is quite amazing - but quite scary at the same time. I'm not sure if the others will want to go again as this place was for begginners really but I'd definitely like to try again - although it will be a while before I join my friends on the piste.

Derby Day in Shanghai

2009-04-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

So yesterday saw the biggest game of Blackpools season. The local derby - Preston North End (or Preston Knob End as blackpool fans refer to them) away from home. If Blackpool managed to win they would all but guarantee their safety in the Championship for another season and also put any promotion hopes for their biggest rivals to bed yet again. Games like this do not come around too often and to be missing it was truely galling. This made worse by the fact that Preston had allocated Blackpool the whole Tom Finney Stand - 5,500 tickets - thus ensuring an awesome atmosphere. Unfortunately the only option for me was to tune in via internet radio. in order to get into the spirit of things I decorated my flat in an appropriate manner. Sad to have missed it but their will be more days like this next season when I'm home. Particularly if Newcastle get relegated!

Chinese Name 马超睿

2009-04-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

马超睿

this is the chinese name that I have been given by work.
It is pronounced:

马 Ma 超 Chao 睿 Riu.

Chao means super and excellent
Riu means smart and steady!

Obviously entirely appropriate and I can't see why my parents didn't christen me this at birth.

Huang Shan 黄山 Yellow Moutain

2009-04-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was tombsweeping festival so we had the monday off work. The other trainees and I thought it would be a nice idea to take the friday off work and give us a nice 4 day break. We decided to head for Huang Shan. One of China's most famous scenic spot, Huang shan is the setting for most of the typical chinese landscape paintings that you see - so we were expected great things.

Imagine our dissapointment when the first day was foggy and the second day was not only foggy but there was also torrential rain for most of the day. Walking up thousands of steps is not easy at the best of times, but when the "inspiring" views you were sold are impossible to see and the weather is appalling it is even harder.

The first day we walked up to the western steps which are meant to be the more challenging choice of stairs and are meant to reward the climbers with superior views to the eastern steps - in fact the Lonely Planet guide books recommends these steps for coming down only! So we walked up them and didn't actually get to see any of the stunning scenary - just our luck. We got to Jade Screen on the first day and reached our hotel. The hotel was OK - room was big but was only made for three people, they had then just squeezed an extra five mattresses into the space available. Luckily the shower worked though. The food was absolutely awful though

Whilst the first day was a bit bleak, it was nothing compared to the second. From the moment we left the hotel to the moment we checked in to the next one it was constant rain. Luckily we only had to walk for three hours or so - our second hotel was nicer than the first but the room was more like a hostel (bunkbeds) and the hot water only worked between the hours for 7pm to 10pm. So we got there looking like drowned rats and had to wait for 3 hours before we could have a shower. On the upside the food was much much better and we had a few interesting card games to pass the time - I taught everyone how to play Auction Rummy - i regreted teaching them the buying rule though as even the first hand takes 15 minutes when 6 people are buying every single card they see!

We were promised much better weather on the third day and thankfully the forecast was right. Bright sunshine all day. We walked to the very top of the moutain and then walked down the north side all the way down to the entrance at ground level. This is the less touristy route down the moutain and the path that most the porters that have to lug bags and boxes of food all the way up the 6000 foot climb! It took us about 3 hours to get to the bottom and we then took the cable car back to the top of the hill. After that we walked around the east side of the moutain for a hours and saw some absoultely fantastic scenary, then we made our way back to the hotel.

The final day was got up at 5am for the sunrise. We'd been a little dissappointed at not being able to see a sunset any of the previous days due to the fog and cloud but this more than made up for it. We made our way up to a pavilion on the top of the mountain and sat down on the cliff. The sight was fantastic and the noise the chinese made when this bright red orb emerged from the sea of clouds was hilarious. It was quite a magical moment. Really

enjoyed just sitting there and taking it all in.

After such a fantastic start to the day the rest didn't dissapoint either. We made our way back down the mountain - deciding to take the western steps again, in order to see some of the sights that we missed due to the fog on the way up. About half way a few of the girls decided to take the cable car the rest of the way and Xuan, Emma, Carsten and I completed the trek. I was sceptical that we would do it in enough time (we had a 3 hours before our bus departed) but we were fine and I was so happy that we did as the weather beautiful and the surroundings fantastic. To top of the holiday at the bottom of the mountain we found a waterfall where we sat and had a well earned rest for half and hour or so - and got fantastically sunburnt.

I was a great holiday. I stupidly didn't take any proper walking shoes - just my flat soled addidas sambas - so ruined my ankles to a fair extent but it didn't hamper my enjoyment. After we reached the bottom we boarded the bus for the 6.5 hour journey back to Shangers - I'm sure you'll be surprised to here I was asleep almost instantly upon taking my seat!

meeting some old friends...

2009-04-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

One of the main reasons i wanted go back to shijiazhuang was to meet up with some of the great friends that I made last time when I lived in the city - most notably Nancy and Shirly.

Nancy is still teaching in No.42 but apart from that just about every other aspect of her life has changed from when I last saw her. She is now married to a fantastic husband who works for sinochem in Shijiazhuang and they live together in a two bedroom flat near to the park. The house they live in at the moment is quite small so I couldn't stay there when I visited - instead i got a room at the World Trade Plaza hotel - but in the summer they will move to their own house which they bought in a different part of the town. This house is going to have 3 bedrooms and will be much more modern, so hopefully I can stay there with them when I next visit. Nancy says that she and her husband will probably try for a baby once they have settled into their new house. Hopefully when I next visit them they will have some good news! I hope to be able to buy them something for their new house - if they let me - as I missed out being able to give them something for their wedding.

Nancy and I met saturday morning at the hotel and then went around town quickly before going to the school and seeing my old students. In the afternoon I walked around Shijiazhaung park and the neighbourhood around the school. It was great to go back and see some of the old markets and restuarants where I used to shop at and visit. The town hadn't changed much at old apart from they have brought the shops a row back from the road to make more of a pavement area. This means that many of the shops are about half the size of before. The most noatble example of this is that the blue restaurant in the post below is the old muslim restuarant where we went after nights out and was huge but is now about one eighth of the previous size!

After walking around the town we went back to nancys and made dumplings for tea. I was pretty useless at making dumplings (despite having done this once before in China) but all the ones Nancy and her husband made were delicious. We also had some Roast duck and some vegetable dishes that Nancy made. It was all very delicious. Their current house doens't have a dining room so we ate off a table and chairs in the bedroom - hopefully I can buy them a dining table for their new house. We watched their wedding video which was hilarious - really told the story of a chinese wedding.

Afer eating with Nancy and her husband I met up with Shirly who i also met at No.42 school. Conveniently Shirly's parents have two houses; one where they live and another for Shirly to stay during the school week. The house where Shirly lives turned out to be in the same development as Nancy's - just the opposite block so that saved one potential moment of confusion. Shirly had some friends round at her house so after having a few drinks and introducing myself we went to Youth Year Bar and then on to Mazzo Club. Thankfully Mazzo club is still completely free for foriegners. It is also free for women. So the only people that actually pay for drinks in there are chinese men - I'm not sure how they manage to stay open!! The clientle of the bar had grown a little younger from the last time I was there but the music was near enough exactly the same and it was still absolutely mental. There wasn't many foreigners there - apparently they mostly go to a new bar in town (that must be free alcohol as well!!) but the people were just as friendly as ever.

After Mazzo we went to KTV with Shirlys friends for a few hours and then headed to McDonalds about 5am for a snack before heading home about 6am. The next day was hard work! Flying home at 6pm I was absoltely exhausted!

A Few More Shijiazhuang Pictures

2009-04-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

Shijiazhuang 石家庄

2009-04-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went back to Shijiazhuang to see how the city had changed in the two years since I last lived there. I booked the flight from Shanghai Honqiao Airport for 9pm thinking that that would be ample time to finish work and get there; I hadn't counted on it raining. In China everything stops when it rains. It becomes impossible to get a taxi and the whole road network comes to a halt. I eventually managed to get a taxi but only after telling the apartment concierge that I would pay twice the usual fare to get there. I then got to the airport about an hour later than planned only to find that my flight had been delayed for 1.5 hours due to the bad weather. Still I managed to get the seat on the emergency exit so the flight was comfortable (more leg room than BA premium economy!).

This all meant that I arrived in Shijiazhuang about about midnight. I got to the hotel for about 1am and then went out and met a few friends in a club called Mazzo Bar which is about 5 minutes from the hotel; I was desparate to revist this place as when we lived there previously it gave free drinks to Foreigners all night, every night! I was excited to see that nothing had changed!

Saturday morning I met up with Nancy who was a really good friend to me when I was last here. She showed me around the town quickly and pointed out a few places that had changed/been knocked down/been built and then we went to the school. We got out at the top of the road and walked down the congested road to the school gates. As soon as I got out of the taxi some of my students started recognising me. Shouting "Mr Charlie" and waving - a few coming up to chat.

I go to the school gate and waited around for a few more students to come out of class. We then went for lunch at our favourite Sichuan Style restuarant. I was glad to see that nothing had changed and that all our old favourites were still on the menu; gong bao ji ding, suan la bai cai, song ren yu mi, suan la tou do si, yu xiang rou si, tang cu li ji and chow bing. The restuarant doesn't usually serve Chow Bing at lunch times but I told the owner that I'd come all this way especially and she agreed to go and find the ingredients for me! Service! All this (plus drinks for only £6! and there was plenty left at the end.

After eating we went back to the school and had a look around the class rooms to see a few more of my old students. The majority all recognised me, it was quite funny the few that didn't as it dawned on them who I was. It was great to see so many of the children that I remembered - it was good to see that their english had improved more in the last two years as well. My class are in year 9 now the last year of middle school before moving in to senior school - this will mean that some leave No.42 and go to better schools in the city; but I hope to get back to Shijiazhaung once more before I leave China again and see some more of the children.

Views of the School...

2009-04-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went back to Shijiazhuang to visit the place where I lived last time I was in China. I lived in the school for 6 months from September 2006 to March 2007. When we went to the school in 2006 we were told that the school had great plans for a new sports pitch and running track. However you will see from these photos that not much has really changed at all. The same dirt track for a football pitch, same living quarters for the students, same sheds for the teachers to wash their hair in and the same broken window from when Dan Wate smashed a footy against the boiler house! It's a real shame as you can't really imagine kids in england going to school in such conditions - and this school is meant to be quite an expensive private school!! Maybe one day when I have some spare cash I can help to finance a football pitch! I'd plough up the basketball courts to make way for it though.

KTV

2009-04-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

KTV = Kareoke. They love it in the east. The chinese seem to go there at every opportunity and for the tinniest of excuses. I asked of lady in the office what she was going to do this next weekend and she said that she was going to kareoke at 9am! Crazy.

When the girls in the office get paid they like to go to KTV for a bit of a celebratory night out. However, unlike at home, here Kareoke isn't just about getting drunk and acting a fool. Whilst the girls all had a great time and would mess around they took the singing really seriously and didn't touch a drop of alcohol. They even up dancing and playing tamborine and a series of other percussion instruements. Whilst admittedly that sounds quite boring it was actually really good fun. and a good way to get to know the girls from the office.

There isn't much point me telling you what I sang - it was english, but am positive it was barely unrecognisable.

We had food at the KTV which was surprisingly good as well although they did try to force feed my ducks neck at various intervals through out the evening which wasn't too enjoyable!

They charge per person per hour in these places and when the bill came I was a little nervous, however in all for 3 hours (!!) of singing, quite a bit of food and soft drinks all round it came to £20 which I didn't think was too bad. So I treated the others. I would have preferred to go for the £50 package though that was 3 hours singing, food, beer and a couple of bottles of whiskey and mixers. Maybe next time...

A Tasty Snack....

2009-04-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

This is a local food store near the apartment that I found whilst walking back from work one day. To say I was excited when I found it would be a huge understatement. Basically the happy chappy above took a ball of dough and rolled it into a lovely flat pancake. You could then choose from a variety of fillings - bacon, ham, chicken, vegetables - I opted for bacon and eggs. A bacon and egg pancake?! Does it get any better than that?! All this for only 50p as well. Not bad at all - in fact, bloody delicious!

Teaching China to Dance

2009-03-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

Whilst exploring on saturday I managed to somehow stumble across the China X Games 2009. These were taking place just down a side street. It was a mixture of BMX, Skateboarding, In line skating events. There were a few western competitors whom i presume must have been quite famous. They weren't tony hawks or anything but they were still quite impressive. The chinese looked on in awe. I don't think they'd ever seen a bike ridden like that! There was also a music stage and more amusingly a street dancing stage. This was funny as at first the professionals got up and did a little dance, they then bribed volunteers to come and have a go - using bags of doritos as the bait. I've uploaded the two versions - professional and amateur. I'll leave you to guess which attempt is which but I think the locals have got some way to go just yet!

f*cked up

2009-03-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

I'm aware that my last posting was a little ahem.."effiminate" so i'll try to reassert my masculinity with this next post.

Saturday night I went to a place called Logo bar to watch Canadian punk band "F*cked up". I've seen them play in England one or two occaisions and never really been that impressed but it was only £4 to get in and had nothing better to do on the saturday evening so thought why not. Also I'd heard that the bar was quite cool and was meant to be a decent live venue. The only thing that i thought was a bit off was that the night was being promoted by group called STD - so they stamped STD on everybodies hands as you came in. I'm not sure if the chinese would understand how funny this is.

The first thing I noticed ws just how small the area for music was. The stage was the size of a toilet cubical, the bar was about 2 feet away from that and the area for the crowd to watch was probably about 15 yards long. It was literally smaller than my front room at home. Having seen F*cked up before I knew that this was going to generate quite a good atmosphere.

I turned up at 9pm as the clun opened at 8.30pm. It said on the flyer starts at 10pm but I thought that that meant F*cked up started at 10pm. In the end the first band came on about 10.30pm, and F*cked up didn't start till 1am. Still there was carlsberrg draft on tap and big steiners were 30yuan (£3) so i had 4/5 of those to get me in the mood. I met a nice chinese girl who spoke good english at the bar, she was waiting for her friends who had gone to a pop concert before coming here (contrast) so we kept each other company. Helpfully she looked after my glasses when ever i fancied going for a dance.

The line up was completed by two chinese bands - one called "The Mofos" who specialised in playing Ramones covers - which was quite good fun- and then a kind of hardcore/emo band called The Rogue Transmission - who were actually pretty decent to listen to. I'd heard some of their stuff when they were sound testing and wasn't impressed but they were really good for the actual show. I didn't get to see any Chinese bands last time I was here, but I did manage to buy a few cds so it was good to actually see some chinese punk in the flesh.

By the time the headliners came on the room was completely jam packed full. Mixed between local indie kids and expats. There were a few mentalists but it was all good fun. F*cked up are fronted by this massive fat skin head, who is quite good fun to watch. He often made his way into the crowd and was joining in with all the dancing. Whilst I went thinking I wouldn't like the music, i knew that he would put on a good show, and in the end I was quite impressed. Definitely worth the £4 it cost to get in - in england it would have 4 or 5 times that to go and see them.

The chinese people I were with had gone home by the time the main band started so I kept my glasses in my pocket for safety. By the time 4 songs had gone I checked my pockets and both lenses had come out. The lenses were in my pocket but the frames are pretty bent. After this I couldn're really be bothered staying for the rest of the songs. I was knackered and quite swetty so got a taxi home to listen to the football results and to watch the arenal v tottenham game.

Doing his part to improve the reputation of westerners in shanghai

All in all a good night - I was knackered and quite drunk when I got home and not sure how I managed to get up for 7.30am to go and play football.

Barbie World

2009-03-22T04:44:00.000-07:00

Friday night I went out for a meal with the other expat lawyers again, which was good fun but they were going away for the week so they didn't fancy staying out too late. They were going to Suzhou and invited me to go with them but I've been before and was playing football on the sunday and had vague plans for the saturday night so turned them down. Think we are planning on going away somewhere in april as we have a "bank holiday" one week - tomb clearing festival!

Saturday day with the others out of town I wasn't too sure what to do with myself so just ended up walking around again. This time I walked around the French concession and ended up staying out for about 5 hours. One of the things I bumped into was ths Shanghai barbie shop/museum. this was an absolutely fascinating place. 6 floors of bright pink with everything you could possibly think of emblazoned with the barbie logo and on sale for a ridiculous price. They had a circular stair case that went up from ground to 6th floor that was encircled with different barbie toys. There was even a barbie cafe with barbie burgers and pink drink!

The people in there were mainly shanghai's new rich with their spoilt kids and other curious foreigners. Some of the kids were throwing horrendous stops because their parents refused to buy them things. Most of the girls in there had an obsession with pink - as you can see from the photo at the bottom.

The chinese have an obsession with blonde hair. The people who I were with before who had blonde hair would get stopped in the street all the time and people would try to pluck hairs from their heads as they walked past - so it's no wonder that they chinese have such love barbie. In all it was quite an odd experience - surely this type of thing only happens in china?

I'm a barbie girl - in a barbie world.

First week at work

2009-03-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

Its been a good first week. I've just about settled into the flat and have overcome the time difference I think. Its a lot more tiring now that i've started work though so hope I'm not speaking too soon. Working hours over here a little different. In Leeds I'd genereally get in to the office for 7.30-8am - over here people turn up between 9.30 and 10! I spend the first hour or so caching up on emails from england sent over night and then start work proper. England starts work at 4pm our time so this means we usually get some enquiries coming in about 5pm, this means that you still end up staying quite late and this week I've been leaving on average about 8/9pm. In keeping with my behaviour habits in the Leeds office i managed to loose my pass on the first day which I don't think they were too pleased about!

One of the things I don't like about the training contract process is that just as you get to know everyone in your department well and start to really like everyone you then have to move on to somewhere new. It usually take a few weeks for you to really find your feet and start getting good work and start making friends. Luckily, I seem to have hit the ground running in Shanghai though and seem to get on with people quite well all ready and even over this first week have done a wide range of good work.

The office is quite small. I think there is about 9 lawyers in the office - 2 of which are australian, 1 of which is italian, the rest chinese. There are then secretaries and HR etc which probably brings the total number up to about 15 people in full - a start constrast to the 700 or so in Leeds! This makes for quite a small friendly team where everyone gets on. The office managing partner is Australian and he is really laid back so that makes for a really nice environment to work in. The core of the office is basically young chinese girls. The receptionist, trainee solicitors, secretaries and finance people are all between 22 and 30 - they're all good fun and have enjoyed trying to weasle some chinese out of me and are currently in process of conjuring up a chinese name for me. I'll let you know what they come up with.

Becuase the office is so small people are expected to pick up whatever comes in, this means that one day you can be doing one subject and the next you are doing something utterly different. This certainly makes for an interesting life but I think i'd prefer to be an expert in one thing rather than just a general good all rounder - although I'm some way off that even at the moment! This week I've done work on Competition and Antitrust, Emplyment law, Intellectual property and also got involved on a massive Biofuels project. I'm not too sure what i'll be doing this next week, but I think i've been drafted in as some kind of project manager on the biofuels thing so that will be interesting. The meeting lasted 8 hours so theres a lot of work to do on the back of that.

I'm lucky that I've got experience in Competition law and Projects from the UK as these seem to be too really big areas out here at the moment. The first competition laws came into effect here last August so its a great time to be here to see how it develops. I wrote an article last week on a recent decision and this has been published on our website and is to be put in a magazine so I'll see if I can put it up on here. One of the best things about being an international trainee is that I get wheeled out for clients everytime they come - this has meant that i've been taken out for lunch all but one day this week- the other I ordered some fried rice to come to my desk (for 80p - excellent!).

We set up our Hong Kong office around 2 weeks ago and this week the two managing partners came to shanghai to see how we are doing here and see what improvements need making. One of the guys I know from Leeds so it has been good to have someone I know about the office. Tuesday night we went out for a big meal to welcome then to the office and then went out to an Irish Pub for St Patrick's day. It was possibly the strangest St Patrick's day I've ever had and Guiness was £6.50 a pint! Luckily I only had to buy two pints!

I know from last time that Chinese girls are not really big drinkers , and the girls from the office had never tried Guiness before but I think they enjoyed their first St Paddy's. The bar was good fun and they had a "traditional irish" band playing "traditional irish" songs - such as Fields of Athenrei and Bye Bye American Pie?! They also played various bar games like mini skittles to win prizes. Of course the place was mainly expats but there was still quite a few chinese getting into the spirit of things - This girl (Monica) clearly has some work to do on her two handed drinking technique.

The morning after the night before I was feeling quite roung and woke up to some strange banging and shouting. I really couldn't work out what it was. I jumped out of bed to investigate what was going out - in a state of undress - pulled back the curtains and was greeted by the following site. All I can say is that I hope the privacy glass on the window was working properly.

Fellow Secondees

2009-03-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Friday night I met up with a few of the other trainees that have been seconded to the magic circle firms in the city. From memory they work for Alan + Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfield and Linklaters. We went for a really decent meal in quite an upmarket chinese restuarant that specialised in food from Yu'nan. We had a good mixture of dishes - pork,chicken,beef,prawns,sea bass. It was all really nice. After that we went to a couple of bars and had a few more drinks. Good times and hopefully get to meet up with them more in the future.

The Bund 外滩 and Pudong 浦东

2009-03-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Bund is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Shanghai. The Bund itself is about 1 mile long and has 52 buildings most of which are old colonial buildings, banks and trading houses built by the numerous countries that set up concessions here and carried out trade in China in the early 1940s.

The biggest buidling is the old HSBC building which is flanked on either side by the Customs House and China Merchants Company building. The buildings are magnificent and really show you the european influences that were abundent at the time.

With the World Expo coming to Shanghai in 2010, the Chinese have replicated what they did in Beijing and have started ripping things up and tearing things down, so unfortunately some of the area is off bounds at the moment. I'm not too sure what they are doing. I think they are making some alterations to the road.

The bund runs along side the Hangpu river. On the opposite side of the river is Pudong. Pudong in complete contrast to the bund itself is a collection of brand new sky scrapers and high rise buildings. This is where most of the international companies, hotels etc are. Last time I visited shangahi the weather was really cloudy and hazy and you could barely make out the otherside of the river but luckily today it was sunny and the view was perfect.

I walked along the river bank for about an hour taking in the sunshine and views and taking a few photos. After that I decided the chinese were right and thought i'd better get home and put some more clothes on!

Nanjing Road Shopping

2009-03-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in China it was raining heavily. On the second day it was raining heavily. When I got to work I asked someone in the office whether it was always like this, they replied "it has rained for 20 days and 20 days, but tomorrow it will be sunny". To tell the truth I was sceptical but I'll give the chinese weather forcasters their dues as come saturday morning it was bright sunshine and clear blue skies.

My first proper full day here and sunshine - a great opportunity to explore. Because of the lovely day I thought i'd better make the most of the opportunity and whip out the shorts. The area near me is quite modern with massive shopping malls, restuarants etc but about move about 2 blocks over and you're back to "proper china" where you can buy meals for 5op and big bottles of beer for even less.

I'd forgotten to pack any work shoes so thought I'd go out and try to find some. I walked along nanjing road (main shopping area in Shanghai) to have a look what I could find. Now, it appears that the one thing Chinese people like staring at more than white people in general, is a white person who looks vaguely like harry potter and even more than that they like to stare at white people who look vaguely like harry potter wearing shorts and t shirts. Wherever I went I caused constent outroar. People nearly got ran themselves ran over trying to take photos as I crossed the road. Every two steps was "woah, so cold". It was bloody boiling and the chinese were still wearing at least 4 layers. ridiculous!

Anyhow, I managed to find some shoes. They are not the most stylish in the world but are leather and were only £20 so was quite happy paying that. I then grabbed a little lunch and some beer from a stall in one of the malls I was looking around. I had roast duck and rice with a beer - came to £2.50 - and was bloody delicious!

Arrival and Room

2009-03-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Shanghai on Thursday at 10.00am. We were half an hour late arriving due to some old fogie falling up the stairs and cutting her leg open. She demanded on getting on the plane still which meant that paramedics had to come on to see her. After about an hour they decided she couldn't fly and carried her off - despite her best efforts to argue that she was OK to stay on. The whole time this was happening I was growing more furious because first class were getting drinks and I was getting sodd all!

My anger soon relented when we took off and the drinks trolley came round. They offered me a champagne or wine, I asked for beer - they replied "heneiken, budweiser or LONDON PRIDE" QUALITY!!! I ordered two cans on each rotation. The lady sat next to me actually looked a little worried as I quickly polished these off and pressed the assistance button in order to get some more. I justified this to myself as necessary in order to escape jet lag (i think it worked). After 8 cans I'd finished watching the film,had had my dinner and was well ready for some sleep.

I live in Hong Kong Plaza in on huahuailu. The apartment is lovely.You can see from the pictures that it is quite modern and clean, and I think there is a cleaner to help me keep it that way. There is a spare room that should come in handy if any visitors want to come and stay. The apartment block has the use of a swimming pool, gym,sauna,jacuzzi and tennis court so there are plenty of things to do in my spare time other than watching fake dvds and drinking in bars etc.

I live about about 5 minutes walk from the Office and extremely close to a modern area called Xintiandi which is home to a good collection of modern bars, nightclubs, restaurants, coffee shops etc. There is also a cinema showing western films anda huge shopping complex. It's probably too expensive for me to eat there everyday but is still much cheaper than western prices for the equivalent. Its good being close to this as means can just nip out for coffees and go for a quick beer after work.

I've just added a few more pictures of the apartment.