Shanghai in October

It's hard to believe this mad blogger has been silent for so long. I guess I've been recuperating form the big trips and not doing a lot of exciting things but here goes the highlights before I leave for Shenzhen and Hong Kong for the weekend.

It's been fairly quiet. The weather has cooled considerably to a freezing 72 degrees and maybe 65 at night. The locals are wearing hoods, gloves and fairly heavy jackets while i continue to wear short sleeve shirts to work. It hasn't rained much at all. Did I say it was perfect weather here?

This weekend we went to a Yunnan restaurant which flies in certain products from this far away Chinese province. I sampled potato pancake, Yunnan spicy meat dishes and goat cheese and finally Pomegranate flowers. An interesting meal with good company. The next night was one of those very big group meals around a huge lazy Susan. Sixteen people, lots of food and drink. The weird and exotic were on the table (and I'm just talking about the food!) Taro root, jellyfish, chicken feet were just some of the things I passed on. It was then off to the Bund for some sightseeing for those who had never been. I came back the next day for some photography as you will soon see.

i also found a breakfast place for Western style food. Most Chinese people have hot soup, a bowl of rice or noodles for breakfast and that is hard for me to consider. The place I found had freshly made buttermilk pancakes with walnuts and bananas, very nice.

Sunday was very interesting as I tried to do a lot while walking for approx. 8 hours. First it was off to the touristy area. To video something interesting. Here's the background and the first part of my story on this...

The other day, I found myself walking down one of my favorite streets which is blocked from vehicular traffic and teems with people. This is also where visitors go, both Chinese and foreigners. As is true for every big city, where there are people from outside the country, the scammers follow.
One of the top scams is called the tea house scam. This is where a male or group of men are approached by one or two local ladies who say they just want to talk to “improve their English”. If you agree, they steer you to a nearby tea house where, by prearrangement with the owner, your credit card is charged a ridiculous amount of $, like $750, for the “special” tea you consumed. Of course, by then the ladies you were helping with their English are long gone.
Sometimes, I’m not sure if they are prostitutes or just tea house scammers and most times, I just scowl and they leave me alone. Well, I decided to see how this would work so I played the game… to a point. Two ladies approached and used the same greeting they all use.
“Hello, where are you going?”
My standard answer is “That way” (pointing).
“Wait don’t you want to talk to us?”
“No”
“We want to talk to you. We want to improve our English”
“OK so let’s talk”
“No, we are thirsty.”
“Well, I don’t drink tea.”
“OK, let’s just go to KFC”
“I don’t want to go into KFC”
“I’ll just wait here by the bench. We can talk out here.”
This goes back and forth and they finally say, “OK, wait by the bench”


I decided to try and video one of these events in progress.


Now back to my story so you can see what i did...

The problem is, they just keep on walking past KFC. So I say…
“I thought you were thirsty?”
“No, we’re really hungry”
“OK, bye”
Only now, I’m following them saying in a rather loud voice, “Are you two scammers? Are you just trying to rip people off? What do you really want” Only my money.”
One of them spins around and says, “Shut up!”
Without missing a beat, I said, “Hey, your English is pretty good.”
This was a Seinfeld moment. Remember, the low talker? She was Kramer’s girlfriend who mumbled incessantly so no one could make out anything she said. When Jerry finally says out loud what he thought of the puffy shirt, she screams, “You Bastard!” and Jerry deadpans, “Now that I heard”

A good laugh for my Sunday afternoon!

Okay, this Sunday was special. There was going to be a charity fun run so I decided to go and see what that was all about. This is a photo of one of the contestants. It turns out the run was for prostate cancer awareness.



What i didn't know was it was pay $15 and they give you a speedo to run in. Sorry that isn't me in the photo. Hey, I'm a serious journalist, I can't get caught up doing anything other than reporting the news. (That is, if you ignore my story about he scammers up above.)

Leaving this scene, I took a small ferry across the river and had some lunch and waited for the light to get good for photography. Here are some photos the evening light.



The famous Bund at night...





Finally, this is the famous M on the Bund restaurant building where I will have dinner next weekend with the Staples team visiting here.



More after the Hong Kong trip...