A man with a bicycle and a turtle in the French Quarter.

Pearl Tower and the city lights of Pudong. 

Street food. A local muslim restaurant in the French Quarter. Al took this photo with our digital camera out the window of the always travelled in taxi. 

French Quarter Street 

More stories to come

Well, now that I've been home for over a month (and I planed to update this blog so diligently while I was on holiday) it may well be time for me to publish some of my holiday stories. We had a lot of fun. I must say that we were very luck to be able to stay with Big Al's cousin and her husband, as both have been living in Shanghai for several years and both speak fluent Mandarin. I have posted some photos today and will endeavour to relate some of our adventures in the coming weeks. Here is a photo of me on the corner of a street in the French quarter not far from where we were staying.

Me on the Bund

Welcome to China!

Stepping down from the comfort and safety of our brand new JAL Boeing 777 onto the tarmac of Shangahai's Pudong Airport, I think we knew were in for a pretty weird two weeks. Al's cousin Jane, who is vey kindly putting us up, had given us the following advice in regard to disembarking at Pudong.

"Run! don't walk to the immigration desk, lest you be forced to que for several hours." So we got our skates on and pushed and shoved our way through the passengers from 3 or 4 other interntional flights who all had the same idea.

We ended up queing for about an hour, as it is the custom of immigration to enter (by hand it would appear) all the contact details of entering passengers, including Chinese nationals, into thier computer system on arrival. As you can imagine this takes a long time!

Anyways, on the way through customs we thought we had better do the right thing and declare our extra booze. We had a duty free bottle of scotch, or rather most of one, we had a few drinks in the hotel in Narita, and the bottle was now about 3/4 full.

So with this duly noted on our customs cards we approched the "Something to Declare" station. The two 20-something Shanghianese female customs officers at the counter looked at us strangely, and though their English was excellent, couldn't really get her heads around us declaring our bottle of half drunk scotch. She asked to see the offending article and Al with aplomb dug it out of the bag and dumped it on the counter. The girls looked at each other, looked at us and then pronounced "Next time pay more attendtion to the rules! Please go now"

OK. Welcome to China...

The trip into Shanghai in our hire van was pretty amazing. I will go into details in further posts but shall say that this city really is an assault on all your senses and sometimes not in a good way. We made our way into the French Quarter where Jane and Rob have an amazing, 4 storey 1930's house.

They took us out for dinner that night to a tapas bar (all the rage here) in an old Russian Orthodox church. Unfortunatley, the Russians want it back and have lobbied the local government to close the current business down and hand the church back. When we went for dinner on Saturday night it was apparently the last dinner that they would ever serve. There is some debate among the ex-pat community as to what the Russians will do with the church now they have it back in thier possesion. They doubt it will become a place of worship again, and only half jokingly expect it to turn into a maffia run vodka bar downstairs with a high class brothel upstairs under the gilt relief church dome.

That is the nature of Shanghai. Easy come, easy go.

Most of the French Quarter is poor and dirty. It's not really like France, well, it sort of is but it does have a certain charm. It has some lovely wide, tree lined avenues and fine old architecture, in parts. Many, many Shanghainese on bicyles, mopeds, pushing things on the roads, taxis and old cars clog the streets. There are no road rules to speak of, except if you think you might hit someone you honk your horn to advise them to avoid you. Consequently, the streets are a symphony of car horns. On some of the roads there are signs with what looks like a bugle with red line drawn throught it. We're not sure if this means no horns or no trumpet playing. It certainly doesn't stop the drivers honking constantly. The air is thick and pea-soupy with smog and the pollution settles black on everything it touches.

Later on Saturday evening we were taken to a party at a local restaurant. On the way we are acosted on the street by some locals conducting a begging scam. "Look at the way they are dressed" says Jane "They're not poor." They hassle us for money until a nearby cops walks over to investigate and they vanish into the night. It's weird condsidering what we have just spent on dinner is the equivalent of what most locals here earn in a month. Cabs are incredibly inexpensive here, a few AUD will get you around most of the city.

Most of the western restaurants and bars in this area nestle cheek by jowl with local shops selling vegetables, lumber or just about anything you can imagine. The restaurant/bar we walk into is slick and full of ex-pats and loud dance music. Because one of our group knows the owner we have a complimentary bottle of Tattinger and five glasses on the table with in minutes of our arrival. Several locals gather at the glassed entrance and look inside at the picture of Western decadence. They don't come in, they just look. It is all very weird. Inside at our table, some personal drama is unfolding involving someone allegedly shagging someone else's girlfriend. The boyfriend looks a bit shell-shocked and the rest of the party are dining out on the experience. There is one local girl with us, who one of our group tells me will one day be a high ranking spy and will run agents. She is currently 20, very beautiful and dressed in a Boy George 80's style hat and eye make-up. My new friend tells me that he just tossed a coin with the owner of the restaurant to see who would spend the night with her. It doesn't seem surprsing here at all.

Very soon I am sitting back, drunk on free French fizz and talking randomly to Rob (Jane's husband and our host) about the mystique of Shanghai when the police arrive to move on the locals gathered at the entrance gawping at us. One of the waitresses, freaked out by the arrival of the cops runs hysterically to our table to grab the owner. He leaves and a bottle of Moet arrives. Rob and I drink another toast.

"Welcome to China!"

We giggle.