29 August 2012
More canals, far canals
I ended up walking much further than I thought. It was nice and cool, a giant 30 storey high thermometer told me its 26 degrees. There was a nice breeze too so after dinner I walked along a Shanghai canal that led to the bund.
On the way I messed around with my camera, which was fun for me at the time. The canal is all done up with walk ways and seats and trees, its mainly used by young people to escape their parents to make phone calls or play angry birds. People in China actually hold 7 inch tablets to their ear to use them like telephones.
Now for some tips.
Tip #1 - Dont ride a scooter in China.
Everyone rides a scooter and they do so without helmets. As they are mainly electric they are also silent.
Tonight I saw a guy get hit by a car at great speed, but it was amazing! Somehow he went flying through the air, like an olympic long jumper.
I actually think he started running in mid air, and when he hit the ground he was going at a full sprint and was totally fine.
Then the owner of the car decided to scream at him for a while, then all oncoming traffic just held down the horn whilst he removed the various pieces of his scooter.
Tip #2 - Your local corner store style travel agent never pays for your room in advance.
I cant count the number of times I have seen people, normally from Europe where apparently theres no internet, standing at reception desks of a Hotel complaining loudly that their accommodation is already paid for.
They always hold up paperwork that shows that they booked through their travel agent in Wales or some place, and that this is proof enough that the travel agent has paid in full.
Tonight when I returned to my hotel this was going on, I decided to sit in the lobby and listen in for my own amusement.
Of course they got their travel agent on the phone, and of course it turns out that he hasnt paid for the room, just booked it on their behalf.
Then you get the inevitable 'We dont have a credit card' drama. Who the hell doesnt have a credit card these days? Are they carrying travellers cheques (do they even still exist?) or thousands of dollars in cash?
If you are booking travel in far off lands, use a website that books 50,000 rooms a day, expedia or agoda should be fine.
My dinner (only food pic of the day so shut up), Japanese curry. It was decent, most expensive thing on the menu at $4. It has good quality beef in it, still like all places in China they leave the skin / sinew on, but as its been stewed for ages it was tender.
If you have not had Japanese curry before, the omelette is stuffed with rice.
Also they like to put pickles and a salted plum on the plate as well. If you dont know what a salted plum is you might think someone chewed something and spat it back out on your plate.
Time for some in camera hand held HDR. Its a shame the van was parked there.
Cheers club is closed. I like this photo though.
I am not afraid to take my own photo of someone elses fashion shoot. Actually there were heaps of people around like this, I think they might have been students of some kind, high school formal perhaps?
The bund in HDR. I took what looks like HDR and added HDR to it. Oh yeah, hand held. My camera does cool stuff. Most of its useless, but its cool the first time you do it.
The other end of Nanjing Lu. Tonights response to the massage touts was (In Chinese) 'I am a poor student from Russia, I like apples'.