Author: me

i’ve been in china a year and a month now, and it’s time to get a new visa to live here. so just pop down to hong kong, hand your passport to a travel agent, go out get wasted (thank you people), come back the following morning to find your brand new 1 year business visa. then off to a very hot and sticky electronics superstore to buy a new toy.

The Sony R1 – it’s great, but the auto focus is so slow sometimes i want to throw the camera at the object i’m photographing. SNAP THAT BITCH.

On my way back up to Shanghai i traveled via the crumbling suburbs of Guangzhou and tested the R1 taking back lit photos…

Back to england for a nice hot week camping in cornwall – the obvious holiday retreat for those living in Shanghai! Our secret family campsite, the ever idyllic community for old school friends and generations of returning families. Something rare about being able to play games with kids nowadays without parents having to worry.

Slasha and clur at the mini wimbledon.

writting in the sky with the a blue torch – more at my flickr

to view all the cornwall photos click here.

this week, the infamous shangyang market closed down – infamous for selling fake watches bags dvd’s golf clubs and anything else you could possibly imagine. the now bricked up entrance has a government made banner hung over it stating “ban shangyang market” … err, you just did!

another banner reading “beat conterfeit and shoddy“, good to see that quality control is now a state concern.

what was once beautiful back streets adjoining the market, now being torn down to make way for a shopping centre that will sell the same bags and watches as before, but this time not counterfeit and shoddy, but instead real, imported, massively taxed and for more money than the average local makes in a year.

it may surprise you to know that ‘the forbidden city’ in beijing and many other national sites are actually new, though they have been there for a long time, instead of preserving the old ones, they just knock them down and build new ones every so often. i hear in beijing they have started to rebuild the old houses like these as they’ve realised they shouldn’t have pulled them down to build shopping centers in the first place, it’s a shame they haven’t realised that in shanghai yet.

new is better than old, and that’s it.

as predicted by all whom live in shanghai for any length of time, you go through set periods of emotion living here.. first there is the amazement; “wow everything in china is so wonderful, it’s such an amazing place. etc.” then comes; “wow what an interesting place, everything here is just so interesting” and after that, about a year into your stay comes “oh my god they’re all idiots”. and after that who knows, you either end up hating it and leave, you stop caring and live your life in an expat bubble, or you rediscover what you loved in the first place and continue to make the most of what can only be a finite time here. give me another year and i’ll let you know.

for example: post office regulations.
(this is the conversation i would have had could i have spoken chinese, with only knowing a little chinese the real conversation and mime was much more insane)

me: i’d like to post a parcel
clerk: what’s in it?
me: some clothes and a letter
clerk: no, you can only post parcels here, you need to go to a different counter, buy an envelope, then go to another counter to post your letter.
me: why?
clerk: it will have to go in a separate envelope
me: what if it’s a drawing
clerk: just letters
me: what if it’s a letter with drawings on it
clerk: …
me: what if i put the letter inside in the clothes?
clerk: you can’t do that
*put’s letter inside clothes
me: i’d like to post a parcel
clerk: what’s in it?
me: clothes.

don’t make friends with people who are in charge of the free tequila at a mexican theme bar. and if you do, don’t go there on your birthday. less of a hang over, more like brain damage.

now there was a reason for me to actually buy the new toy… a wedding.
with the exception of my aunties and my parents, i’m now the last in my entire small family to be married. but i don’t think i can get married now as my damn cousins have just done it so well. joss and kelly with their rolling devon hills and garden marquee and now rawden and elke in landschaftspark duisburg-nord – an enormous 1920’s steel refinery near dusseldorf in germany. congrats rawdy, an awesome wedding in an amazing place. thank you for asking me to be the photographer, i hope i didn’t disappoint.

their wedding website invited guests to explore “We recommend you bring a pair of comfortable shoes in case you would like to explore Landschaftspark.”
while it’s a fantastic idea, someone should have told uncle tim not to wonder off on his own, he got lost and missed the speeches and a few hours of the wedding, bless.

well at least he got to see more of the park than the rest of us in the bar. what did happen after midnight? did i loose my camera? who was the girl in the pink dress?

you can see all the photos from the day here elkeandrawden.co.uk
conclusion: i like germany, germans and german things. (especially beer)

8th April 2006 – mental. mountains.

so without the need to cycle across london to get to work for the last two years my cycling has been limited to the few weeks back at my parents house at christmas – while enjoyable it’s cold and pissing wet. however i have recently discovered that the mountain biking scene in china is alive and kicking. this is probably to do with the fact that all the bikes and components are half price here. oh god more stuff to spend money on.

so the old trail From Anhui to Zhejiang is a mountain pass used as a trade route for centuries between these 2 provinces. to get there 7 of us left shanghai friday night, 4 hours later we reached jixi for a night in a hotel, up at 6.30 for glutinous rice and boiled eggs, another 3 hours in the bus and we arrived at huihangudao (i’ve forgotten what that means already) and then we started the climb, in the rain, up the side of a mountain. no more roads.

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it took around 6 hours to reach the end of the path including a huge lunch, near the top of the mountain, hidden among the trees was a very basic youth hostel type thing. no hot water, but it did have a massive TV. which i can’t quite work out how it got there. the rooms seemed nice, though unfortunately our guide didn’t book one so we ended up sleeping on the floor or the meat store. i lucked out and got the most comfortable blanket and plastic sheet.

up early for some more glutinous rice, boiled eggs and pickled cabbage. mmm. like every other meal, they all spoke chinese and i listened pointlessly. another hour of pushing and carrying our bikes and we reached the top. the sun came out and it was all worth while. yup wow. you can only walk here. and it takes 2 days. now i’m far away from home i thought.

it was at this point i remembered i no longer have travel insurance, but then considering the facts, how much is it going to cost to have two farmers carry me home on a bamboo stretcher. and with that thought came hours of hills. down hill. steps, rocks, tracks, roads, drops and stunning scenery, brilliant, all it’s missing is a chair lift at the bottom.

to view all the pictures that ayuan (our guide) took, take look at the ‘prodigy mountain biking‘ site

escape to a little island, stay in a luxury hotel, all just 4 hours from shanghai. beautiful.