A superhero who's lost his powers
Well, hell, if there's one thing I can do it's communicate. Only not in Shanghainese. Hard to charm people with broad smile, hand gestures and 'yes/no' 'please/thank you'.
Shanghai ver' cool. Can't be on here long as I have a seriously fatigued battery and I want to sneak in a couple of flickr uploads.
Been to Yu Gardens - very lovely (and incredibly relaxing after the busybusyBUSYBUSY of central / anywhere Shanghai) 400 year old gardens laid out by some Emperor or other (what? there is wikipedia if you're that interested - how lazy we become!).
Day trip to Nanjing (pop. 6.5 million) yesterday. Site of a massacre in 1937. Japanese troops killed 300,000 Chinese people who were mostly civilian and in large part children, female or elderly (it being OK to kill able-bodied men). The museum was very well done, if a bit heavy on the 'we must use this example to become a glorious nation'. But hey - what's wrong with a bit o ambition on any scale - personal, or national? (Cat amongst pigeons for comments, that one, I'm sure). Museum was also huge. Took us about two hours plus to get round it, by which time I was about ready to throw a screaming paddy if I saw one more greygreygrey room of death. Funny how little one can know about the world, though, eh?
...
Shanghai itself is...stinky. I know that's a terribly trite summation, but it is a bit. Good smells as well as bad, but a combination of not-always-brilliant sewers and the heat (up in the 30s yesterday) make for a nasal assault every 100 yards or so.
Ver' cool, though. Incredibly busy and a bit daunting (all right, shit-scary) at first, but I'm getting my head round it. I don't like being as conspicuous as I am, but some very off-the-cuff helpful people have got me into a decent headspace. I'm staying right on the touristy-shopping mecca, which actually sucks a bit. Can't set foot out of the hotel without 'bags - dvd - gucciprada' every five steps. After five pm you also get 'massage? pretty girl?' because obviously being white, male and by myself, I must be after a hoor. ;)
...
Trotting off now as I've only got 19% battery left, but I'll drop more words. Couple of pics (not the best ones as I haven't processed any RAW yet) up on Flickr.
...
Semper superne nitens,
C
Shanghai ver' cool. Can't be on here long as I have a seriously fatigued battery and I want to sneak in a couple of flickr uploads.
Been to Yu Gardens - very lovely (and incredibly relaxing after the busybusyBUSYBUSY of central / anywhere Shanghai) 400 year old gardens laid out by some Emperor or other (what? there is wikipedia if you're that interested - how lazy we become!).
Day trip to Nanjing (pop. 6.5 million) yesterday. Site of a massacre in 1937. Japanese troops killed 300,000 Chinese people who were mostly civilian and in large part children, female or elderly (it being OK to kill able-bodied men). The museum was very well done, if a bit heavy on the 'we must use this example to become a glorious nation'. But hey - what's wrong with a bit o ambition on any scale - personal, or national? (Cat amongst pigeons for comments, that one, I'm sure). Museum was also huge. Took us about two hours plus to get round it, by which time I was about ready to throw a screaming paddy if I saw one more greygreygrey room of death. Funny how little one can know about the world, though, eh?
...
Shanghai itself is...stinky. I know that's a terribly trite summation, but it is a bit. Good smells as well as bad, but a combination of not-always-brilliant sewers and the heat (up in the 30s yesterday) make for a nasal assault every 100 yards or so.
Ver' cool, though. Incredibly busy and a bit daunting (all right, shit-scary) at first, but I'm getting my head round it. I don't like being as conspicuous as I am, but some very off-the-cuff helpful people have got me into a decent headspace. I'm staying right on the touristy-shopping mecca, which actually sucks a bit. Can't set foot out of the hotel without 'bags - dvd - gucciprada' every five steps. After five pm you also get 'massage? pretty girl?' because obviously being white, male and by myself, I must be after a hoor. ;)
...
Trotting off now as I've only got 19% battery left, but I'll drop more words. Couple of pics (not the best ones as I haven't processed any RAW yet) up on Flickr.
...
Semper superne nitens,
C
posted by Chris at 3:03 am
1 Comments:
Not sure if it'll help or not but I found in Hong Kong that a conspicuous pair of headphones (even if they're not playing anything) repel hawkers pretty effectively.
*toddles off to look at the flickr stream*
:)
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