Ye Shanghai.

All the spitting in China I had heard about was true after all; from the moment I stepped out of the airport to the day I boarded the plane back home, the euphoric sounds of spitting could be heard every five minutes. Dolby surround, no less.

All rumours about the toilets in China, on the other hand, were so 1999. There were cleaners who mopped the grounds you walked on. The cubicles came with toilet papers folded very nicely for your convenience. I only came across one toilet throughout the entire journey that had the legendary long-gang in its cubicles I had heard all about, and it was exactly what I had imagined.

My maiden trip to China was of course, essentially Singaporean, since I went with a tour group. It was ridden with complaints (about the food that was so oily you could fly an airplane with it) , shopping (the renmingbi was a test to taunt my horrible maths, things are so dirt-cheap-you-want-to-cry nonetheless.) and more complaints (about the toilets, they are never good enough for these people; and everything else). There was little interest about the history, we just wanted a place to escape the jittering cold. Speaking of cold, it was practically freezing. Still, Summer Singapore isn't exactly Fun Forever, a little winter would have been nice. Perhaps then people here would be nicer and less complain-y. And that also means there are other wardrobe permutations other than tees and jeans, tees and berms and tees and shorts.

Shanghai is China's ultimate urban metropolis. It is lego-ed with tall modern buildings that juxaposed with the Old Shanghai charm of quaint architectures and surrounded by stories of highways that a neverending flow of traffic zoomed by. Traffic in China is a scary affair. Do not forget they have millions of bicycles that jostle for space on the road. They seem to be lacking in a congenital chip that tells them to 'give way', and the indifference is astonishing. No one curses, or make a big hoo-ha, they just move on after all that loud honking. It was simply amazing that I didn't witness a single accident I thought I would.


In Shanghai, you see the glamourously rich and the dangerously poor. (the PETA spirit in me was hoping the fur were faux. And dog meat is a winter delicacy in China. Pamela Anderson should visit China soon.) At one corner you see the one with the faux (I'm deep in consolation) fur bargaining in crisp Shanghainese at the flea market.

You will also see the poor in every corner of the street asking for loose change, or selling faux fur.

Check out my Shanghai Flickr set for more photos.