I spent my last day in Shanghai with Finn and Grant and Fredi went to Shanghai Disneyland for some strange reason.
We had a good day spanning an aggressively orientalised tourist area jam packed with chains of Chinese people following leaders bearing flags. We slipped into a rather tasteful department store and admired nice things but nobody else was there. I wondered why. I would have expected a few crazy rich Asians at the very least but people seem to prefer to be in a swarm here.
Then we went to the remnants of the old town. Not a bit like the prettified ones elsewhere. Narrow lanes had shabby hovels all the way up and down and many windows were fiercely bricked up. Excruciating tangles of rusty electricity wires ran above the doorways. Not far away a demolition team was at work. It was a bit creepy but good to have seen how things once were.But I don't think all the dwellers had gone. Now and then a washing pole spanning the lane would sport a pair of jeans stuffed with newspaper or a jacket with the pole through the arms. Just drying, or a signal, like the trainers that get chucked over our wires? I don't know. There was one solitary lady selling fish however.
I wanted to get some nice cotton for patchwork so we headed for what we hoped was a fabric market. Enticingly a whole building promised "Soft Spinning Material". It was busy but not so much for buying fabric as ordering garments to be made. I hadn't enough puff left in me to argue for the little half metres I was after and how on earth do you explain patchwork by miming. Now I think about it I should have been able to do it but my thoughts were heading to the airport.
We caught an amazing magnetic train which sped to the airport in twenty minutes. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been told while on it that there had been some fearful accidents "not technical, just a signalling matter". Humph.
The flight on Eatern China airways was a bit gruesome. The seats didn't recline and I felt I was slipping off mina all the way. The solace of alcohol was not to be had. "Only five bottles for the whole plane" we were told on asking for refills. There were films of great age and obscurity on the entertainment system. I began an Argentinian one buried in subtitles both English and Chinese which was so boring I decided plain boredom was better.
On arrival, bless him, Eddy was there to meet us. I could have wept since Grant had vanished the baggage hall and I was sure he'd had a heart attack somewhere in the airport - a not so melodramatic thought when we are in our seventies and carrying heavy bags. In fact he had gone to terminal 5 instead of 9.
It was good to see our little terrace again though someone had ripped open our mail, (not much gone) and getting inside we found the wire that holds the big mirror over the fireplace had rusted and it was spectacularly shattered all over the floor. My Pollyanna thought was how lucky no children were playing lego when it fell but nevertheless there is a dark quality about a broken mirror which I could do without.
The whole week was amazing and I am hugely grateful to Finn and Fredi for bearing with us and our carnivorous ways, facilitating our purchases and guiding us through a world more incomprehensible than any I have ever visited.
We had a good day spanning an aggressively orientalised tourist area jam packed with chains of Chinese people following leaders bearing flags. We slipped into a rather tasteful department store and admired nice things but nobody else was there. I wondered why. I would have expected a few crazy rich Asians at the very least but people seem to prefer to be in a swarm here.
Then we went to the remnants of the old town. Not a bit like the prettified ones elsewhere. Narrow lanes had shabby hovels all the way up and down and many windows were fiercely bricked up. Excruciating tangles of rusty electricity wires ran above the doorways. Not far away a demolition team was at work. It was a bit creepy but good to have seen how things once were.But I don't think all the dwellers had gone. Now and then a washing pole spanning the lane would sport a pair of jeans stuffed with newspaper or a jacket with the pole through the arms. Just drying, or a signal, like the trainers that get chucked over our wires? I don't know. There was one solitary lady selling fish however.
I wanted to get some nice cotton for patchwork so we headed for what we hoped was a fabric market. Enticingly a whole building promised "Soft Spinning Material". It was busy but not so much for buying fabric as ordering garments to be made. I hadn't enough puff left in me to argue for the little half metres I was after and how on earth do you explain patchwork by miming. Now I think about it I should have been able to do it but my thoughts were heading to the airport.
We caught an amazing magnetic train which sped to the airport in twenty minutes. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been told while on it that there had been some fearful accidents "not technical, just a signalling matter". Humph.
The flight on Eatern China airways was a bit gruesome. The seats didn't recline and I felt I was slipping off mina all the way. The solace of alcohol was not to be had. "Only five bottles for the whole plane" we were told on asking for refills. There were films of great age and obscurity on the entertainment system. I began an Argentinian one buried in subtitles both English and Chinese which was so boring I decided plain boredom was better.
On arrival, bless him, Eddy was there to meet us. I could have wept since Grant had vanished the baggage hall and I was sure he'd had a heart attack somewhere in the airport - a not so melodramatic thought when we are in our seventies and carrying heavy bags. In fact he had gone to terminal 5 instead of 9.
It was good to see our little terrace again though someone had ripped open our mail, (not much gone) and getting inside we found the wire that holds the big mirror over the fireplace had rusted and it was spectacularly shattered all over the floor. My Pollyanna thought was how lucky no children were playing lego when it fell but nevertheless there is a dark quality about a broken mirror which I could do without.
The whole week was amazing and I am hugely grateful to Finn and Fredi for bearing with us and our carnivorous ways, facilitating our purchases and guiding us through a world more incomprehensible than any I have ever visited.
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