AlbertaTime
in China, China visit #3, Post #6 - June 18th to 21st/2014...
My last post
in this series noted that Quote:
"I had
planned to go to Luoyang and Guangzhou and then to Guilin before
Shenzhen, but the air quality in Luoyang and Guangzhou was worse than
Shijiazhuang...and I figured cleaner air was a better idea since I could
make that adjustment fast, so I decided on Shanghai thinking to see Joel
Chan. The expected weather was gray and overcast, but the air quality numbers were
awesome, so I took a China Air fight to Shanghai and stayed where I stayed last year, t the very decent Green Court Serviced Apartments. I figured if I'm gonna be sick, I might as well be comfortable."
So the Green
Court it was. And it's not a bad place to stay at all if you're in
Shanghai. It's more than twice the rent of most of the places I stayed,
but I was feeling physically flu/cold type run down, and I wanted to be as
comfortable as possible. After all, this was a holiday and the rules of
engagement were simple: treat yerself nice. Separate bedroom, nice
kitchen, main floor restaurant with awesome breakfast included...
So...I did,
and that's where I was the 18th to the 21st.
There's some
(but really, precious little) watch content in this post. Instead, I just
spent my short time in Shanghai time recuperating, taking it easy, mostly
walking around the nearby Nanjing Road shopping area, and just taking a
couple of days with no places-to-be, no rush and plenty of good street
food...
On my
arrival night (the 18th) in Shanghai, I also got to see
my/our
friend Joel Chan, the true gentleman
who had arranged my meeting last year with many of Shanghai's top
collectors, for a quiet couple of hours talking and drinking before he had
to leave Shanghai on business. Here's a terrible "proof" shot of Joel
outside the very classy small bistro we went to, but there ya have it. I
wasn't in top form.
The next day
I felt somewhat better and, like I mentioned, went for a long walk on the
Nanjing Road shopping street. There are people from all over the world
shopping there, every day. And the place is a huge tourist destination for
Chinese folks, too. I posted shots of the street last year, so just a
few...
It was so
hot, I went for a haircut just to try and cool myself a bit more and found
a shop just off the NAjing Road area, down a narrow street or three away
from all the bustle...and went into a shop where no one spoke English at
all, and they were quite surprised to see a non-local come in. But
everyone was very friendly, and we all took photos of each other, and
communicated using Baidu translation software on our phones (fanyi.baidu.com)
:-)
Then it was
back out on the street to wander around...
Well, the
combination of cleaner air and, probably, just getting out from under the
bug that was nailing me, made it so by the 20th, I was feeling quite good,
refreshed almost. Which was excellent news because my change in plans
meant I was going to be able to meet up with WatchuSeek member
InsaneMainframe aka Romain. Romain had mentioned for me to maybe visit "if
you're gonna be in Shanghai..." when I had no plans to be there,
so...happy days with this unexpected detour...
Romain
and his wife met me at Shanghai's well-regarded
Mr Pancake House
for a what turned out to be a great breakfast on the morning of the 20th,
then Romain very kindly took me on a full day's walking tour around the
French Quarter and towards the food market areas near Dongtai Lu.
The range of
urban textures was fascinating. It was a comfortable, moist, lightly
overcast, sometimes drizzling, Shanghai day, and otherwise I'll let most
of the photos speak for themselves, with maybe a comment or two...
Community
exercise equipment is common in China, in parks, on street corners and in
neighbourhood enclaves like this. Good idea...
Among other
destinations, Romain took me to the Richemont "Dunhill Home" location in
Shanghai at 796 Huaihai Road, housing Dunhill and Vacheron Constantin.
We visited
not so much to see the watches, but to see the bike with sidecar.
Romain and
business partners have a tour business in China where visitors can hire a
guide and ride a sidecar...and that was what we would have been doing on
this day except the rainy, muggy weather didn't cooperate.
That's
OK...the walking tour was terrific. So let's continue ;-)...
Romain also
took me out to a wonderful late afternoon meal at the cozy second-floor
and kinda hard-to-find Southern Barbarian restaurant...
...then bck
out onto the street for some more wandering around.
The next
day, the 21st of June (next post) had me travelling to Guangzhou to meet
LiWei again to get seriously and solidly back into the clock and watch
arena, so...more to come.