Arranged driver for 7am and headed for Thamestown again as the conditions were ideal, being slightly overcast. However, it’s really tricky to predict the weather, as it’s so changeable – a bit like being back home. As a result, I’m becoming obsessed by the BBC Weather website, checking for the right number of cloud icons to appear in tomorrow’s outlook.
Anyway, I managed to bag my way into one of the guarded residential areas by acting foreign and stupid and made it into another by clambering around a fence which hung over the deep river. If I’d fallen in I’d have been screwed along with my camera equipment, but it was worth the risk.
It’s frustrating and slower to get going than I hoped and however much research and planning I’ve done, it’s hard to prepare for the scale of this place; a megacity that’s too vast for my brain to comprehend and I feel like the only person not knowing where I am going. Plus I’ve picked up the Shanghai Throat, probably due to the pollution. I’ll try and kill it off with some fiery hot street food, I reckon.
One good thing is Joshua The Fixer has fixed for me to stay in a great business hotel in central Shanghai – big room, double bed and broadband. I am really enjoying the relative luxury of it, and all for the same price as my previous, cupboard-sized living quarters..
Odd incident of the day:
Man running down the street naked from the waist down and jumping on people’s backs in front of some of Shanghai’s most stylish shops. Rather than alert the attention of the authorities, most people just stood and laughed…
