Shanghai’s massive river is a disappointment in virtually all aspects except tourist photographs. Unless you’re overpaying for a cruise, jostling with the blue collars for pole position on the scooter-ferry or in the market for a laserlaser it’s barely worth mentioning.


In the not-as-bad-as-you’d-think Shanghai Zoo the visitors are just as bad as you’d think. Here’s a video of Chinese goading the silverback as he sits thinking about which tapping moron he’d tear limb-from-limb first.


There’s nothing worse than a blow by blow account of a bad experience so I’ll keep this brief. Return flight to Dubai from Shanghai via Bejing. 4 legs all delayed at around 3hrs each. Connections missed. In flight service bad. Ancient entertainment system and shuttle buses everywhere because they’d rather park in the cargo terminal.


In 10 hours of Dubai I’ve seen more food than I could possibly eat at the global food convention in which nations come together trying to swap everything from fresh lamb to cheese football and the Germans linger with their massive stainless processing, mixing, packaging and toasting apparatus. It was all too much to photograph.


I remember the first couple times I came to Shanghai on business with JWT in ‘05 and ‘07.
I got up early one morning and took the nearest metro for half an hour out of town. I wound up somewhere near Longhua temple and yes, it looked pretty much the same as the station I’d got on at. Shanghai clearly didn’t end. Perhaps that’s the premise that brought us here and I’ve only just kind-of managed to prove it wrong.