Pig Sty Avenue

To cheer myself up after a morning sabotaged by some network related not-working-properly IT issues, I went for a walk down Fuzhou Lu to the foreign language bookshop.  I've got Our Mutual Friend by the armchair at home, but he's a bit bulky if you pop out for lunch with a beer and a read.  So I looked at Slaughterhouse-Five , which I've been meaning to read for a while, and then I saw Empire of the Sun , and well, what other novel was I going to buy in Shanghai this afternoon? I read it years ago and had no inkling of the place in time and space that Ballard was describing.  Now the references are jumping out at me to find, and that's after only the first two chapters.    Amherst Rd is here . There's a lot more craic here .

I noticed this morning that hedges are sprouting new growth.  It's that time of year. So I've started on the balcony.  A pot of rocket, (which I've never grown before), about 20 seeds in a four inch pot of flower market compost.  To crop from the pot.  And about the same number of seeds of rosemary in the same conditions.  The rosemary, I seem to remember last time I grew it, it was slow to germinate.  It's to be pricked out into pots, (I noticed a flower shop on Beijing Lu was selling them today).  The rocket, I have no clue. Also, three big fat fruit seeds, from some fruit that was put in my hotel room in Bangkok, just to see what happens.  They're not mangoes, because I read somewhere online that mango seeds have multiple seeds inside them.  I opened one seed, and there was a fairly hard case, dark brown, reminiscent of a cockroach's shell in colour and texture.  It held a single seed nucleus.  I discarded that one, and sowed t...

It's overcast, drizzling, misty tonight, it has been all day.  But there's an unearthly glow, must be the moon through the mist. Beautiful and spooky.  I don't know if you could photo it, or even paint it.

The foyer's full of scaffolding, so it's being refurbished.

I don't know why this theatre looked so British when I first clapped eyes on it last week.  It's a lovely building from the outside, pleasing on the eye, as I cycle by or wait at the lights, of a morning.  And I have no idea how it kept its name during the Cultural Revolution. Here's the webpage. It would seem it's out of action for the now, though, I can find no mention of it on Shanghai Culture Information's ticket page .  I need to get some local craic.

Saturday's wash day.  You don't get a washing line on the balcony here.  I've never seen a washing line anywhere.  The balcony has an aluminium rail which you wind down.  It has a load of holes in it, and you put the clothes on wire coat hangers, and hook them on the rail.  It's actually more efficient than a clothes line, in terms of space.  Takes all sorts to make a world, eh? And while we're on the subject, bamboo clothes pegs grip better than the plastic ones. I should get out more, shouldn't I?

This Man is a Menace , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I was cycling down the bike lane, - the traffic on my left stationery, waiting for the lights, - when this auld bugger comes at me between two cars, making me swerve, break and swear. He turned into the cycle lane, and carried on regardless. Here he is a few minutes later, at the next lights, as you can see, pushing his way into the traffic, red light notwithstanding, being given a wide berth. An old Shanghai cyclist in a hurry, keep clear.

That's the bike, parked over the road from KFC, where I've started to go for breakfast. The saddle's quite comfy. I've been going to work on the bike all week, so that's four days. On the Tuesday I I decided rather than relying on a route planned out the night before on google maps, I'd just follow all the other cyclist going in roughly my direction, and found that there's almost a proper cycle route from Jing'an to work, and looks as if it carries right on down to the Bund. It's not on any maps or anything, it's just a smaller, winding route, with hardly any cars on it, but lots of bicycles, mopeds, scooters and the occasional motorbike. And the rag-and-bone men's bicycle carts, which I'm sure have a name.

And there you have it.  A friend of mine said "I don't really understand your random ramblings on your blog", which was a bit of an eye opener.  Is it all so obscure?  Probably, you get so multi-textual, you disappear up your own arse, and re-appear as an alien, coming out of your own chest.  Or something.  Stockholm, also.  I've never been there, but there's a sculpture in Jing'an park...