Sleepless in Shanghai

Tuesday 24th April

I arrived in Shanghai with the Chinese lark, feeling far from fresh, and promptly leapt into the wrong cab. The Old Man, you see, true Briton that he is and given the earliness of my arrival, had been good enough to send one of his tame drivers over to Shanghai Pudong to pick up his firstborn. Said firstborn, that is to say, ‘me’, had spotted a likely looking fellow with the name ‘Thomas’ scrawled upon his pad:

“Thomas Mansfield?” I enquired, giving the ferryman a beaming, hopefully ingratiating, grin.

“Er…Mr Thomas?” he responded, giving his prospective passenger the friendly nod of a fella who, while clearly lacking in no other single quality, spoke not a word of English.

“That’s me, I guess,” I replied, admittedly considering that no-one really calls me ‘Thomas’, and that the fell surname ‘Mansfield’ was nowhere to be seen on his A4 sheet…

“Mr Thomas!” he agreed, however, and we were off.

It’s a fair old poke from the airport to the French Concession – the charming, leafy quarter of the metropolis which currently accommodates The Old Man and Katzenjammer – a journey sufficiently lengthy for the friendly driver fellow to field many a dozen frantic phone calls and to look back upon me anxiously and repeatedly.

Eventually, after a good few dozen kilometers, he flung his mobile back at me in something of a frenzy. Upon placing said telephone to the Mansfield ear, a polite but clearly concerned Chinese voice on the other end asked me, though not in so many words, ‘who the [*expletive*] I was and what the [*expletive*] I was doing in their car.

I shrunk visibly in the back seat, disappearing deep into the leather. The cab hung loose about me, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief. This was not my motor. This was the motor of a Mr. Tomas, a Dutch businessman in town for some kind of achingly boring conference thingy. My ride, if ever it existed, was still waiting for me some 50km back whence I had come.

The car was already turning back in the direction of the airport, my driver cursing under his breath in blue-tinged Mandarin – yet either side of the road stood the proud, familiar trees of the French Concession. I was so close, if only I could leap from the car…

A red light. A red light a mere stone’s throw from a metro station! Out of the car I threw myself, suitcase in hand, offering hurried thanks and apologies to a nonplussed driver as I slammed the door shut and dived down into the air-conditioned bosom of the Shanghai underground. A quick (read: ten minute) examination of the map told me my route, and within a heartbeat (read: longer than I’d care to say) I was at last strolling towards the fifty-plus storey monstrosity which now housed mon pere.

The Old Man’s new place was well-appointed and palatial, but all I cared for, at this juncture, was my bed, which opened its arms to me and hugged me close like a long-lost accordion. Having caught nary a wink of shut-eye during my four film flight, I napped and napped long, waking just in time to conduct a sub-standard telephone interview with some university or other – I forget which it was. Needless to say, they offered not unto me ‘the gig’.

Midway through this thankless audition, The Old Man returned. To celebrate this reunification of Mansfields, and also because I was, post-slumber, ‘Hank Marvin’, we hastened out for vitals and lubrication. We opted for a decent nearby joint called Azul, which served up Spanish/Peruvian taps, and then onto La Pétanque for French beers and a spot of dessert. The evening was rounded off at the Tipsy Fiddler for a couple of cheeky Guinnesses with Katzenjammer, who had been studying Chinese of an evening, bringing the total number of party-members who spoke a word of the language to a grand total of ‘one’.

Back at the flat everyone hastened to Bedfordshire – though for me ’twas but a preparatory nap. I had promises to keep, and miles and miles to go before I slept: that is to say, AS Roma had a 3.30am appointment for an unholy spanking at Fortress Anfield. Suffice to say, I’m very glad I stayed true to my beloved Liverpool FC, as they walked the first leg of their Champion’s League semi-final with frankly embarrassing ease, strolling it 5-2 while I drank silent, delighted beers and gobbled up late-night potato salad with significant relish.

An elongated, eventful first ‘day’, aye – but a highly enjoyable one all the same.

 

Wednesday 25th April

Having thoroughly destroyed my normal sleep patterns, a long, fitful night was suffixed by a lie-in of Herculean proportions. Like the teenager, I rose to eat the afternoon air, promise-crammed, luxuriating around The Old Man’s castle in the clouds, reading the occasional spot of Shipman and generally feeling as relaxed as that white glove your man banged on about, to which, at dawn, a brisk hand would return. Or something along those lines at any rate.

Once the wage-earning adults returned it was time to wash-up, brush-up and heave out the glad-rags from the glad-suitcase. We were hitting the town, or, to be more exact, we were hitting the Bund. Up we went to Mercato, a favourite Katzenjammer spot, for some seriously sublime Italian fare and quite sensational views over Shanghai Tower, the Pearl Tower and all the other #1 hits thrown up into the sky by Shanghai’s sky-high Pudong District.

It really says something about the mid-season form of the chefs that the food served matched the vistas afforded us by our window-side table, the moon beaming down, shining like a bus-driver’s trousers; the pastas and pizzas exploding in the mouth like tasty little parcels of nitro-glycerine. It’s gastronomic times like these which makes one thankful that one’s cave-dwelling forbears decided ‘this huntin’, gatherin’ sutff’ might be more than just a phase, and should probably be explored a wee bit further.

Once back home following a genuinely five star I binge, I attempted to sleep through the night like the angelic infant I assuredly was, nearly three decades ago. Needless to say, in this I failed, grabbing myself precisely zero hours of the dreamless. But then, my friends, who needs dreams when one has already eaten from the assorted bruschetta of the Gods?

 

Thursday 26th April

My unfeasibly early rise this morning was not at all in the script. However, having lain sans slumber from dusk to d. and choosing not to let ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ like the poor cat i’ th’ adage, I decided to get on up, fit for treason, stratagems and spoils, among other things.

Having bathed, shaved and clad the outer Mansfield, and keen to get my bearings, I ankled along through French concession, attempting to connect the dots in my weak mind and place The Old Man’s new pad in relation to The Old M’s old p., where I had once spent an enjoyable November, back in 2016. Eventually, I found the former kingdom, and celebrated with a very early ‘lunch’ at nearby Joe’s, breaking my fast with a slice or two of New York-style pizza before about turning and heading homeward, walking back briskly in the sun, flying, if you will, much like the youthful hart or roe, o’er the hills where spices grow.

Later that day saw Round #2 at La Pétanque, seemingly a favourite haunt of The Old Man, on this occasion with a Malaysian-Chinese fella by the solidly Saxon name of ‘Brian’. He’s one of those merchant princes which scoop it up by the sackful out here in the East, and was good enough to stand a bloke a pint or two of strong Belgium beer, so in me he soon had a fan.

As aforementioned Brian had to shuffle back home to his apparently innumerable children, and with Katzenjammer again hitting the Chinese textbooks with Teutonic assiduity, I took the opportunity of shepherding The Old Man into a likely-looking restaurant named Yuan Yuan for what is technically termed ‘a succulent Chinese meal’.

[Top Tip: It’s always good, in these situations, to offer to foot the bill when a.) there are no Michelin stars knocking about and b.) the numbers of feasters are kept to a minimum. In this way one might hope to disguise the fact from one’s hosts that you are, in many accurate ways, somewhat parasitic.]

After some excellent eating (and quite skilful ordering, one must say) we popped over to ‘The Hop Project’, where we met another pal of The Old Man’s – a British Council Johnnie by the name of Matt – for a pint or two of the hoppy stuff. It was here that I learnt that Shanghai lasses, when on ‘dates’ with young men with whom they have no real interest in arranging ‘date number two’, will make their lack of interest abundantly clear by whipping out their phones as soon as the bill arrives, and paying for the whole dang lot using ‘WePay’ or ‘Apple Pay’ or some such wizardry.

This strikes me, a fella of limited means who has weathered more than his fair share of unsuccessful rendezvous with uninterested ladies, as a quite sensational practice which should be brought into the London dating scene by swift act of parliament.

Back at HQ I tried to ‘sleep’ sleep but ended up just ‘napping’ sleeping, waking up between three and four in the AM, just in time to watch the Arsenal stink the place up against a 10-man Atletico Madrid side. Sometimes, readers, it seems that ‘absolute mares’ beset both the sleeping and wakeful alike.

 

Friday 27th April

Another lengthy lie-in heralded the coming of the trip’s first Friday, the most impressively lengthy lie-in to date, taking a fellow almost up to cocktail hour.

As it happened, the first notable occurrence of the day was, indeed, booze-based, as I followed the crowd to a bar called ‘Abbey Road’ with The Old Man, Katzenjammer and her colleague Portlandia, who hailed from New England and was something of a Shanghai veteran.

Drinks at AR were followed swiftly by dinner at The Bull & Claw. Here the food on offer proved very fine indeed, though its signature claws of lobster were, as always, mesmerically difficult to access – especially after the various shots and aperitifs with which the joint’s owner had plied us. Thus feeling particularly well-fed and exceptionally well-watered, we hasted on, against our better judgement, to Sasha’s and then, foolishly, to Zapatte’s, for many unnecessary drinks.

Keen to impress Portlandia, who seemed to know her stuff, I demanded from the waiter “a bottle of the best from the oldest bin”, yet received various tequilas of low to very low quality. Proving, if proof were needed, that my Mandarin is still far from perfect. Either way, The Old Man and Katzenjammer were soon sent packing, as this was Big League drinking, and, as such, was the sole purview of those born in the nineteen-eighties.

In the end, it was a fiercely-fought contest, won by Portlandia, and I ended very much ‘one over the eight’, fated to crash out that night on the victor’s sofa avec Luna, the victor’s cat – a feline who struck a fellow as notably over-familiar. The following morning, I feared, as sleep took its hazy hold, was likely to be tricksome one.

 

Saturday 28th April

As it happened, thank the Lord, the next morning – and indeed afternoon – was notably relaxed in nature. Cruel reality back west obliged me to venture online to pay a few bills and to chase down 老鷹 for his rent money, but other than that and catching up with a spot of cricket, not too many clouds of toil crossed my idle skies. Later I enjoyed a splendid, simple dinner of Katzenjammer concoction in the flat, accompanied with a healthy percentage of a nice bottle of red – one of, it gives me no great pleasure to relay, the few ‘non-corked’ bottles which The Old Man had received from various acquaintances out east.

After this brief, peaceful sojourn, it was back out to tame the Shanghai whirlwind with Portlandia, who had been kind enough to offer a fellow a rematch, and some of her fellow ex-pat Yankees (not to be confused with The Yankee, of Straight Down from Chicago fame, of course).

Firstly we went to drink myriad beers and provide bloody sustenance for myriad mosquitoes up on the rooftop of Daga Brewpub. Then we hired ‘Mo-Bikes’ – yellow, app-based bicycles with the turning circule of the QE2 – to spirit us across to Catina Agave, where it was, apparently, ‘happening’.

After this things got a wee bit hazy for yours truly, but once again a fellow was woken up by the rough tongue of Luna, that most friendly of Bast’s children, at what many a gentleman would consider ‘an unearthly hour’ – evidence, perhaps, of another night well wasted.

 

Sunday 29th April

It being a Sunday I was forced by weak-witted convention to consume not breakfast, and not lunch (and most certainly not both), but brunch, mid-morning, at a popular spot called Liquid Laundry, which I had, I realised, mid-eggs, visited on my previous trip out east. The fare was, in all fairness, very good indeed, though I waddled out feeling at best 60% as healthy as I had done when I had strolled on in.

This particular Sunday was, in fact, the very day The Old Man and I were scheduled to hop across to Borneo, for a ‘lads tour’, as it were, to a former colony and current ‘top birding spot’. (Regular readers will remember that The Old Man is a keen twitcher and simply lives for our feathered friends.)

We therefore had a ‘chilled’ afternoon before hot-footing it to the airport, where we enjoyed a couple of eye-wateringly expensive but absolutely necessary pre-plane Stellas. Once aboard our ‘Spring Air’ flight, it looked, for one magical moment, as if we had struck gold and had been given the much-coveted emergency exit row seats. This would, dear reader, have been quite the boon, as Spring Air is much like Ryanair, but without western levels of leg-room nor its rude Celtic charm…

Sadly, lamentably, tragically, an accursed air hostess simmered over to inform The Old Man that he couldn’t read ticket numbers, that we were, in fact, in the row behind the emergency thrones, and that this flight to Borneo – and to the next blog post – would be spent with our knees around our ears. Damn, as they say. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

D’you like Kota Kinabalu, and goin’ on boats in the rain?

Sunday 29th April

The smooth as silk taxi ride to the Hilton hotel, where The Old Man and I would be based for the next five nights, simply couldn’t have been more in contrast to the cramped and bumpy four-hour nonsense we’d just endured. Spring Air, my friends – avoid it like you would a murder of ‘chuggers’ (charity muggers) on any given UK high-street.

My first impressions of Malaysia were good: They drove on the left, spoke the Queen’s, and boasted UK-style plug sockets. These three things are all I ask of foreign climes. Malaysians also seem a notably friendly bunch, happy to converse even when the hour’s passing late. The lass working the hotel reception, zum Beispiel, even offered to upgrade our room to ‘premium’ following our first night, which seemed damned good of her.

We reached our assumedly ‘non-premium’ room just in time to switch on the over-sized television and watch the Arsenal ‘Arsenal it up’ against Atletico before bed – resulting in The Old Man punctuating his regular snores with muffled sobs and somnolent curses about ‘that plank Welbeck’.

 

Monday 30th April

To say Monday began with a ‘big breakfast’ really does no justice to the sheer amount consumed this fine day. Heaped combinations of global breakfast offerings were recruited and dispatched with great prejudice, and I left the table twice the man, in metric terms, that I was when I’d first sat down.

It was then time to show off my newly bloated ‘rig’ at the hotel’s rooftop pool, which was as fine a sun-trap as ever could be hoped for, and which ended up being a regular haunt of mine during our stay here in Kota Kinabalu, the state capital of the Sabah (the northernmost part of Malaysian Borneo, don’t yer know?)

The ‘KK’ weather dances between endless blue skies and celestial bath-time rainstorms, so all told a nicely epic climate to accompany our retreat. This day, for its part, saw nary a cloud sunder the virgin sky.

Pool time done and dusted for now, we went to change rooms and ‘get our premium on’, though found that the room we left behind and the room we later gained were practically identical in every possible way, save that the view was ever-so-slightly upgraded from ‘a dual-carriageway’ to ‘a convention centre’. It is, one assumes dear readers, the thought that counts here.

The Old Man’s lust for the hunt meant that the afternoon began with a walk along the beach in search of various small, nondescript birds – almost all of which had decided it was far too hot to fraternise with Englishmen, so had ‘done one’ for the shade. I took this opportunity to lobby successfully for some sort of alcohol-based fixture, and the pair of us stumbled into the Shangri-La seaside resort – most likely the swankiest spot in all of KK.

Beneath the high roof of the resort’s celebrated ‘Sunset Bar’ we, along with perhaps two thousand Chinese tourists – the Chinese, as a people, clearly of the opinion that Borneo is very much ‘the goods’ – watched a bashful yet beautiful sun knock it on the head for the day, all the while sinking G&Ts with admirable gusto. We then, again with innumerable Chinese hordes, hot-footed it over to the heaving seafood restaurants near our hotel, picking out ‘Welcome Seafood Restaurant’ – a humble spot, yet akin to the Beatles’ in the mid-1960s in terms of raw popularity – which had been suggested to us back en Chine by Portlandia.

Welcome SF, like many of its peers, is notable due to the way one goes to point out the fish/crustacean which you would most like to consume from amongst his/her tank buddies. This ill-fated fellow/lassie is then whipped out of the milling waters of the tank, ushered backstage for their last rites, and then appears on your plate with a pleasant ginger garnish not five/ten minutes later. That is, my friends, ‘as fresh as it gets’, and the process does give one the pleasant feeling of being ‘Judge Judy and executioner’, as big Nicky Frost might say.

Back at the hotel, now very much filled with the fruits of the South-China Sea, we found a rather odd ‘Full Moon Party’ knocking along by the pool, replete with dodgy DJs and somewhat incongruous Malaysian fire-eaters. We imbibed a couple of ‘Full Moon Beers’ and wandered among a real mishmash of the KK great and good, before deciding that this wasn’t really ‘the Mansfield scene’ and calling it a night at a reasonably respectable hour.

 

Tuesday 1st May

I made the executive decision this morning to skip breakfast for a little extra slumber – The Old Man having kept the whole hotel awake the previous night, snoring like a chainsawed bear. Once I’d managed to bag a couple more hours of necessary shut-eye, we wandered into town and down to the waterfront. The whole place has the air of a city which is almost, almost about to take off, but hasn’t quite made the leap yet. Buildings remain unfinished in the baking sun, billboards advertise future hotels and fabulous, non-existent facilities – all dormant, all waiting for southbound Chinese dollar to reach critical mass.

We eventually make it to Jetterson Point, the key tourist ferry port, to check out the available boats for a mooted Friday trip to one or two of the picturesque little islands – Sapi, Manukan, Sulug, Mamutik and Gaya – which lie just off the coast to the west-by-northwest. After a cooling, restorative beer, we braved the fierce sun again, heading over to the leafy eastern corner of the city and to KK’s Wetlands Centre, where we had a very warm wander around the mangroves, again spotting very few birds of note.

Heading back to the hotel, more sweat now than men, we wondered whether a pattern was emerging here, and that the feathered denizens of Borneo were making an especial effort to avoid our company entirely. However, having cooled a little by the pool, restoring our collective humours, we decided this unlikely, and heaving ourselves out of our funk and our heatstroke, we popped off to Sri Melaka restaurant for some splendidly fiery local fare. Be warned – Malaysian curries are fine things, but they seldom ‘mess around’.

We then went looking for what KK could offer a couple of lads about town of a Tuesday evening. Answer: not a great deal. We were, at one point, press-ganged into ‘Cowboy Bar’, as sketchy a ‘sketchy-ass dive’ as ever a true Christian found himself in, and we downed our beverages and fled the place apace, without a single backward glance. In its stead, being, one regrets to relay, ‘those kind of blokes’, we hastened back to HQ for a glass of very nice red and a frankly unnecessarily fancy pudding.

 

Wednesday 2nd May

Continuing the theme developed late on the Tuesday, we spent much of the day by the hotel pool and in the hotel restaurant, enjoying a notably western-style lunch and various western-style drinks. Then come the afternoon, it was time to go ‘full tourist’. We were picked up by a big bus full of sightseers from all four corners of the globe and were driven away for some manner of ‘boat safari thingy’, far from the city, amongst the jungles and the trees.

It was, one must say, very, very wet. The rain, when it came, was so apocalyptic that it delayed the start of the river voyage, our guide having no great desire for his prized ‘tour boat’ to be transformed by the heavens into a prized ‘tour submarine’. Instead, we had a bit of a feed and waited impatiently until precipitation-levels fell from ‘It’s the End of the World as we Know it’ to ‘Why Does it Always Rain on Me?’ Once aboard and motoring, we immediately clapped eyes on some exceptionally damp proboscis monkeys, who, huge, pendulous noses aside, looked much like I felt.

This augured well, I felt, for these PMs were the major natural history draw of the area, and spotting them so swiftly suggested that it might still, despite it all, be ‘our day’. Low and behold, the rain promptly buggered off completely and the sun followed suit, giving us boatmen an uninterrupted and spectacular firefly show, the palms which lined the riverbank transformed into wonderful, vine-clad Christmas trees, sparkling away merrily in the dusk. All on-board, one is pleased to relay, had plenty of happy memories to mull over, during the subsequent long and damp drive back to Kota Kinabalu town.

 

Thursday 3rd May

Thursday saw a prohibitively early start – The Old Man wasn’t taking his lack of Borneo birding success lying down, and had booked us both on a pre-dawn tour up Mount Kinabalu (reportedly the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, and the peak from which KK takes its name). ‘Twas a good way uphill, even at the ridiculous pace set by the bastard-mad driver, but the views, once sunrise had gotten its act together, were pretty darn magnificent, one must say.

Once at sufficient altitude we commenced a lengthy bird watching tour on foot, and finally, finally, The Old Man had some success: Two out of the area’s three ‘Whiteheads’ were spotted before lunch – Whitehead’s Trogan (a sizable red beauty with a long black tail) and Whitehead’s Broadbill (a particularly rare, iridescent green jobbie). Whitehead’s Spiderhunter would have to wait for another trip, as would Whitehead himself, conspicuous by his absence.

The proffered lunch was middling at best, however, and I found the afternoon’s jaunt, after the happy successes of the morning’s stroll, a bit of a drag. For the younger Mansfield, a wee bit of twitching goes a long way, but The Old Man showed no sign of fatigue whatsoever. So on I trudged, heroic in my stoicism, thinking deeply of beer.

Finally, some hours later, I sat alone by rainy hotel pool, clutching my lager to me like a child saved from the labyrinth. The Old Man was in the room, happily adding dozens of new birds to his list, and I didn’t wish to disturb him: troubled, addled souls when in such frenzies should be given time and space, I’ve always felt.

Once his revels at last were ended, we headed back to Welcome Seafood Restaurant for an overdue encore. The food was just as good as before, though this time cruel fate (that is to say, the cruel, unthinking waitress) had seated us between two over-sized familial units, replete with snarling infants. Such torment could weary even the stoutest of hearts, and I subsequently turned in for a relatively early night, once another fine bout of fish and prawns had begun to work their magic on the Mansfield tissues and spirit.

 

Friday 4th May

Time to pack up the old room and then stash the big bag, as the final days of Borneo had arrived. Once checked-out we hailed a lightning quick taxi to Jetterson Point, before, more by luck than judgement, boarding a chaotic water-taxi to Gaya Island via a number of other smaller, more tourist-dense islets. The craft’s pilot obviously had a pressing engagement of some kind to attend later, as he clicked the engine-dial past ‘fast’ and ‘unnecessarily rapid’ right over to ‘light speed’, and threw us across the chopped waves at roughly one million knots, at points achieving Michael Jordan-levels of perilous airtime.

Once at Gaya, legs still shaking slightly, we embarked (perhaps unwisely) on an unaccompanied jungle trek, right across the tall spine of island, in theory in the direction of a settlement on the far south-eastern edge of the island. There were birds aplenty here, along with a number of troops of sizable, muscular monkeys and the odd startled bush pig, and soon one felt that we had found a proper wilderness, much like those forests which welcomed the first British explorers, back before the days of colonial Borneo.

This feeling didn’t last: We stumbled out of the stifling forest onto very much the wrong beach, straight into the middle of the exceptionally swish Bungaraya Island Resort – our brief illusion of adventure ushered away by a heady mixture of snorkeling, expensive drinks and general high-livin’. This was, in all seriousness, probably for the best, as the going had been exceptionally hot and tricky during parts of the climb, and a second wander back to catch our return boat may well have slain The Old Man dead. Rather, we pretended, quite successfully, to be Bungaraya residents and, after the snorkeling and suchlike was done, managed to get ourselves on the much more sedate Island Resort Boat back to KK.

After celebrating our famous escape from the jungles of Gaya with some sunset drinks at the top of the (not particularly grand) Grandis Hotel, we returned to HQ Hilton for one last time to pick up our bags and grab a final Borneo dinner. It was then time to stiffen the old sinews and summon up the old red stuff, for Kota Kinabalu Airport and a second abysmal overnight(ish) Spring Air flight beckoned us like Charon on his fateful ferry.

As I folded myself into my Shanghai-bound seat, however – blocking out the anguished screams of myriad Chinese infants stationed all around my berth – I reflected that this present hell was, undoubtedly, a price well-worth paying for an excellent, action-packed quintet of fabulous Borneo days. My time remaining in Asia – and the third and final blog post – was not destined to be lengthy, so I was determined, no matter what was thrown at me, to enjoy every moment I was afforded completely.

It’s the end of the trip as we know it (and I feel fine)

Saturday 5th May

Once The Old Man and I finally returned to his fancy Shanghai apartments early Saturday morn – following a flight about which the less written the better – it was, more than it ever had been before, ‘nap time’.

Once somewhat refreshed and restored, we ventured out to grab a spot of lunch at Nene’s, a quite ludicrously expensive French Concession pasta joint, whose prices seem to have been set as some kind of elaborate, Italian ‘dare’. We navigated the menu much like a Cambodian might wander across an unfenced field, picking our steps with infinite care, ever-fearful that our next decision could be our very last.

After a quick pit-stop at the flat, I bid farewell to The Old Man, who (nominally) ‘had work to do’ (but who actually wanted to lie prone and supine in front of indeterminate televised sports, pretending he was earning an honest crust). For me, it was ‘out’ out – once again meeting up with Portlandia to head to interestingly named spots such as ‘B&B On Fire’ and ‘Barbarian’.

As these wretched places refused point-blank to accept my good, British credit cards, Portlandia offered to foot the bill. This, obviously, was cause for some concern, as I had previously learned back at ‘The Hop Project’ that if a Shanghai lass pays for the evening, she clearly considers you but two steps up from pond scum and/or low-grade algae. However, reflecting that New England and Shanghai are not massively similar, be it in culture or in climate, I attempted to put such upsetting thoughts to the back of my mind.

Following this slightly uncomfortable bout of internal self-flagellation, the American faithful reconvened upon us for another Cantina night – this time for a rather unexpected-cum-downright odd ‘Cinco de Mayo’ party, replete with many a novelty hat and questionable drinks deal, yet despite there not being a solitary Mexican in sight.

This being noted, however, as internationally-based, inexpertly delivered, but exceptionally ‘good craic’ evenings go, it did sum up the Shanghai expat nightlife scene very much to a tee – and proved a fitting final night for a trip which, no matter which way one cuts it, must be considered ‘bloody great fun’ from soup to nuts.

 

Sunday 6th May

What left was there to do, but to pack up ones bags, say one’s fond goodbyes then catch the unspeakably swift Maglev over to the airport? ‘Work’, that fell, alien concept, called to me from the rapidly incoming Monday, and it was time, alas, to drag myself back to Albion.

I shook The Old Man firmly by the hand and we wished each other well, in firm, steady and unmistakably English tones. It had been one hell of a jaunt, and I had – budget, overbooked flights aside – reveled in every moment of it. Each morning, noon or evening had, I reflected, as I handed the airport fella my proud burgundy passport and demanded that he, ‘Got me home and got me there sharpish’, flown by more speedily than the last; be they long, adventure-filled Borneo days, or, indeed, sleepless, fun-packed Shanghai nights. Not, in conclusion my friends, too bad a fortnight at all.