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.