Nee Hao, Wo boo hway shuo han yu … this is phonetic so noone else will be able to read it.

I’m in Shanghai… spent yesterday at the Peoples Park celebrating the national day holidays with 6 million other shanganese, friendly people (generally) – tend to love to have their photos taken – even thrust the young emperor (single male child) in front of the camera and command he smile.

Lunch at ‘5’ on the Bund – crispy river prawns (eaten whole) followed by seared something on a bed of fresh beans, corn and capsicum with a bottle of aussie white (VVV Expensive) – just joking total each $120 Yuan = $20AU ish

Then the town temple… i got into the spirit of things, burning incense and bowing a lot… fantastic Buddha’s, amazing architecture, millions of friendly Chinese tourists and a very pert pagoda.

Then the back street tiny shop front markets … would you like a Mao – cap, t-shirt, poster, book, bag, watch, lighter, badge, button, suit or set of playing cards?

Tommorrow I’m off to the Moganshan Lu artist colony – studios, galleries (Bizart, Shangart and the new Red Door Gallery) about 100 studios in a converted cement enclave… found several well known chinese contemporary artists ‘at home’ and was able to organise ongoing discussions via email

Then the Town Buddhist Temple and it’s museum of Buddhism with hundreds of different incarnations in a variety of medium.

Just for something really Kitsch I’m going to catch the underground trolley car through the gaudy bund sight seeing tunnel (a stupefying 678m long voyage of flashing lights under the Huanhpu River) to the China Sex Culture Museum.

My mate Wendy flys back to Ghongzhou this afternoon – then I’m on my own?!

Have to run the gauntlet of the thought police again later … logging on to google and bigpond is a bit hit and miss here…

Take care

Love XXX Kate (Mum)