Review: Films Set In Japan – Tokyo Joe (1949)

Posted on April 17, 2013 by tokyofox

If you thought ‘The Barbarian And The Geisha‘ (1958) was old then this film is absolutely ancient and apart from the movies opening glimpse of Mount Fuji this is a very different Japan compared to its modern day incarnation. In black and white, this is a Humphrey Bogart film you don’t often hear about and though it desperately tries to recapture the winning formula of ‘Casablanca‘ (1942) it really is weary in comparison.

The story finds ex-soldier Joe Barrett (Bogart) returning to Ginza san-chome just after WWII to the nightclub which he once owned alongside his old Japanese partner Ito (Teru Shimada) who 007 fans may remember for his later role as Mr. Osato in ‘You Only Live Twice‘ (1967). Ito informs Joe that Trina (Florence Marly), the wife he left behind, who he believed to be dead, is alive and living nearby. On top of that, she has remarried an American diplomat and has a seven year old daughter of whom Joe is the father. Furthermore, Trina did propaganda broadcasts during the war for the Imperial Japanese government making her a traitor to America leaving her libel to prosecution from the US Military Government in Japan who were in charge of Japan at that time. This all makes Joe want to stay for longer than the 60 days he’s given by the authorities.

What happens next amid the ensuing complications is a tale of blackmail, threats, smuggling, kidnapping with the inevitable rescue attempt in a gloomy albeit brief exciting finale littered with a few randomly placed Japanese words. It sounds better than it actually was and ultimately I was fairly disappointed with this film.

Of course I am watching these ‘films set in Japan’ for the locations and that is about the only thing which kept me interested in this slow moving movie as its far more interesting than the plot. Japan is being rebuilt following WWII and the place is far off the Japan we see featured in flicks today. If you think the economy is bad at present then thats nothing compared to one particular point where Joe flicks his cigarette butt onto the street and several people go after it. I’m not sure if Bogart actually even came to Japan as whenever we see his face it appears that rear projection is being used but when you see a guy in a trench coat wearing a hat (and thereby don’t see his face) its obviously someone else who did visit Japan where the production crew must have come to get the location shots needed. It is pretty noticeable and does make the film seem a bit cheap but hey this was shot over 60 years ago! There is even one moment where Joe is practicing his Judo but its so clearly a stunt double as it looks nothing like him!

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Tokyo Fox Rating 3/10

Posted in Review: Films Set In Japan | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Using Songs In Adult English Lessons

Posted on April 14, 2013 by tokyofox

Following my recent post on using ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)‘ in English lessons I have had a few enquiries about using songs as an additional resource. Not wanting to actually come up with anything new on this topic I have decided to just reproduce an article I wrote for my company’s in-house magazine a few years ago albeit in a slightly revised format.

Most teachers know the merits of using songs in kids lessons but there is potential to go beyond the ‘The Wheels On The Bus‘ and ‘Heads and shoulders‘. Music should not just be thought of as being exclusively used in kids lessons since there is also a time and a place for it in Adult lessons too. Standard books like ‘New New Headway’ and ‘Snaphsot’ use songs but apart from these examples there’s not too much out there.

Using songs in the classroom provides listening practice which is (hopefully) stimulating and often more authentic than your average textbook listening exercise. Songs also provide a lot of repetition and can contain cultural references which our motivated students will be intrigued by. This fun way of learning makes a refreshing change for students and can be employed in the following ways:

Gap Fill – the most favoured exercise involving listening for the relevant lexical or grammatical words or whatever the target language point is. These missing words could of course be printed at the bottom of the lyrics sheet or on the board for those weaker students.

Ordering – cut up the lyrics into strips. Students can predict the order and then check while listening to the song.

Rhyming Words – erase the rhyming word and students predict what it could be.

Changing Words – take selected words or lyrics and change them to similar sounding or looking words.

Sentence Completion – students predict and/or listen to the end of a lyrical sentence.

Jigsaw Listening – Students have different lyric strips to listen out for and place in order on the table.

Listening for Key Words – pressing a buzzer or just simply keeping a tally of how many times they hear certain words or examples of the target language, such as present continuous, and choosing the correct word from two (or even three) similar sounding words.

Choosing a song can be difficult but some things to think about are: Is it a realistic task for the intended level to accomplish? Is it fast or slow? Is there any repetition? Does it contain idioms and cultural references that are beyond students’ level and would take too much explaining beforehand? Failing that, songs by ‘The Beatles‘ are usually a safe bet as they’re commonly known and they, along with thousands of other songs, can be used to provide a topic introduction or discussion.

Posted in English Teaching, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tokyo Filming Locations #13 – The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)

Posted on April 11, 2013 by tokyofox

This ridiculously silly low budget sequel finds a fairly lame reason to come to Japan and so from 34 minutes onwards we begin to see Tokyo locations including Tokyo Tower (36 mins) Kabuki-za (37 mins), Shinjuku Yamanote line platform (38 mins), Asakusa Senso-ji (38 mins), the area around Harajuku station (41mins), Tokyo station (51:00) and Tsukiji fish market (58 mins). The majority of those places are fairly famous and in a sense not that interesting to detail as they have all been used in films before. However, Tsukuda is a different matter entirely! I visited this place on a very windy day back in February of this year to scout out the filming locations used in this sleepy area in the south of Tokyo.

Tsukuda first appears on the hour mark as the Toxic Avenger is re-united with his long lost Japanese father on the striking red Tsukuda Bashi Bridge but its discovered that he has been smuggling cocaine. They follow him around the block to his headquarters at “Fisherman’s Shrine” on 62 mins which in reality is Sumiyoshi Jinja shrine (below). The address is 1-1-14 Tsukuda and it is only a minutes walk from the aforementioned bridge.

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The Toxic Avenger and his lady friend Masumi confront him about his crimes and in true comical fashion he inadvertently hits her and as she’s left slightly dazed and confused she comes to rest on the stone statue thing seen below.

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A very silly fight ensues between the Toxic Avenger with his fathers team of henchmen  and it continues on back to Tsukuda bashi bridge (below) on 65 mins.

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As more and more random people join in the this silly bout of fisticuff action different parts of the town are seen. There is a fight on 67 mins with a man dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl and some kabuki men from earlier in the film who suddenly turn up in this sleepy part of Tokyo for no apparent reason but given that Troma Entertainment are famed for serving up campy movies this is not so unusual! The area looks quite different these days but the tiny Mori-inari jinja shrine (below) at 1-4-4 Tsukuda is still there but blink and you might miss it! I had actually given up on finding it after navigating the area for a while on bicycle looking for it but as I was about to make my way home I came across it by chance.

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Tenyasu tsukudani (small seafood, meat or seaweed simmered in soy sauce and mirin) boutique (below) appears on screen on 70 minutes where Japanese food critic Go Nagai makes a cameo appearance as he’s giving a TV interview where he says the food has magical powers and can attract beautiful women and before you know it the Toxic Avenger’s latest opponent is hit over the head by a fish moments after her clothes all fell off and she stumbles into the interviewers lap and he thinks god has answered his call to meet a pretty lady. You probably think I’m making this all up but believe me it really all does happen. Tenyasu’s much-photographed wooden building is the oldest of the three tsukudani shops in the area and it had a steady stream of customers visiting it. It’s been open since 170 years ago and you can buy the stuff by measure but as it was expensive and I didn’t think it could be used so easily I declined the invitation.

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You can see my ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Tsukuda’ post here & my review of ‘The Toxic Avenger Part II‘ (1989) here.

Posted in Japan Filming Locations, Movie Locations | Tagged , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Dining Out: Ayung Teras (Indonesia)

Posted on April 8, 2013 by tokyofox

Indonesia was on the brain the other week when I was in an area of Shibuya where there are a couple of Indonesian restaurants and I thought I’d get in on the action. My first choice (based purely on the name!) was ‘Bali Monkey Cafe’ but as that was closed I popped round the corner to ‘Ayung Teras’ (20-12 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku) and I was not disappointed.

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The restaurant has three lunch sets available and I plumped for the ‘A Lunch’ one which is Nasi Goreng. This is considered to be the national dish of Indonesia though there are a fair few other contenders. It basically means fried rice in Indonesian and featured very high on the list of CNN’s most delicious world foods a couple of years ago. A fairly simple dish in appearance you may think on seeing the pictures but the sweet soy sauce added to it makes it a delight to eat. I finished it in no time!

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So why was Indonesia on the brain I hear you ask! Well, whilst I was with the majority of my family in Melbourne a year ago my sister and brother-in-law announced that they were strongly considering moving from Australia to Indonesia to set up or expand some sort of business or other. Well, a year on and that idea is actually being realised very soon when they move to an island in the north close to Singapore.

That last bit of news was almost music to my ears as I have never been to Indonesia or Singapore so am already thinking strongly about maybe doing a trip around that part of the world over the Christmas holidays at the end of this year. Of course this is just an idea at the moment but I do like the idea of flying into Bali and then working my way up through Jakata and the rest of Indonesia finishing on Batam before going on to Singapore and then continuing on to Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur which is a part of that country I’ve never visited (apart from the Airport!). The reverse journey is also a possibility but early days yet and maybe I should actually let my sister know about these initial thoughts!!

Posted in Asia Travel, Family, Food & Drink | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) In English Lessons!

Posted on April 4, 2013 by tokyofox

Having heard the song ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)‘ mentioned recently on Scott Mills’ Radio One show for the final episode of the ‘24 Years at the Tap End‘ feature I remembered that I had actually burned this song onto a CD a few years ago in anticipation of one day using the song in a lesson. I never thought for one moment that it would take me so long to get my act together and come up with a way of incorporating it into a lesson but time flies and all that!

The song is by Baz Luhrmann (an Australian director famous for his work on ‘Romeo + Juliet‘ and ‘Moulin Rouge‘) although the voice on it is not his. It’s spoken by Australian voice actor Lee Perry and was written in 1997 by Mary Schmich albeit originally in a Chicago Tribune newspaper column titled “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.”

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With no singing it is therefore much easier (supposedly) for students to make out what is being said which is why I thought it might be an interesting additional resource to bring into the classroom. The theme of the song is advice which is an ever-recurring theme in lessons across all levels but in my opinion it is rarely interesting to teach as, whatever the problem, Japanese students nearly always seem to advise going to hospital or taking medicine. On the other hand this spoken word song, which reached number one in the UK charts in 1999, consists of some much greater thought-provoking advice.

Beforehand I thought it would be quite adaptable to a wide range of levels due to its fairly slow speed and simple language. However, with the benefit of hindsight I now feel there are probably a few words too many which need to be pre-taught such as grasp, recall, dispense, apt, blind side, tip, basis, meandering, algebra equation and maybe even sunscreen itself! I trialled this lesson with a fair few classes (pre-intermediate to advanced levels) over the last couple of weeks, and as easy as the gap-fill part was for all of them, the ability to really get a good understanding other than the overall context was mixed.

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In some ways though thats not important as long as they could pick out a few decent lines of advice which indeed was one of the follow-up questions after the listening task. The pre-listening included searching for good and bad examples of advice the students had been given throughout their life whether it be from family, friends or colleagues. This included a mix of standard, interesting and just down-right bizarre examples. Pre-teaching some of the unknown vocabulary via a match-up exercise on the board (or eliciting it from the higher levels) was also needed but to be honest I wasn’t that happy with these tasks but really couldn’t think up any better ideas on this occasion.

Overall though it was good to use my own choice of song in a lesson for the first time since a few years ago when I went through a phase of regularly using the medium of song to jazz up some of my lessons. I wonder what will be next!

Posted in English Teaching, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Star Wars Fan Museum In Tokyo

Posted on April 1, 2013 by tokyofox

I recently came across this little-known Star Wars fan museum in Tokyo which is a small, but sizeable exhibition belonging to a collector. Among the exhibits on display are a wide range of figures, a lightsaber, toys, masks, trainers, t-shirts, pens, magnets, collectibles, framed pictures, DVD’s, books, magazines and so on.

There were also some much sought-after Japan exclusives like the traditional Japanese hand print tenegui (thin hand towel made of cotton), Japanese chirashi movie posters/flyers, an R2D2 Mount Fuji poster, lightsaber chopsticks and ‘Star Wars Celebration Japan‘ items, some of which can be seen in the photo below.

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The photo above shows the section focusing on some other Japanese memorabilia such as the local releases of the 1980’s cartoon shows ‘Ewoks‘, ‘Droids‘ as well as the original ‘Clone Wars‘ series. One other notable exhibit is a programme for the ‘George Lucas’ Super Live Adventure’ which was some rare 1993 show blending the likes of Indiana Jones, Willow, Tucker, American Graffiti and of course Star Wars into one performance of something or another.

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Amongst the other stuff is the Vader collection, Star Wars shooting locations books (above) and magnets (below) and a replica of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber (or is technically Anakin Skywalker’s as Obi-Wan gave it to Luke in ‘A New Hope‘ (1977) which you can have a quick play with.

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Posted in Quirky Japan, Star Wars | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Shanghai Filming Locations: Empire Of The Sun (1987)

Posted on March 30, 2013 by tokyofox

Once I’d booked the trip to Shanghai a couple of months back I started to take a much closer look at movies filmed in Shanghai and was quite surprised to find that very few films were actually shot in the Chinese city. One that was though was Steven Speilberg’s 1987 epic ‘Empire Of The Sun‘ which featured Christian Bale a long, long time before he became the Dark Knight of Gotham City in the Batman flicks.

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The early scenes of the movie were shot in Shanghai with a brief glimpse across the Huangpu River of the famous Peace Hotel next to the Bank of China building appearing two minutes into the film to the tune of the boys choir. This hotel was once the most luxurious hotel in the Far East and its lobby is supposedly still a great example of Art Deco interior. It stands on the Bund at 20 Nanjing Donglu and made an impression on me for its pyramid roof as well as old-style look which is a great reminder of Shanghai’s past.

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Seconds later, as the sound of the choir continues, we see St. Ignatius Cathedral (also referred to as Xujiahui Cathedral) on Puxi Road in Xujiahui in the Xuhui District. This is where viewers first see a very youthful Christian Bale hitting the high notes as Jamie “Jim” Graham who is a young boy living in a wealthy British family in Shanghai. I wanted to visit this church but a mixture of being short on time and being unable to access the internet meant I was sadly unable to get the match-up photos I craved. For the record the nearest station is Xujiahui Metro station on Lines 1 and 8 and as I’m researching this after my trip I now realise how close I actually went to this area of the city! Oh well…

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The colonial home of Jim and his family was actually filmed in the city’s English settlement with the interiors shot back in Britain in a bungalow at Sunningdale in Berkshire. The family are on their way to a fancy dress party 10 minutes into the film where the enormous crowd scenes of mass tension and unrest on the Bund were somehow coordinated by Speilberg. The former Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (which I never knew until this trip was the acronym HSBC despite banking with them for most of my life!) building features prominently and today holds the Pudong Development Bank and some offices.

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The view across the river with the Oriental Pearl Tower in the background (above) doesn’t feature in the film but shows the view in the opposite direction.

The bridge seen on 12 minutes is the Waibaidu Bridge (Garden Bridge) which is adjacent to the Bund and connects the Huangpu and Hongkou districts. The present bridge (below) opened on 20th January in 1908 and was just round the corner from our hotel.

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Jim later signals to the Japanese Zero aircrafts flying above and some 25 years later the shot is pretty much identical which is always a delight for movie location geeks like myself. The building on the right is the aforementioned Peace Hotel and the one on the left is the Peace Palace Hotel which is also commonly known as the Peace Hotel South. Its location is 23 Nanjing Donglu (Nanjing Road).

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The rest of the film was made in Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, Knutsford in Cheshire and Trebujena in Cadiz, Andalucia (Spain) was the setting of the prison camp set.

Posted in Asia Travel, Movie Locations | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Shanghai Filming Locations: Mission Impossible III (2006)

Posted on March 27, 2013 by tokyofox

The third instalment in the ‘Mission: Impossible‘ film series takes place in Germany, Italy, The USA and of course China where scenes were filmed in Shanghai and Xitang. The latter is a beautiful sight in itself and one worthy of a visit to anyone who happens to be  in or near Shanghai.

Following his rogue actions at the Vatican, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is captured by the IMF and interrogated but fellow agent Musgrave discreetly mouths instructions for Hunt to lip-read about Shanghai where a mysterious object called the Rabbit’s Foot is located, and provides him with the means to escape. There are brief scenes of the beautiful Pudong New Area landmarks including the Oriental Pearl Tower around 83 minutes with Hunt running and jumping off the an 88-story Jinmao Tower three minutes later. Like a lot of Shanghai this area looks so much better when its neon-lit which means that my photo taken on a pretty grey and bleak looking afternoon doesn’t really do it justice.

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The Bund is briefly seen in all its night time glory 93 minutes in and yet again the difference in the day and night appearance of the area can be seen in the screenshot and real shot below.

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After Musgrave is revealed to be the mole having arranged for Davian to acquire the Rabbit’s Foot to sell to terrorist groups he dials his phone for Ethan to hear his fiancée Julia’s voice. Ethan bites on Musgrave’s hand and beats him up, stealing the phone in the process to track the location of that call with the help of IMF technician Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) which happens to be in Xitang not that its name is mentioned.

This small ancient Chinese town first appears on 104 minutes and getting to this scenic town in Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province proved to be one hell of a struggle as I had no idea of how to get there. I started off at Shanghai Train Station but after a couple of enquiries there I was told to go to Shanghai South Railway Station. I headed for the long distance buses station not that I had any idea how far away Xitang really was. I was quite surprised to find out that it was only one bus journey away although the first lady on the information desk said it was two hours away and the next one wasn’t until 14.17 (which was well over an hour away). After much thought and deliberation I went back and asked a different lady who said it was 90 minutes away so I thought I’d take the risk without even knowing if I’d ever get back that evening. In the end I was delighted that it only took one hour to get there.

The next problem was knowing where the river town was and how to get to it. First I played safe and booked my ticket back to Shanghai which was at 5.28 pm meaning only two hours to do it all. I then took a cycle rickshaw paying a ridiculous 40 yuan to the driver for what was a five minute journey! Still, it was only about £4 so no real loss and it was a fun way of getting there as once he’d parked the bike he guided us through a narrow maze of alleys which ultimately led to the town.

First impressions made it all worthwhile and I was so relieved to have made it as this was one of the things I most wanted to do whilst on this trip to China. There are a few poster boards dotted around the place letting visitors know that ‘Mission: Impossible III‘ was filmed there but as they were only in Chinese I couldn’t read them. In retrospect they may have been placed at points where they filmed but I certainly can’t verify that.

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The screenshots below show Hunt’s first panoramic view of Xitang from a rooftop so I obviously couldn’t replicate that. My photos beneath the screen grabs show the bridge he first runs over from a different angle.

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With the guidance of Benji via mobile phone, Hunt runs the length of the river before taking a short right turn where he goes past the parked boats seen from slightly different angles in the screen grab and my photo below.

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Another left turn takes him up a few steps (below) passing through the white building and out the other side via steps down.

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Having found Davian in Xitang, Hunt kills him, frees Julia and is electrocuted in order to deactivate an explosive for some reason or other. Of course, he is revived and as the film draws to a close on 116 minutes Xitang appears again as Hunt explains his true IMF career to Julia as they walk around. As my time was limited I sadly didn’t have as long as I would have liked to really look around and get the exact match-ups of the screenshots featured in this post.

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Below are a few more photos of Xitang which were not seen in ‘Mission: Impossible III‘ but are worthy of inclusion in this post as they show how, even on a wet and rainy day, that the place is still an awesome sight.

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How to get to Xitang: Take a bus from Shanghai South Railway Station. It takes about one hour if traffic isn’t bad. Account for another 30-60 minutes journey time if the roads are busy. Once you exit the Xitang bus station you should see a load of cycle rickshaws like in the picture below and at the bottom of that same picture you should be able to look left and see the arch in the distance seen in the other photo below.

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Click here to read ‘London Filming Locations: ‘Mission: Impossible’ (1996)’ 

Click here to read ‘Prague Filming Locations: ‘Mission: Impossible’ (1996)’

Click here to read ‘Australia 2012: Mission Impossible 2 Filming Locations’

Click here to read ‘Shanghai 2013: Mission Impossible III Filming Locations’

Click here to read ‘Italia 2009: Mission Impossible III Filming Locations’

Posted in Asia Travel, Movie Locations | Tagged , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Shanghai 2013 Pt II: Eating And Sightseeing

Posted on March 24, 2013 by tokyofox

Shanghai is said to be home to the best and most authentic xialongbao (dumplings) and the number one place to sample such a delicacy has to be Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant in the Yuyuan Bazaar area which has been around for about 100 years and almost constantly has massive long queues outside. A mix of out-of-town Chinese tourists make up the majority of the lines with a fair few foreigners in line too.

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A year ago I would never ever have queued up for an hour to get some food but my tastes have become far more appreciative of good food since then. Accept poor imitations at your peril as this is the best and was brought to my attention by Anthony Bourdain in his ‘No Reservations‘ TV series which I watched a lot of last year.

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The steamed buns are famous for the special gravy-type taste of the first bite and is a superb mix of pork stuffing, soup and thin dumpling skin. It has to be said, they were absolutely delicious and to quote Bourdain himself you really will have a hard time finding a more perfectly constructed food item. Next up was the steamed bun with crab roe soup stuffing which is incredibly hot and has to be consumed through a straw. This was also awesome and way better than I thought it may be. A shame it had to to all be eaten outside but it was just so chaotic inside. Still, at least they were consumed amid fine views of the Mid-Lake Pavillion Teahouse.

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This Shanghai institution was actually found by accident having given up on finding it only 30 minutes prior to locating it. Having just had lunch at a very, very local place on a back lane nearby where a funny but pushy lady persuaded us to sit down and eat even though neither of us could communicate with the other at all! We had some pork, tea eggs (eggs soaked in soy sauce) and noodles at a dirt cheap price and glad of the experience I was!

French Concession was up next and a place I went to without knowing too much about it. I still don’t to be honest! It seems to be a big wide tree-lined street with a host of restaurants and shops. The area is supposedly given its name for the tudor mansions and French-influenced architecture. I can’t say I was too bothered by it all although the former Russian Orthodox St Nicholas Church (below) was quite impressive.

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Seeing a C&A department store (above)was a nostalgic reminder of my youth. The Shanghai Metro was cheap, efficient and easy to use and truly lived up to the stereotype of people pushing to get on the train as soon as the doors opened and before others were allowed to even get off! There is also a scan machine for bags at all stations as can be seen in the picture below left. People’s Square was the next destination via metro but the rain, which had been prevalent all day, started to get harder. The cherry blossoms in the park there were rather nice with the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center looming above in the near distance.

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Nanjing Road East rounded off the evening as it did indeed on all three of my nights in the city. This was another long shopping street with bright neon lights everywhere and an example of how modern parts of the city are in contrast to the more run down parts. I dined out on the same street most of the nights and after unwrapping all the plates and cups (which is something I’ve only ever seen in Shanghai. Very hygienic indeed!) each time I had my regular holiday fix of beer and dumplings along with a few other dishes.

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Posted in Asia Travel, Food & Drink, TV Shows | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Shanghai 2013 Pt I: Meeting Up With My Mate Michael

Posted on March 22, 2013 by tokyofox

It may be one of the shortest, easiest places to fly to from Tokyo but I had never visited Shanghai until this last weekend when I spent three nights across the pond in China’s most modern city. I don’t really count Hong Kong as proper China so Beijing in October 2007 is the only other time I’ve been to the worlds fastest growing economy. Memories of that trip seemed very distant as I arrived back in the city where I did a transit all those years ago. This time though I was all set to actually leave the airport!

I stayed at Piaoying Bund Hotel Shanghai in the Hong Kou District and was immediately impressed with what I got for the cheap price paid. However, the view was almost laughable, and while some people wouldn’t have been impressed, I was very content as the huge mud area outside the window (below) meant very little noise. I subsequently slept in on my first morning till quite late which probably wasn’t such a good thing.

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Before that though I saw a pretty grey and bleak looking (cloudy? polluted?!) skyline as you can see in the picture below which was taken close to my hotel. I went to meet up with my Canadian friend Michael who I did the TESOL course with back in 2009. I had no idea how to cross the river to get to Lujiazui so after seeing there was a ‘Bund sightseeing tunnel’ I went for that option thinking it was probably just a free tunnel to walk along with some exhibits on the walls along the way.

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I was wrong as it was a cheesy train ride amid a load of flashing lights (above) and vague-related themes. It cost me 50 yuan but actually did save time in meeting Michael who has been living and working in Shanghai for just over a year now. He pointed out the Jinmao Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center (I didn’t know which was which beforehand) and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower which is a symbol of Shanghai’s skyline. After that we went to eat.

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I had thought we would just be eating some night market food whilst sitting around on some cheap plastic stools but instead we ended up dining out at a restaurant called ‘South Memory‘ (Hunanese food) which had some very impressive views of the Bund skyline which sure is a sight to behold once its dark.

Whilst the service was nowhere near as good as in Japan (very few places are!) it was sufficient enough and the dishes kept on coming throughout the evening even if Michael did have to keep reminding the staff to bring our beers to the table! Over the night we tried all manner of weird and wonderful dishes which were expensive by Chinese standards but still very reasonable when compared to Japanese prices and the total cost was way cheaper than an average night out.

Some of the dishes we sampled were river-fish head with peppers & noodles (below), mabo dofu, duck tongue, a chicken dish, stinky tofu (a Hunanese delicacy), very spicy eggplant, pigs fingers, mushroom salad, egg plant and red peppers and some other stuff which I can’t remember!

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Dining out with each other certainly wasn’t anything new to us as we had previously been to some restaurants in Tokyo most notably the eating locations in ‘Lost In Translation‘ (2003) and ‘Kill Bill‘ (2004). We had a great night catching up and reminiscing about our past trips the aforementioned restaurants as well as day trips to Enoshima, Sarushima and the cycling the Yamanote Line and A-Z station ventures of 2009-2010.

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We had a quick walk along the river after dinner enjoying the fine views as well as a McDonalds kiosk-sized place which was a new thing for me. Sadly we couldn’t meet again as had hoped due to the lack of internet and wi-fi possibilities for me in a country where my usual means of communication are all blocked.

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