Testing the senses in Shanghai to find China's best antitourism and off-beat secrets. Dry and sometimes funny observations from a fixed gear roller, food eater and photograph taker.

In the five and a half years since being infatuated with going to Chongqing (China’s largest city that nobody has heard of) I’ve conjured up images of what it would look like.

Sure. I know people who’ve been or lived there. “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of it” they say. “It’s basically any big Chinese city, just bigger”. But they said the same about Guangzhou and so I remained unperturbed.

I knew it would be hectic, hazy, hilly and very Chinese. I figured there’d be some curious local delicacies, one or two AAAA tourist traps and a sprinkling of Louis Vuitton.

In all my wildest projections I didn’t imagine there would be an entire district covered in graffiti. There is.

HuangJuePing is the high-street of a neighbourhood which envelopes the Chongqing art college. In 2006, a prominent local artsy figure managed to persuade The Party that his doodle project would be a good idea. They agreed, and within minutes had convinced every single resident of HuangJuePing to go along.

And so over the next months they painted almost every square inch of every wall and building in the area. The result is an overload to the senses, like a council housing compound that went ten steps further.

Well done China. It’s bloody awesome. Chongqing you proved me right. It’s exactly why I came to China.

I look 5 million photographs. Here’s a handfull:

More photos in the Chongqing, Doodle Street flickr set here.

Dr Sun Yat Sen’s Mausoleum – under seige

Off to the side of Nanjing is a patch of green. That green is Zhongshan, a miniature range of hills, home to a few parks, Linggu Pagoda, the Ming Tomb, Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum and a tour-de-force-of-Chinese antitourism at it’s very best.

The history and the people that ruin it

This is the absolute pinnacle. This is what puts Nanjing on the map. They’ve managed to infest a couple hills with masses and masses of the sightseeing human.

A quiet stroll through the forest with my friends

At one point there must have been some trodden paths through the woods. Now they’ve paved the whole thing so that the actual woods are out of reach. Good thing because on a weekend, hordes of tourist snapshot their way shoulder-to-shoulder along each and every span of badly laid concrete.

Some folks don’t get the appeal of a stroll the forest. No bother. Here’s a fleet of oversize golf karts careening around like it’s a woodlands rally. There’s a couple companies vying for attention and you bet! they’ve got horns. It’s like being followed around all day by an aggressive Chinese caddy because, well, that’s what it is.

One of the great antitourism wonders of China

Through a gap in the trees and all we could do at the foot of the stairs was stand and applaud. They’ve done it. They’ve managed to make a human scale replica of a termite mound. Amazing.

Preparing for battle

Amongst the general worker-tourists are shepherding guides toting stuffed toys on sticks. Armies of OAPs in battle-baseball-caps phalanx through the crowds as photograph after photograph is entirely wasted.

Must. Photograph. Four. Characters

And they’re willing to make man-mountains to get a crooked shot of four Chinese characters written on a wall.

Finding peace behind the castle walls

Fortunately there’s a relative oasis of calm on Zhongshan behind the 70RMB admission gates where the golf carts can’t roam free. Even in 555AD they must have had the human-horde problem because old Ming went and put his house on a 30 meter plinth and built the world’s largest garden wall in a circle around his garden.

Some of the prettier stuff, fortunately next to the exit turnstyles

That and the ripped off aztec terraces are admittedly the historic and aesthetic highlight of the mountain, perhaps embroidered thanks to their proximity to Zhongshan’s south western exit. We escaped.

Here’s the Sphinx slide at the Harbin Ice Festival. In the absence of an attendant to regulate traffic, visitors are free to chuck themselves down at will, with hilarious effect.

From 55 yards away the screams are rising through the cold as the inevitable pile ups occur – they should really play bowling alley sound effects to drown them out. I managed to pull-off a 7-10 split by applying a touch of spin.

I remember the first couple times I came to Shanghai on business with JWT in ‘05 and ‘07.
I got up early one morning and took the nearest metro for half an hour out of town. I wound up somewhere near Longhua temple and yes, it looked pretty much the same as the station I’d got on at. Shanghai clearly didn’t end. Perhaps that’s the premise that brought us here and I’ve only just kind-of managed to prove it wrong.

Fascinated by the near destitute worker-bees in their garage-door shops I hung out by a line of grubby washing next to an exposed electricity substation and watched the blue overall world go by.

I took this photo, it was as far away from my world as I could imagine without people having extra limbs or animal heads.

A few years later and we’re out on a meandering ride through the suburbs. I’m smacked with almighty déjà vu. Here are the same couple of shops, with the same people and same telegraph pylon jauntily sticking through their showroom. All that’s changed is a couple more shops on either side, a new sign or two and the addition of safety railings.

We had a couple custom pairs of Feiyue commissioned by the store down one of the lanes behind Nanjing Road. These Royal Mail ones, for my Sister, came out especially nice. Might have to get a pair covered in fives!