Drawing the curtains back from our luxury hotel suite, London’s weather certainly hadn’t changed much. Typical English summer - cloudy with some light rain. And the fact that it coincides with Wimbledon gave me that overwhelming sense of familiarity despite having been away for more than three years.
| | Yes, folks Lezil and I have landed up in London!! This will come as a surprise for everyone who knows us (and who didn’t know about the trip!). We had to keep things off the radar for the sole purpose of making a special, unannounced appearance at the wedding of one of my very close friends. So, please don’t be offended if we didn’t disclose the details of our travel plans. It had to be an airtight operation to ensure that an absolute minimum amount of people knew of the clandestine journey which I dubbed as Dan & Tiwa’s London Surprise!
| The mastermind and facilitator of the entire hair-brained idea was Vidal, one of the brothers of Daniel – the groom. These four brothers (literally blood brothers) are like my solid family. I’ve known them, now, coming onto 14 years and the core of our relationship was formed around our incredible ten years of working together as management (me) and band (‘Four Kornerz’ as they are called). We toured the entire length and breadth of the UK and Europe performing over the years to tens of thousands of fans, spreading feel-good music all written and produced by the four talented brothers.
| Daniel and his eldest brother Deji actually flew out to Shanghai when Lezil and I got married in July 2011. So when I got an out-of-the-blue phone call just before one of my afternoon classes in Shanghai a month ago, with Vidal proposing the idea of a surprise trip over – it was near impossible to resist taking action. ‘Wonderboy’ Vidal took charge of organising the entire visit and it wasn’t long before Lezil and I were cueing up at the UK Visa office in Shanghai with our flight and hotel confirmations to hand. This was the first time I had experienced the ‘other side’ (as in, a non-UK national applying for a visa to get in).
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Lezil outside the UK Visa office in Shanghai.
| Up and until a couple of years ago, South Africans could waltz into the UK with an automatic tourist entry, but immigration laws have tighten up considerably and now require a visa to even consider stepping foot into the isles. The adapted Chinese application forms were never-ending, a number of support documents were required and a small interview with quick-fire questions all had me considerably anxious.
Checking to see if Lezil's UK Visa has come through!
| The timing was tight. Week one went by and no news. Week two went by and still no news. Week three was ending and it was one day before travelling out and I was hopping around like a mad hatter. I had been relentlessly calling the UK Visa call centre in Shanghai for constant updates and still the visa hadn’t been approved. So with just 24 hours until check-in and with moral low, I called them up 10 seconds after their 8am opening time. “One moment Mr Freeman, let me check my system updates,” said their cheerful Chinese call-centre operator. A few knife-edge minutes went by and she came back on. “Your wife’s visa has arrived this morning. You can come and collect it,” she confirmed. Hallelujah!
| | The flood gates opened and we blitzed our packing and cleaned up the apartment. 7:30pm the next evening and our taxi arrived to take us to Pudong International Airport. We were flying to London via Dubai on Emirates. Those of you who have been following my blogs for sometime will know that I am not a huge fan of flying. Today was no exception. However, the distractive anticipation of flying on the new Airbus A380 was ebbing my nervousness away. The majestic double-decker aircraft made the other nearby parked airplanes look minuscule. The entire lower deck was dedicated to economy class with the upper deck for the privileged in business and first bringing the passenger capacity to over 500.
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Pudong airport and the start of our undercover journey to the UK!
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Flying economy on Emirates.
| Three jetways, instead of the usual one, were used for boarding the aircraft. Emirates’ trademark high quality interior ensured the even in cattle-class, the seats were comfortable with ample leg room between seats. But it was its award-winning ICE in-flight entertainment system that was a big draw for the airline. Hundreds of movies, TV shows, documentaries, music and so on meant that you could content-hop for hours at a touch of a screen.
The nine-hour flight from Shanghai to Dubai was an uncomfortable one. It was a stormy day in Shanghai so that proved an unsettling ascent for the aircraft and pretty much for the next seven hours the airplane barely stayed still, especially over west China and northern India. That meant zero sleep for me as I can’t stand turbulence.
| | Exhausted, we touched down in Dubia at 5am. Dubai airport at the start of the year had opened up the world’s first dedicated concourse for the A380. With our plane pulling into its parking spot we were flanked both sides by fellow A380 Emirates aircraft.
'Shattered’ didn’t cover it. At least we had shop after shop to keep us entertained with everything from duty-free perfume and cigarettes to liquor, gadgets and the latest Arabic hit CDs. Three hours later and we were cueing up for our final leg to London’s Heathrow airport. Thankfully this stretch of flying was a complete opposite and the plane smoothly coasted along at 40,000ft over a bed of fluffy cotton-like clouds below.
Approaching London the entire city was blanketed in grey and drizzle. It was a shame as we didn’t get to see much of the landscape until the last four minutes before the wheels landed with a thud on one of Heathrow’s runways. |
Half way through our journey and we stop in Dubai. Shhh...don't tell Dan or Tiwa we are coming to London!
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Our first glimpse of London, covered in cloud.
| We did, however, use the front on-board camera to watch the panoramic approach. 24 hours after we left our home in downtown Shanghai and now we were taxing our way to Terminal 3!
Customs and baggage reclaim were a breeze and on the other side of arrivals, we had a car waiting to pick us up. Driving through the streets of west London towards Battersea, I could hardly believe that we were in England. Lezil was transfixed on how small the roads and houses were. This was her first time ever in the UK. The other thing which stood out was how quiet the roads were. Everything was so orderly and no one was honking their horns.
Michael, our driver, informed us that the hotel Rafayel that we were staying in was one of the top boutique hotels in London and voted in the Top 25 most trendiest hotels in the whole of the UK. | | The location did not disappoint with a prime riverside location overlooking the expensive yachts across the River Thames and right next door to the London Heliport. Our room was an impressive suite with modern design, all mod-cons including a flat screen TV by the bathtub. Talk about arriving in style.
We grabbed a quick late lunch in the hotel’s trendy restaurant Banyan on the Thames. In order to fight the jet lag we went for a walk around the surrounding neighbourhood and to my excitement found a pub which had two huge Jamaican drum barbeques with sizzling jerk chicken cooking away. |
Having our first lunch in London!
| That’ll be on our to-eat list over the next few days! We wandered up and down the aisles of a Tesco Express. The locals must have thought which planet we must have just landed from as every few paces, you’d hear us saying “Wow, I can’t remember that last time I had ….”. Or “Look at this! We have to buy this before we go back to China!” I hadn’t eaten a Kit Kat in I don’t know how long, so that was my little indulgence for the day.
It was evening time and Vidal with his wife Chantelle and one-and-a-half year old son Eden dropped by our hotel to welcome us and brief us on the execution of operation Dan & Tiwa’s London Surprise. The next day was to be the grand reveal at their joyous Nigerian wedding. Exhaustion took over excitement as our heads hit the pillows at 9pm. We made it to London and we kept awake for over 32 hours. It feels amazing to be back!
Hurrah! Lezil's UK Visa final comes through!
Pudong Airport Shanghai and lining up to check in for our Emirates flight to London.
The main purpose for our visit was to surprise Dan and Tiwa for their wedding!
The beautiful Airbus A380.
Nine hours later and we arrive in Dubai for a 2 hour stopover.
We relax on a couple of lounge chairs at Dubai airport.
Time to board our flight to London Heathrow!
The spacious interior of the Airbus A380.
After 6 hours and 45 minutes flying, we finally land at London Heathrow! Lezil using the airplane's front camera to view the landing.
Welcome to London!!!
We check in to our lovely suite at the Hotel Rafayel in Battersea.
There's a TV by the bathtub!
Enjoying chunky chips and a proper British beef burger for lunch!
Right by the hotel is the London Heliport.
Taking a wander to the nearby Tesco Express and I find my Kit Kats!!
The pub close by does Jerk Chicken!!
With my friend and brother Vidal (left) and his wife Chantelle and their cute son Eden.
The world's fastest commericially operated train - the Maglev.
| The final few days of the ‘Chantonia in Shanghai experience’ went faster than the city’s magnetic Maglev train (which does a top speed of 431 km/h!). More shopping, a day spent in water village, a lazy day on a lake and rounding off their stay with a mini party made sure we sent them back to London well and truly Shanghai-fied!
It also gave Lezil more time to dig into my oh-so-geeky past (some would argue that I’m still a geek now) as Antonia and Chantal gladly divulged many a cringe moment from our younger days. There was one story in particular that I had buried deep in my subconscious which was a literal life or death situation. So, there we all were standing in a crowded metro train with countless pairs of eyes beaming in our direction as we recounted the mayhem we went through on a British motorway (or ‘freeway’ for the rest of you!).
| | Actually, it only directly involved Chantal and I. This was a good nine years ago and it was a time when we had set up our Gospel music organisation, United by ONE. We had been invited to attend the annual GEM (Gospel Entertainment Music) Awards in Birmingham (UK). That day, I had offered to drive in my car. Picking Chantal up from her south London home, we were soon zipping along the motorway northbound. The day was clear with the usual amount of Saturday afternoon commuter traffic on the roads.
We made a quick pit stop for some snacks and before long we continued our drive towards our Midlands destination. Now, I will put my hands up here and take the entire blame for what happened next. These were the days before GPS navigation systems were widely used. Chantal had a huge A3 sized road map opened on her lap and because me luv off fi chek everyting (my Jamaican side coming out there!) I decided to take a glance at the map – whilst driving at a high speed. That was all it took, a split second to trigger off the next sequence of gut-wrenching moments.
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More than 10 years ago, our United by ONE salsa dancers. Chantal and I top row far left (in case you don't recognise our young faces!! LOL.)
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A typical UK motorway.
| I was in the fast lane and there was some gravel that had spilt onto the road from the central barrier area. With my eyes off the road for a nano-second, I felt the car wheels slide on the unnoticed gravel which startled me. The car ever-so-slightly veered towards the central steel barrier dividing the opposite lanes. I panicked with a knee jerk reaction of jolting the steering wheel a couple of centimetres away from the barrier. Of course, at that velocity (around 80mph…tut tut, I know above the speed limit), what would have been a tiny manoeuvre (at a lesser speed) was actually magnified tenfold and in that instant, my car spun out of control.
We did a full high-speed 360 degree turn ending up facing the oncoming traffic. A huge heavy-duty truck was flying right in our direction, on course for a head-on collision. We literally saw our lives flash before us and that uncontrollable feeling of helplessness was lodged firmly in our throats, choking the very essence of life out of us. I pulled hard on the steering wheel again, which this time sent us spinning in the other way wildly drifting across all three lanes of the motorway.
| Vehicles were sent scattering all over the place in an attempt to avoid crashing into us. You could hardly see what was happening outside with the amount of turns were doing. It was like being stuck in a washing machine looking out. A few seconds later and we came to a violent stop. I was breathing heavily like had I just ran a marathon and all I kept muttering was “Don’t say anything, don’t say anything….”. With my peripheral vision, I could see Chantal rooted in the passenger seat, completely motionless with only her bewildered eyes and over dilated pupils giving any hint of the shock we were experiencing.
Two minutes must have past and suddenly I heard a light knock on the window next to me. A young Indian guy was standing there. It was only at the point that I had registered that we had, in fact, ended up on a small grass verge alongside the motorway. Had we landed a few metres behind or in front of us, we would have been sent crashing into trees, the barrier or gone over a steep ridge. Meanwhile, the animated young Indian guy started shouting through the window.
| | “I can’t f***king believe it! Sh*t! Yous lot was just like dem James Bond movies! Cars flyin here and dere! Man, someone was watching over you! Dunno how you got out of that one…,” he rambled on. He grabbed the door handle open and I feebly stepped out. Chantal was still strapped into the passenger seat completely oblivious to our new friend. “Here bruv, I think you need this,” he said handing me an already lit joint. I stared at the spliff in my hand and for a fleeting moment considering a quick hit to calm my nerves, but I kindly declined.
| “You know what bro, God was watching over us,” I eventually replied. The guy went over to see Chantal who then stepped out by my motionless car. I stared at the three lanes and the cars zooming past us. As far as they were concerned, we were probably just taking a toilet break on the roadside. The only hint of what just went down was the freshly-made swirly skid marks on the tarmac. “That was us right there” I thought following the topsy-turvy design my car wheels had made.
Seeing that we were physically unharmed, our weed-smoking Asian buddy bid us farewell. Chantal and I deliberated whether to turn back and go home. But like Chantal said, it was about getting back in the saddle and not allowing what just happened to deter us from where we were going to (can I get an ‘Amen’?). God was (and still is) truly looking out for us. And in a strange kind of way when you go through such life-defining occurrences it deepens that fact that certain friends are family.
So it was with tinged sadness that Lezil and I had to say goodbye to Antonia and Chantal – our sisters. It had been such a beautiful experience having them spend those precious 10 days here in Shanghai. I can only now think when next we will see each other (I hope it won’t be for another three years!). But at least we have a new set of China memories to add to our friendships' life-stories.
Here are some pics from their last few days....(click to enlarge). We hit one of the more accessible water village areas in Shanghai, Qibao. We met our friend Winter who recently moved to the area.
At the one of the main entrances for Qibao old town.
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The small pagoda in the old town.
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Antonia and Lezil down a small street in Qibao with fans in hands for cooling down!
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Buying sour plum juice.
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About to board a small Chinese gondola.
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A peaceful ride down the canal.
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With our buddy Winter.
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The boat is powered solely by this little old lady!
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With our impressive boat driver.
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The gang on top of the main bridge at Qibao.
| On the second to last evening, it was over to our mate Deji's place for a night of British 'Bad Boy Bangers' (as he calls them!). Delicious homemade sausages in all sorts of flavours. That night we had Lincolnshire, Apple & Cider and Jerk Duck.
Dining outdoors, with our friend Deji - creator of Bad Boy Bangers.
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Antonia and Chantal with friend James (Australia).
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Lezil with friend (and fellow South African), Adele.
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The ladies with the masterchef himself!
| The last day, we spent the morning at Changfeng Park with its big lake and gardens (which are very quiet during the week!). Weekends - it's a different story.
Hiring a boat for an hour for just RMB 60.
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Our electric boat gets pulled in.
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All aboard, ready to starting boating!
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The expanse of open lake practically all to ourselves.
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Da crew!
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They take pictures of us, we take pictures of them!
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Skillfully changing seats whilst drifting on water!
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Antonia hesitant to swap seats with me!
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Whose foot is this?!
| | Jamaican sprinter Bolt is fronting a big advertising campaign for the Samsung NX300 camera.
Chantal pitches herself against the world-record holder!
Wednesday night...the final night. Bitter sweet times. It was back at the Crowne Plaza to enjoy the sounds of Filipino band Voicexpander.
A few friends come out to say bye.
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With Nick (left) and Clifton (right) - both UK/Caribbean.
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Everyone singing Michael Jackson's "Heal the World"!
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Attempting the electric side to Duffy's "Mercy!" LOL.
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Chantal is in her element when the soca music comes out (albeit the touristy "Feeling Hot Hot Hot...").
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With our bredrin, Camille.
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The ladies with the Voicexpander Band.
Lezil 'towers' above Antonia and Chantal.
Gonna miss these two incredible friends and family!!!
The date had been circled in bright red on our The Simpsons calendar hanging in our kitchen by our fridge. I was busy making my breakfast at 6am hardly believing that two of some of my closest friends from London were actually arriving in less than two hours’ time in Shanghai. Antonia and Chantal, or ‘Chantonia’ is I had at first mistakenly called them once, have been in my life for over 20 years. Chantal I met when I moved to the UK to study my secondary education whilst my path crossed with Antonia during our first year at college.
I sat there in the quietness of the dawning day with my mind jumping from any number of memories that an entire TV series would have been necessary to dedicate just for the ‘Previously on…’ bits of our past episodes. I wouldn’t have described it as nerves, but there was a certain element of the unknown when I thought about our soon-to-happen reunion. After all, it had been more than three years since we last saw each other and admittedly, in the last 18 months our actual communication has been a bit sparse. It would also be the first time for them to meet Lezil – my wife.
 Waiting for our first glimpse of Antonia and Chantal in arrivals. | The clock was counting down minutes to the grand moment as we sped eastward on Shanghai’s ever-so-efficient metro system. We pulled into the terminal station at Pudong International Airport. The time 9:30am. The direct Virgin flight from London Heathrow was scheduled to arrive at 9:35am. Once we got to the main concourse where the big screen with flight information was, we realised the flight had arrived early. We bolted our way to the arrivals gate. I wanted it to be movie-perfect like catching a glimpse from beyond the security railings to the emotional-rich embrace of being reunited after a long hiatus.
Lezil and I stood anxiously leaning against the steel bars watching passengers drift by. I started to spot a few Brits come through which Lezil couldn’t understand how I could tell they were from the UK. And as if to prove my point, a couple of lads in their mid twenties paused right in front of us with the one saying to the other “Do you fink it’s alright to ‘ave a fag ‘ere?”. I just turned to Lezil with that 'you-see' look on my face.
| | Twenty minutes later and I spotted the familiar silhouettes of Antonia and Chantal walking through the frosted glass exit of arrivals. As they both walked around the exit path, Antonia belted a very foreign-sounding "Ni Hao!" much to the amusement of the two taxi drivers standing next to us. Lezil and I scurried to the other end where the passengers come out with Chantal being the first to receive my deadly bear hug. Antonia looked on in a moment of emotion and reactive laughter before I launched myself towards her for much of the same treatment. I felt ecstatic standing with them both in Shanghai and even more so, to be able to finally introduce them to Lezil.
|  The emotional reunion! |  Trying to squeeze in the suitcases into the back of a Shanghai taxi. | Being a national holiday week, we decided to catch the bus back into town as the traffic would be much lighter than usual. Plus it would give them the chance to see Shanghai from the outskirts, in. Throughout the 40 minutes journey we just talked and talked and talked. We pulled into Jing'an Temple bus terminal where we had to transfer for a short 10 minutes taxi ride to their hotel. Waving down a taxi, the game of suitcase tetris began. I was adamant on us all getting into one taxi (remember their luggage too!). The taxi's boot (or trunk) wasn't the most spacious and after 2 minutes of trying different angles it was obvious it wasn't going to shut.
| By this time the taxi driver came out to see what the holdup was. He motioned Chantal to simply overlap the suitcases. He then nonchalantly lowered the boot which wouldn't close because of the bulging mass within. He then got back in the driver's seat. Antonia and Chantal turned to me and I responded: "Welcome to Shanghai!". "But..." Antonia started. I cut her off saying: "Don't bother about the boot, this isn't London darling, this is how things work here. Now let's go."
And it was on that note that their 10 day adventure is Shanghai began.
Below is a selection of photos from the first six days. Call it Part One of when 'Chantonia Hit Shanghai'!
(Click to enlarge photos)
On Day One. After a 12 hour flight, Antonia and Chantal arrive blurry-eyed into Shanhai's Pudong International Airport.
 Meeting Lezil for the first time. |  We arrive at Jing'an Temple to grab a taxi. |  The taxi driver comes out to give us a hand fitting in the suitcases. |  Suitcases squeezed in and the boot semi-closed, we are off! | |  We arrive at their hotel for the 10 day Shanghai visit. | | Day One and Day Two. Dumping the suitcases at the hotel, we get stuck right in. On the agenda The Bund, Pudong and some live music.
 A hazy day at The Bund with Shanghai's fast-growing skyline in the background. |  We hit the fabric market where the ladies get measured up for tailored made jackets at rock-bottom prices. | |  Chantal eating her chips Shanghai-style, with chopsticks! | |  The ladies by the famed skyscrapers in Shanghai's Pudong area. |  Shanghai's Pearl TV Tower. |  Evening time and we meet up with some friends to eat Turkish food. |  After dinner, it was back to their hotel (Crowne Plaza) to catch the Filipino band in action called 'Voicexpander'. |  And soon, we are all up and dancing. |  The group enjoying some of the Pop sounds from the band. | |  Antonia with our friend Camille. | |  Soon enough, Lezil is called on stage to cover Adele's 'Someone Like You'. |  Even Camille gets in on the singing action dropping a reggae number. | Day Three and Four. Daytime was all about shopping and massages. In the evening, it was off to sample more of Shanghai's nightlife.
 Having a quick Italian meal before partying. |  We hit the Kee which is an exclusive private members club in downtown Shanghai. |  We are on our friend's DJ Cherokee's guest list. She spins the full spectrum of house music (soulful, funky, disco, tribal, etc...). |  Enjoying our expensive drinks in rather plush surroundings. |  With my beautiful wifey... :) |  Antonia soon catches the eye of a very rich (and very drunk!) Chinese businessman who tries to impress her with his moves!! | |  Our mate Deji also joins us. Group photo with DJ Cherokee in the centre. | | Day Five. It was all about the old town - Yu Yuan Garden.
 By the entrace to Yu Yuan. |  Random locals all line up to have photos taken with us! |  One of the back streets specialising in traditional kites. |  The main clothes street market of Yu Yuan. |  By the grand entrance for City God Temple in Yu Yuan. |  The main square at Yu Yuan. |  City God Temple. |  We grab a delicious dinner at one of our favourite Chinese Muslim restaurants - Yeli Xia Li. | Day Six. By far the most random afternoon! It was a hot and sticky day, so we opted for the leafy canopy over at Jing'an City park. It's quaint and a nice place to chill. At the weekends, (especially on Sundays) the creative lot (as I call them) are always out in force and that day was no exception.
First off, Lezil was coaxed into bellydancing with the locals. Then we got approached by a local drama student who interviewed us on camera about our thoughts on 'Cats' and 'The Phantom of the Opera'. Lastly, a local professor walked past, saw that we were foreigners and started chatting in English. Out came his violin and we soon had a crowd of people around us recording with their cell phones as we did renditions of 'Hey Jude', 'You Raise Me Up' and 'Jingle Bells' (in the middle of a sweltering summer heat!).
That's what I love about Shanghai. Absolutely ANYTHING can happen!
 By the large pond at Jing'an Park. |  A little trivia here. This was where Lezil and I had our first date way back in 2009! :) | |  Lezil joins the local dancers for a spot of belly dancing. | |  People look on as they 'shake their thangs'! |  Antonia being interviewed on her 'indepth' knowledge of the West End theatre scene!! |  Lezil singing with Professor 'Mr P'. |  Jingle Bells in the middle of a Shanghai summer...anything goes! | |  Enjoying an outdoor musical afternoon with Professor 'Mr P'. | |
 Arrving at the Argyle Hotel to celebrate Dragon Boat Festival food! | For the next three days, China basks in a national holiday that is Dragon Boat Festival. A number of folkloric stories surround the festivities with the most popular one being that of the Chinese poet Qu Yuan. It’s said that he was part of the Chu Royal House during the Zhou dynasty when the King at the time changed his allegiance to Qin Royal House and turned against the poet Qu. Consequently, in his desperation the poet decided to drown himself.
Being popular with the people, they all threw wrapped rice packets into the river so that the fish wouldn’t harm the poet but instead eat the floating food instead. So, it was with that setting we joined a few friends at the Argyle International Airport Hotel in Shanghai to try a hand at making these so-called rice packets. Actually, the correct term is zongzi, or rice dumplings. The hotel’s marketing manager Maggie was on hand to settle us in, asking to wash our hands before we delved in with the food-making.
| | A Shanghainese lady who didn’t speak a word of English was on hand to show us the ropes. A large dining table in a private dining suit had been set up with all the raw ingredients laid out in industrial kitchen aluminium trays. Despite the obvious language barrier (well, at least for Lezil and I!) – our teacher soon had our hands full with two strips of large water reeds which we had to fold in half, curving at the same time to then create a small closed funnel in our left hand. By our end of the table, there was rice soaked in soy sauce and Chinese seasoning of which we lined the inside of our hand-held funnel-shaped reeds.
Next step was to place a strip of pork belly (again seasoned and drenched in soy sauce) and top it off with more rice. Then came the fun part – the actual packet making. The long left-over strips of reeds were tightly stretched over the top of the funnel with the sides pushed down, and the firmly wrapped to the sides.
|  Busy learning how to make rice dumplings. |  With our good friend Nicoleen tying up our rice dumplings. | Grabbing a bit of string, you bound the reeds with force to ensure that none of the inside contents would spill out. And voila! One meat rice dumpling complete. After a few rounds at the station, we swapped for the vegetarian version which comprised of white rice and red beans. This time we used bamboo leaves instead as these were smaller triangular versions of the pork ones.
| | Once you got a routine going, it was pretty easy going to churn out a good number of those rice dumplings after which one of the hotel’s chefs took them away for cooking which normally is done by boiling but also steaming. It takes around 1.5 hours to two hours to cook them fully. We had finished our culinary activity and the same dining table was cleaned up, with a table cloth on top and a nice spread of fresh fruit, salads, drinks, and (you guessed it) rice dumplings were all served for us to enjoy.
It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, in keeping with a historical Chinese tradition. Kudos to Maggie from the hotel for organising the event. |  Another fun friend of ours, Christina, eating a cooked rice dumpling. |  Celebrating Burundi culture at Café Connect. | Completely jumping cultures, not to mention an entire continent, the following afternoon it was the bi-monthly Café Connect gathering. As part of Shanghai Community Fellowship’s welcoming committee, the social event takes place after the 4pm Church service where people gather in the small chapel next door to not only socialise but be treated to some delicious eats and drinks. Over the last couple of months, a new running theme had been launched whereby each session now highlights the diversity of people who actually attend the Hengshan Road Church.
This week it was the turn of three African nations: Rwanda, Nigeria and Burundi. West African Gospel music played as people eagerly filtered in after the service. Two opposite rows of tables provided people the chance to sample not only more standard snacks but nibbles from the respective countries including a very flavoursome Nigerian ‘Akara’ or bean cake and the Jollof Rice (a spicy tomato based dish readily associated with West African cooking) which disappeared in no time.
| | I like my African prints and it just so happened that I had some Nigerian traditional clothes in Shanghai that were given to me by a close friend in London as a wedding gift. Yes, I became an honorary Naija with one Nigerian friend commenting that I carried myself like a royal chief. She joked to me, saying that I must fulfil my role as a strong leader by finding myself three additional wives alongside wifey number one, Lezil. Sounded like too much drama if you asked me!
With the rhythmic uplifting music playing, I could only marvel at how even in a place as far flung as China, the vibrancy of the African spirit can bring such unity and positivity. We are already preparing for Café Connect’s second African round which happens on Sunday 23rd June focusing on Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Waka Waka nation itself – South Africa! Lezil will be cooking up a storm for that one.
|  Call me a 'Naija'! (left to right) Christina, me, Deji and Nicoleen. | We got home an hour later to the mother of all surprises right on our door step. (‘Mother’ being the operative word here.) Walking up our winding steps to our third floor apartment and just as Lezil hit the final corner she jumped back in shock. Sprawled out by our front door was a cat that was clearly in beginnings of labour. The ginger mother-to-be was heaving heavily and was clearly in a lot of discomfort. I came up to join Lezil on our floor and, rather embarrassingly, the first thing that came out was “Not again!”.
 Help!! This cat is in labour. Meanwhile Winne (right) is more concerned with eating! | You see, we had already semi-adopted our street cat – Winnie – who pretty much appeared in the same way as a weak 2 month old kitten and two years later, he’s still with us , albeit roaming the streets all day and night. We didn’t know what to do. The cat wasn’t moving but just panting away and you could see that her tummy was contracting. The stench was pungent which we amateurishly diagnosed as her waters having been broken.
In a daze, I turned to Lezil and said to her that I was sure this was our next door fruit lady’s cat. With lightning speed I jumped down the stairs, two at a time, and ran the 10 street metres to her store. She was busy slurping her evening noodles and in my gargled Chinese and accompanying frantic sign language, I managed to get her to understand me. She swiftly followed me back up the stairs to the tiny hall by our apartment door.
| She rambled on in Shanghainese to me, of which I don’t understand a word of, so I asked her to switch to Putonghua (Mandarin) and got the gist of her saying “Zhe bu shi wo de mao” (this is not my cat). She then started to say that her cat is longer and has more white markings. How could this be? I was so sure it belonged to her. Apologising for mis-alerting her, she left us with this bulging pregnant non-moving feline helplessly lying at our feet. | Like a mad man, I scrolled through my phone to see who I knew was a ‘cat-person’. Bingo! Our Jamaican friend Liza (who I also happen to work alongside with at the Caribbean Association in China). She dished out the necessary advice which had Lezil running back to the fruit lady store to get a large box. I kept monitoring the cat. We got a soft green IKEA bath rug and lined the box with it. Seeing sense, the cat actually dragged itself onto the rug inside the box.
By this time, we had Lezil’s mum all the way in Australia coaching us on what to expect over the next few hours. Her family are experienced cat owners and had delivered kittens before. Then to add to the action, Winnie, our boy cat, decides to make his grand entrance and became all bewildered with the unfolding scene. He cautiously crept up to the ginger puss in the box then planted himself solidly by our door as if to say, “they are my owners, don’t even think about…”.
|  Winnie closely looking at proceedings. |  Lezil lining the floor with plastic. | His food bowl was empty, so I stacked it up to try and distract him. It worked. So there we were, standing in between a cat in labour and another one busy stuffing its face. I was adamant that I didn’t want the ginger cat dropping her load outside our door. The last thing we needed was a hoard of more cats meowing to be fed. One was enough, thank you very much. (Can you tell that I am not a cat person? Give me a dog any day!)
I went back down to the ground floor and interrupted one of neighbour’s dinner to ask him if we could use a sheltered spot outside in the communal garden to place the cat-in-labour and her box? He wasn’t too pleased with the idea. Unfortunately street cats are like rats here and therefore not a lot of care is shown towards the creatures. Getting one of my Shanghainese buddies on the phone to explain properly the situation to him, he thankfully relented.
| | I was super nervous picking up the box with the cat in it, especially as it had one open side. But she was perfectly well-behaved not moving, almost knowingly trusting our judgement for her well-being. We used one of the outside shed areas, lined it with plastic on the floor (to make it waterproof) and then I gently lowered the box down. There was no rain forecast which meant a dry night and the overnight temperature was a warm 20C. Good conditions.
The mother cat soon relaxed and closed her eyes. In a way, that was our job done. Just call us the cat midwives! The rest was now in her court. At the time of writing, she was still busy nesting but no sign of new lives yet.
|  Settling the pregnant street cat in her new birthing sheltered spot. | Once we were back in our apartment and I had time to digest all that had just happened and I remembered that this was the other ginger cat that I had frequently seen Winnie playing with by the next door neighbour’s concrete back yard. So, the big unanswered question we have to ask ourselves…is Winnie the father?  With our lao shi (teacher) learning how to make rice dumplings.  Packing in the wraps with rice and meat.  Raw seasoned pork.  Good times with friends doing something culturally Chinese. :)  Some finished rice dumplings we made, ready for cooking.  With the Argyle Hotel's marketing Manager, Maggie.  Nigeria stand proud! At Café Connect with friends (left to right) Philippa and Bettina (daughter and mother - Jamaica/Nigeria).  With another friend, Francis (Ghana/UK).  (left to right) Ibere (Nigeria) with Christina (Germany).  Southern Africans! (left to right) Lezil (SA), Nyasha (Zim) and Thando (SA).  With the Nigerian and Burundi crew!  With some of my local friends who dropped by to sample some African delights!  And yes....this could be a picture of the future (me constantly in Nigerian clothes!). Not sure what you were thinking of... LOL! ;)  Yes! Akara in Shanghai!
So, we were technically a bit late to classify our apartment mass-clear out as a ‘spring clean’. But nonetheless, we spent the whole of Sunday sifting through accumulated stuff from the last two years. Despite the small size of our accommodation, we somehow managed to acquire an impressive array of items that we could quite easily have hosted our own flea market.
 Ta da! Our main room having one big clear out! | Militancy was the order of the way. My motto was, if it hadn’t been used in the last 12 months, chuck it out. We had two old suitcases with broken handles which acted as makeshift dumpsters and in no time they were both filled with clothing, old notebooks, shredded receipts and invoices, magazines, past travel itineraries, worn-down shoes and handbags that had clearly passed their use-by date. One of the great things about clearing things out in China, you don’t have to go far to actually dispose of them. Aside from the two suitcases we also had another six garbage bags full of junk.
| Lezil had gone outside and ‘dumped’ the first two garbage bags while I continued the indoor operation. The dumping was actually just outside our gate which technically you are not supposed to do but everyone does it (yes, a slap on the wrist for me!). Over the next five minutes all our garbage bags had gone out. As the last ones left our door, I broke into a panic. “Where’s that envelope?” I muttered to myself. There was a piece of mail that had arrived from Hong Kong with what felt like a credit card inside for the flat’s previous tenants. We were to be meeting them in an hour’s time to hand over their envelope. I had (stupidly) left the envelope as a reminder to myself on the armchair’s ledge – the same place where we had been tearing up paper and ever-so-systematically packing up the rubbish in bags.
| Great. I just knew that the envelope had mistakenly been caught up in one of those garbage bags outside. Whilst I frantically turned our apartment upside down, Lezil had run outside to fetch the bags back. But wait. With Shanghai’s uber-efficient street-recycling system (read = anyone walking past), I wasn’t surprised when Lezil came back to tell me that out of the six bags we had left outside, only the one remained (all in the space of less than five minutes). Argh!! I absolutely hated losing things and even more when it wasn’t even my own to begin with. Venting off to Lezil, I said my two-cent’s worth on how people love to recycle things way too fast in Shanghai.
Dejectedly I sent a voicemail to the people concerned apologising for the unforeseen mishap. I waited for their response rather uncomfortably. As a half-hearted last-ditched effort (actually I was beyond frustrated), I grabbed the only garbage bag we had in our possession and tipped the whole thing out on our living room floor.
|  Little carts that go around Shanghai picking thrown-out items off the street. (Photo by Simon Dean) | Hundreds of tiny bits of cut up paper were littered everywhere. On my knees, almost as an act of self-punishment, I picked through the unrecognisable cuttings. How could I have been such an idiot? My Sony Tablet flashed up with an incoming message. That must be the ex-tenants responding.
I started scooping the rubbish back in the bag and what did I find? The envelope! It was roughly folded right at the bottom of the heap and thankfully was still intact. Instantaneously my pale expression of worry warmed up to an exhausted sigh of relief. What are the odds? Of all the bags to remain outside, it was the only one with the missing envelope in it. Thank God! The tenants had messaged me back saying not to worry, but I wanted to be the bringer of positive news and restore my good name. “Disaster averted,” I dramatically told them. From then on, we double checked each bag before it went out. We had to be careful as you literally didn’t have a second to spare with the speed that discarded items were picked up off our street.  The Geisha - F.Y.E.S.T.A.'s new venue in Shanghai. | With that excitement over with, we cleaned up and biked down to The Geisha. Our friend Sylvie was holding her fifth instalment of her popular F.Y.E.S.T.A. series. It’s a monthly Sunday late-afternoon gathering of all things fashionable, food, music and entrepreneurial. For F.Y.E.S.T.A., The Geisha was a new venue where previously it had been held in a couple of outlets in the Jiashan Market area of Shanghai. Certainly the more prominent positioning of the venue (on Shaanxi Nan Lu, near Fuxing Lu) was a step up. The entire top third floor of club/restaurant was allocated for the event where by the indoor section you had various vendors. The attractive outdoor rooftop terrace next door was lined with a handful of up-and-coming food and drink enterprises.
| | The weather was perfect and therefore brought people out in their droves. The place was packed, so much so, that trying to get a glimpse of the foodie tables outside was a bit of a mission. Our buddy Helina from Eat Ethio was doing a roaring trade. Her brand has become somewhat synonymous with F.Y.E.S.T.A. as punters devoured her wonderfully seasoned Ethiopian dishes out of her trademark brown boxes. Amongst the hive of activity we bumped into an old friend who we hadn’t seen for nearly three years - Aldrine. Actually, he worked with Lezil during her time as the lead singer at the Hilton Shanghai. He was the hot-shot bar tender there.
|  Waving and smiling, Helina from Eat Ethio at F.Y.E.S.T.A. |  With our friend Aldrine - Operations Manager at The Geisha. | He knew us before we got married, so we were more than happy to update him on our marital status. It turns out that from working at the Hilton, Aldrine landed up a position as the Operations Manager of The Geisha and its associated venue The Flamingo Bar & Playhouse. He’s the same cool guy he was then as he is now. Down-turn-earth and upbeat.
After scanning over the small indoor stalls, we ended up making a couple of purchases by the good people at Vintage Warriors. Run by Pedro D’Aguiar, a Portuguese native, alongside his lovely wife Roberta from Brazil – their aim is to bring together a unique collection of old-school branded fashion/lifestyle items made available across their small chain of global stores. Currently they have outlets here in Shanghai, Lisbon, London and Buenos Aires. They had branded t-shirts, retro leather bags, customised leather vintage watches, really cool bicycle handle bars made from cedar wood and an eye-catching collection of summer shoes.
| | It was the latter that saw Lezil and I sizing up a pair to purchase. Called ‘Chinese Style’ – the light canvas shoes with durable rubber soles are made in Hangzhou and are modelled around the classic martial arts shoes traditional used in many Kung Fu schools in China. At RMB 150 (£15),they were reasonable priced and certainly, they had a good selection of summer colours to choose from. I opted for an emerald green and Lezil went with a bright pink. The fact that Pedro himself was wearing his own product (and they looked pretty worn in) was a further selling point. I didn’t waste any time in rocking my new pair of Chinese Style shoes. Very comfortable indeed.
Entertainment wise, the music policy went from pumping club-esque music to classic Motown. In between there was a short Hip Hop set by MCs Amil and Dana aka Ocean. They were tight but unfortunately the heavy-laden beats coupled with their vocals were too much for the outdoor speakers which became very distorted.
|  Lezil choosing her pair of 'Chinese Style' canvas shoes. |  With house music master DJ Cherokee from Australia. | Their set was cut short after only two tracks. It was left to the DJ to spin some summer vibes. I was hoping to hear DJ Cherokee work the wheels of steel that afternoon.
She dropped an incredible set at last month’s event leaning on more soulful / disco house vibes. She told me (much to my disappointment) that she wasn’t playing that day. But still, it was nice to have a catch up with her where she informed me that she’s in Shanghai for the summer with a move to Germany’s Berlin slated for early autumn. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, DJ Cherokee literally globe-trots appearing wherever her gigs are booked. She also has a syndicated radio show which goes out in Australia, the US and Hong Kong. Aside from being a prominent house DJ, she’s also now turning her attention to producing which I am particularly looking forward to hearing. I’ve always said, a DJ knows what generates a crowd’s response. And with her years and years in the industry, no doubt she will be churning out some killer tunes in the near future. | Another top day out at F.Y.E.S.T.A.! However, with the continually growing turn-out each month, I think Sylvie is going to have to re-think her venue choice sometime soon.
 A packed rooftop terrace at The Geisha for the 5th F.Y.E.S.T.A. event.  Moroccan food for sale.  MC Amil and his Hip Hop set.  Dana dropping some vocals alongside MC Amil.  Holding my newly bought pair of 'Chinese Style' shoes with Vintage Warriors co-founder Pedro D'Aguiar.
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