It’s been a funny old week.  The temperature and the humidity have shot up.  On Tuesday Richard texted me on his way to work saying that “It is brutally humid.  Don’t try to be too ambitious today.” On Friday the temperature was reported as having reached 35°C and we were at 100% humidity.  My Lonely Planet Guide to China describes summers in the city as hot, humid and sapping.  Walking about town takes an effort.  I make the 15 minute walk the metro last 20 minutes as I slow my walking pace right down.  After a severe lung infection ten years ago I developed adult-onset asthma.  My chemotherapy cured that ( I wouldn’t recommend it as a standard remedy, though), but my radiotherapy damaged my

Japanese Fan

lungs and a small section of the bottom of my heart.  I don’t normally notice any of this, but now in the high humidity breathing is a little more difficult and I notice the effort to get enough oxygen into my lungs even as I walk.  And I seek out the shade everywhere and carry an umbrella to stave off the sun.  The metro is a relief as its oldest line is only 22 years old.  It is cool down there, unlike on the Tube, and a welcome relief to the system when I reach it.  I carry a traditional fan with me and use it often.  Add to all this the odd hot flush and I’m a wreck.

Dehumidifier

In all our cupboards we have dehumidifiers that absorb the moisture in the air and trap the absorbed water in a reservoir in the bottom of the canister.  This is in an attempt to stop our clothes going rotten in the damp atmosphere.  Hanging clothes up to dry after washing has up until now been successful, but unless they are ironed they now have to go into the tumble dryer to finish them off, it being so humid that the clothes and towels retain a certain amount of moisture.

A number of ex-pats are leaving Shanghai for Europe for a couple of month’s home leave.  I can understand why and I’m doing the same shortly for a couple of weeks, not to flee the weather, but to go to Rozy’s graduation ceremony in London.  Richard is staying behind in Shanghai.  There is just too much for him to do and the last time we were home he spent nearly all his time working, so he has decided to save up practically all his annual leave until the end of the year.

One of my Chinese fans

Planning a day out in Shanghai is now dominated by how close the point of interest is to a metro station and whether it is likely to have air-conditioning.  I’m not trying to walk from one place to another any more either, or walk around gardens unless they are almost completely shaded.  But I do need to walk as I try to keep fit, so I generally shun the door-to-door use of taxis and unlike most ex-pats I don’t have access to a personal driver.  (Nor for that matter do we have an amah who would clean, cook and shop for us as many others have).  I’ve left visits to many museums and art galleries until now in anticipation of the weather becoming difficult. But there are only so many cultural things I can do in one week, though – my mother as an art teacher unwittingly gave me a long-lasting horror of art galleries which I strive to overcome, but it does mean that I march round them rather faster than most.  And if I visit a gallery with someone who is interested in art my remembered boredom screams at me if they study the detail in any picture.  (Fortunately I’ve never been around a gallery with anyone else who has studied any one picture for as long as my mother would, except Charlie that is.  Charlie, at the age of 2 and half, of his own accord, lay down in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam with his chin in his hands and studied an early and unknown Van Gogh for as long as his grandmother would have done.  He caused much amusement to other gallery visitors who stepped over this recumbent toddler as he looked and looked and looked. My motherly instincts dispelled any boredom.  There is a virtual Van Gogh Exhibition showing at the moment here in Shanghai.  I’m waiting for Charlie to come out at the beginning of August before going to see it with him.  I’ll be watching him as much as looking at the pictures.)

It is generally cooler in the mornings than in the afternoons (mad dogs and Englishmen and all that), but that is when the internet runs best too.  So I now have a conflict between when I should go out and visit bits of Shanghai and when I should be inside and making use of the quicker download and upload speeds, so my modus operandi is also being shaken up a bit, trying to work out what to do and how to do it.

Yesterday Richard and I went for a slow amble in the damp heat over to Hongqiao Pearl City the near-by home of fake goods and not so fake pearls.  He may get a shirt made there by a Mr. Ding of San-San Fashion as a trial to see how well they are made and I may buy a top made from Issey Miyake pleated fabrics, when we go back next week and continue our negotiations (it’s always best to walk away first time  – the price for my top dropped by yet another 20% as I did so).  On our way back we had a late lunch at another of the Japanese pubs in our neighbourhood.  I had an octopus dish flavoured with chilli, Richard had a dish of lamb on the bone and spring onions and we both had on our trays, boiled rice, bean sprouts, braised pak choi,  kiriboshi-daikon (literally, “cut-dried daikon” or white radish), bean curd sprinkled with dried shredded nori (laverbread), seaweed soup and segments of spring onion pancakes with water melon to finish all washed down with Japanese Asahi beer.

My lunch

Richard’s lunch

An alternative to going out in the heat is to stay indoors, but I haven’t been able to stay in the flat and write my blog as new people are moving into the apartment upstairs and there was been drilling, hammering and general wrecking noises vibrating around our flat all week, even yesterday, Saturday.  It has made it impossible to concentrate enough to be able to write. I toyed with going back to the Japanese café we tried for the first time last weekend. It is in the next block or so, has free wifi and excellent coffee, but many of the men, and it is mainly filled with Japanese men, were smoking, which I didn’t fancy in the heat.  Going any further away would have meant carrying my laptop further than I wanted to, so I have abandoned all attempts at writing this week, until now.

It is now Sunday and there is no banging or crashing from upstairs.  It is raining and the temperature has cooled, unlike last week when there was a temperature inversion and the hot air was close to the ground and we had a tremendous thunder storm that lasted for hours.  We were supposed to have been in Xi’an this weekend, visiting the Terracotta Army amongst other things and Richard going on a visit to the local factory on Monday, but that has been cancelled – the visit had flip-flopped between being on and off several times.   Chongqing 700km further south had a forecast temperature of 39°C this weekend, but I don’t think Xi’an would have been that hot and it would have certainly been less humid than here.  I visited the army in the 1980s, but I understand that much has changed at the site and Richard has never been.  Hopefully we shall get there before the end of the year.

There is much more to visit both elsewhere in China and here in and around Shanghai.  I just have to work out how I’m going to do it all.