The best laid plans

After a week of a little too much of this (Classes! Exams! Group Projects!) and not enough of that (blogging about Shanghai) I woke up yesterday morning determined to make amends. I had done my research and google-mapped my destinations. My bike tyres were pumped (ok, that just happened when I bought the bike) and I was ready to go. Down along Jianguo, left onto Ruijin Er and then all the way up to Jing An. I had 3 boutiques to check out and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. And then I saw one of these:

And then another one. And another one. At one point, there were so many of these signs I was starting to wonder if maybe you weren’t allowed to cycle anywhere in Shanghai. I cycled further East in the hope of escaping this overly officious section of the French Concession, and found a few more. WTF China?! I ended up pushing my bike over to the first boutique, only to find an open sign and a locked door. Hmmm, confusing. I peered inside and saw this:

so I assumed that the latter message was the correct one.
Onwards and upwards.
I decided to head further North and get my ‘star’ boutique out of the way, when I encountered another one of those blasted signs.
Having wised up by now, I took to the sidewalk and made some progress that way, only to find myself (a mere 100m later) hemmed in by a fence. I ended up CARRYING my bike over Yan-An Road’s pedestrian overpass, and then pushing it for the remainder of the journey. And for those of you who are wondering why I didn’t just turn a blind eye to all those red slashes: I did for a bit, but the buses and taxis started to become a little too aggressive and that’s when I noticed that there were no Chinese people cycling where I was. Chinese cyclists seem to flout road rules with gay abandon (cycling the wrong way, exiting laneways at great speed with nary a glance at oncoming traffic, cycling on sidewalks ... I could go on for hours) so I thought that if they were heeding these officious signs, then it might be best to follow suit.
The next boutique looked great (vintage! in China!) but it was also closed. Helpfully, the sign on the door told me I was an hour too early (but right on time according to information I found on the web). I confess I pretty much gave up after that. In an effort to get to the last boutique, I headed South but I just found myself being propelled along with the flow of traffic until I was spat out on Changle Lu, well West of my final destination (but rather close to Anfu Lu). So today, a day when I had high hopes of fashionista sleuthing, I just ended up going in here:

and consoling myself with one of these:

before heading home.

To the Chinese road authority: lose all the anti-bike signs! We don’t contribute to traffic jams or the ever increasing Shanghai ‘mist’ that burns my lungs when I cycle for more than 10 minutes. And to anybody reading this blog: sit tight. I’m heading back to the same boutiques on the weekend. A pied!

Miss G