A visit home

The last time I was in Shanghai, I had picked up a cold, and was in no condition to enjoy it. In fact, I really disliked Shanghai. Makes me sick, I grumbled. The air is filthy, I moaned. This time, I was prepared to spend a miserable week trying to survive the pollution and escape with my life (and so on, I was rather dramatic about it).

I was in Raffles City yesterday. It’s laid out very similarly to Raffles City in Singapore. There was a Bread Talk. There was a Bee Cheng Hiang. There was an Andersen’s of Denmark. If I was the homesick type, I would’ve been crying with joy at the little slice of Singapore CapitaLand had brought to the cosmopolitan city that is Shanghai.

In other news: coming from Xiamen, I feel like a country bumpkin visiting the big city for the first time. And I do feel a cold coming on, now that the trip is almost over.

• 5 Dec 2004