After marking 60 scripts I was on my way out of the office and I saw one of my colleagues eating a very nice panini. 
Hungry, I asked her where she got it. She drew a little map and I found the Warehouse Cafe hidden through a guarded gate at the bottom of a building which was obviously a creative design centre which hosts lots of small creative companies.
I went in and the place was rammed, full of ex-pat arty types. There is free wifi there and very good cheap food and coffee menu. It was a haven. I had a large blue cheese salad for 2.60 and a coffee and had to share a table with some French guys.
After lunch I walked on a bit to discover what was the other side of the bicycle bridge near the cafe. I ambled over the bridge and thought – this looks familar. Yes, it was where my flat is! So all this time I have been walking 10 minutes to the bus stop on Xinzha Lu, waited an age for the number 19 and then gone 3 stops and walked a bit more to FESCO.
Walking to the flat from there takes 15 minutes and there is less chance of death because there is barely any walking on the road required.
En route the road takes you through a really poor part of the city where wires are strung between houses and people live in houses with broken windows and no heating. In fact on the way back this morning I saw one room (at eye-level to me when I’m on the bridge) which had no glass in the window but there was clothes hung up from the ceiling and a bed in the corner and a bucket for washing. It is hard to believe people in this great city still live in such squalor.
And in the background, shiny new high rise buildings, the face of Shanghai the Chinese govt want the visitors to see.