Went to Shanghai for the World Expo (that's for another post). I thought it was fairly pleasant, and the city's changed since I last visited in 2008—the touristy bits have been cleaned up to a noticeable extent and plenty of English signs and amenities now litter the popular Bund area.

Amenities like public toilets, although I have to note at this point that both my experiences with the public toilets there did not go well. The first time, it was evening along the Bund and I stepped into the toilet only to walk in on a woman in one of the cubicles, in full-squat and peeing, with the door wide open.

The second time was in a mall, and I stepped right in a yellow puddle in the middle of the walkway before making it to a cubicle. Then going in, I saw a full pile of soiled sanitary napkins in the bin, splayed out looking like the St. Valentine's Day massacre.

Oh and this doesn't quite count as a toilet incident, since there wasn't a toilet per se, but then there was that mother carrying her 6 or 7 year-old daughter over a drain to pee. Most of it was flowing down the street—fast—toward my feet, so I hopped out of the way but landed in some slippery sputum and almost lost my balance. (I knew what it was because it was, umm, bubbled.)

Okay time for photos.

The colour-changing Bund Waibaidu Bridge.

Hot and sour fish soup and numb and spicy hot pot-flavoured potato chips. Uh.

Service menu outside a massage parlour.

A porta-loo which means business.

This was dinner on the last night of my stay. I had managed to get lost for a good two hours in the afternoon, so I scrapped plans to head out to dinner and bought instant noodles, a sausage, beer and what I thought was milk back to my room.

The "milk" turned out to be some fairly thick yoghurt. It was drinkable though, so I had it the next morning and hoped for the best.