China’s interest in US President Obama never ceases to amaze me.

First it was Obama’s alleged endorsing of the Blockberry handset. Then, he was endorsing real-estate in Shaanxi province. Then there was the short-lived Obamao-mania souvenir frenzy prior to his visit to China.

Well, all of that is topped with the announcement of something so bizarre, I couldn’t make it up if I tried: a new Obama Entertainment Club is opening up right here in Shanghai. And with that playful pink leg dangling out of the “O”, I’m sure it will be quite the classy establishment.

This started off innocently enough. The odd baggage scanner at a few select metro stations (I only saw it myself at Zhongshan Park). Now, it’s been implemented at every station in the city, all in the name of Expo 2010.

To enter a turnstyle at any station now, if you have any baggage you must pass it through an airport-like conveyor belt to be scanned and inspected. On the other side are security staff staring at a couple of monitors.

I didn’t mind this at first, but it’s grown to really irritate me. I take the metro to work every day, so twice a day I have to pass my laptop bag through this stupid machine, wait for it to come out the other end, and have the strap get caught on the other side.

To add to the fun, people in Shanghai are not exactly known for being orderly or waiting their turn in line. During rush hour, you often have to fight to get your bag in, and then rush to the other side to grab it through the crowd of people waiting for theirs. If you have groceries, expect a few items to roll out of the bag before the end of its conveyor belt journey.

When you take into account that the personnel are often not paying attention, some machines are (or at least were) apparently not staffed or even turned on between 6 – 7 AM, and couriers still hand deliver packages over the railings to their counterparts waiting in the station, this is security theatre at its worst and it rivals anything the west has to offer.

I’m hoping that this whole thing will be over when the Expo is, but something tells me the city didn’t spend a fortune to put scanners in over 200 metro stations with the word ‘temporary’ in mind. We’re still taking our shoes off at airports in North America, still unable to bring a few ounces of liquid into a departure area, and the “terror alert level” will never be green. Once implemented and publicly accepted, security measures like these rarely get reversed.

The only upside is that all the security staff I’ve encountered have been very friendly, and none of them had the self-inflated sense of importance/authority that rent-a-cops and TSA staff in the west have. To be fair, as one anonymous security staff member allegedly posted online recently, it’s not exactly fun for them either.

I never noticed it before, but HanZhong Road metro station has some pretty wild Tron-style lighting happening from the ceiling.

Finally got around to picking up a pair of Hui Li (回力) shoes the other day on Xiangyang Road. Like the popular Fei Yue brand of sneakers, Hui Li are cheap but durable and super comfortable Chinese shoes.

Not as rich in history as Fei Yue sneakers (which were first made in Shanghai in the 1920s), Hui Li (known as “Warrior” in English) came out in the 1970s to meet the local demand and budget for popular western-style shoes like Nike.

I got them for 49 RMB, and luckily they had my size. Dosa likes them too!

I’ve heard a lot about this restaurant Commando Chicken that serves – of all things – Mediterranean food (I’m not sure what I associated the name with, but it wasn’t gyros and schwarmas).

Curiosity finally got the best of me and I decided I had to try it out… and holy hell, am I glad I did! It’s probably the best bargain in the city, and the food – while no means gourmet – is great!

For 80 RMB (or around $12) we got:

- HUGE Chicken schwarma with potatoes and salad
- HUGE Rotisserie chicken pita with potatoes and salad
- Two orders of fries
- Chicken wings

Seriously: there was so much food we couldn’t come near to finishing it. And it was all really damn good!

Fast food pics always end up looking gross – it was way better than it looks:

Commando Chicken, you rule.

I love reading Shanghai Daily. It’s full of news about Shanghai and China, but even better is that it’s full of off beat and weird news (like the article in the image).

Compared to other publications, it isn’t as tightly controlled by the government and is less biased.

That said, I still find it odd that their site displays a banner ad promoting users to follow them on Twitter, considering Twitter has been blocked in China for the last year!

Could this not be considered encouraging users to break the law?

The new Line 7 interchange station on Line 1 has some pretty powerful and mobilizing photos about building a better metro system.

But what the hell is up with the spikes lining the exterior of the tunnel?

I know China is growing, modernizing, looking to the future, blah blah but maybe Level 7 of Contra is not the best model.

Here’s another pic that has the trains positioned like they are Transformers or something:

In the last year or so, these Food Safety Inspection notices have been popping up in restaurants and cafes all over town. Very few places seem to have the green face, and I’m guessing it may have more to do with guanxi than clean noodles.

Oddly enough, it’s still somewhat reassuring to know that most places I eat at earn a bright yellow look of apathy.

I never watch TV, but I’ve been hooked on this nightly miniseries on the Chinese Travel Network lately.

It’s about a Chinese modern-day Romeo who decided to hitchhike from Beijing to Berlin to be with his girlfriend. He and his chain smoking friend set off from Beijing with a video camera, backpacks, and head west.

Most of the time they are picked up by truck drivers, with the occasional good samaritan in a luxury sedan giving them a lift. They travel all through China, eventually crossing the border in Xinjiang to Kyrgyzstan.

Shortly after, the chain smoking guy needs to go back to Beijing for some reason and Romeo is on his own. The road eventually leads through all the ‘stans to the middle east, where he passes through war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq. The last episode he was in Bulgaria, where he inadvertently ends up staying at a trucker’s brothel.

Traveler or backpacker shows are a dime a dozen in the west, but what’s really interesting about this show is seeing it from a Chinese perspective, where budget travel is just starting to catch on.

Last week I came across these knock off video game systems and games at a supermarket in the south of town.

I realize that the Mega Man series is notorious for having a silly number of (almost identical) sequels, but even this is pushing it.