Soon after arriving in Shanghai early last year, I learned (the hard way) the importance of having a man-bag/purse…I lost my wallet!

It was a bit hard getting used to at first, toting a purse around, macho as I am (ha), but the benefits quickly became apparent. There is lots of stuff one needs when wandering around the city and relying on my better half/very significant other to schelp it around for me was not exactly fair.

So, after some hunting I found a very nice leather one made by a Chinese company, Victoria Cross, for 350¥. It was small/compact, as I wanted it, and very high quality. Until recently, this was large enough to suit my needs.

Now I’ve “upgraded” to a slight larger one made (supposedly) by Jeep. It too is all leather, but only 265¥. The quality is not as good, but it’s almost identical in design and function as the Victoria Cross one. Hopefully this will last me a very long time and I won’t need anything larger.

I’ll be keeping both 🙂

So, what have I found I regularly need on hand while out and about? Here’s a photo of it all:

 

From left to right, top to bottom:

1. Moped receipt (& business cards): Police may want to check your ownership if they stop you.
2. Hand towels/Kleenex: Most small restaurants don’t supply napkins, so bring your own.
3. Cash: Bus fair, grocery cart deposit, misc purchases.
4. Public transportation debit card: Good for Subway, Trains, Buses, Ships, Taxis.
5. Digital scale: street vendors are not always ‘accurate’ on produce weight.
6. USB cable: charging and data transfers
7. Two USB memory sticks: Data transfers and misc applications, plus one runs Ubuntu…just in case.
8. Umbrella: While weather predictions are slightly better than random, you still need to be prepared for that possible downpour.
9. Bag (strawberry): Most shops charge extra for bags, so bring your own.
10. Tape Measure: 3 meter. You never know when you might find something that may not fit!
11. Water: always good to have a bottle. Tap water is not potable.
12. Sunglasses (prescription): for my sensitive eyes. Most Chinese don’t wear sunglasses.
13. Mini/stealth video camera: I use it on my moped to record every trip I take…just in case.
14. Compact camera: When the smartphone camera just isn’t good enough.

I keep my cell phone in my pocket for quick access, plus I have a mount for it on our moped so I can use Google Maps/Driving directions while on the move.

And there you have it. I lot of stuff, but things I’ve found I needed more often than not.

P.S. I have also opened up comments for new posts for the first 10 days of a new post. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully I won’t be inundated with robo-spam…