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Published: October 15th 2010
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Pudong & Huangpu River
The Oriental Pearl Tower is the weirdest, tallest building on the left and the World Financial Center is the building in the center with a hole through it. Monday (Oct. 4)...
we worked from home again since it was still the Chinese holiday. We also did a little more cleaning and some laundry…. the usual these days! I sat down, with the little bit of thread I brought in a travel sewing kit, and started to sew the fabric I bought at IKEA into a curtain for the kitchen. It turned out really well! I love the modern design of the fabric (you can see a picture in my first post). We weren’t sure how we would hang a curtain in the kitchen since the walls are all tile and there was no curtain rod installed. But we were lucky to find a tension shower curtain rod at IKEA for about $7… home improvement problem solved!
Jack from work had invited us to go out for dinner and a Chinese action film with his wife Echo Lee. Jack actually just started the new office in Chongqing, which is about 2,000 km. from Shanghai. His wife works at Expo though and is still living in Shanghai, so he was here to visit for the holiday. We met them at the subway stop near their apartment and I was
instantly impressed with their English skills. We were again presented with a gift… some snacks from Chongqing and a mug from Expo!
When we got to the restaurant, which in English is called Charcoal Grill Fish, we discovered it to be very nice! We were seated next to the window and had a great view from about the 5th floor of all the action on the street below. The menu was filled with pictures! Jack & Echo asked what we wanted to eat, and well, after last night, we said we’d try just about anything. We went through the menu and picked a pork dish that looked similar to Sesame Chicken from an American Chinese restaurant. For drinks we had Tsing Tao and Echo and I had a really yummy fruit drink with a curly straw! There were peanuts in a honey sauce, some fungus-like things that we weren’t entirely fond of and stir-fried peppers. Then they brought out the main entrée, a large fish boiling inside a huge catering pan with celery floating on the surface. We dug our chopsticks in and it was absolutely delicious! For dessert they ordered a sweet soup (which is a Chinese New
Year’s tradition) with little circular dumpling balls and noodles in it and some pumpkin cakes. The desserts were lacking on the sweetness Americans are used to, but were still tasty.
Over dinner, we talked about travelling and asked which places in China they liked most. Jack reiterated over and over how much he doesn’t like Shanghai because it is too big (Chongqing has only a mere 5 million people in the city) and Echo shared her love for the city. Earlier this year, when the company began exploring advancement to cities outside Shanghai and Beijing, Jack jumped at the opportunity to move to Chongqing, which is also Echo’s hometown. He is now the manager of the Chongqing office which has 6 employees.
After dinner Jack wanted to go see the new Chinese action film, but he had called the theater to find out if there were English subtitles and unfortunately there were not. 😞 So instead Jack suggested bowling 😊… he had never tried before! We took a short taxi ride and arrived in what looked like a very touristy area. After passing the Hongkou football stadium, we entered a casino-like building with pool on the main floor
Chinese Bowling
Jack, Echo, Blair & I and climbed the stairs to the second floor which was filled with karaoke rooms and then to the third floor which was the bowling alley. Once we got to the counter, I thought “oh crap”, are they going to have shoes big enough for Blair? Meanwhile Echo put her foot on the sizing board and asked for a size 3 and I was a pretty typical size 8. Blair then placed his foot on the sizer and was much larger than the largest size, 12. Jack asked and luckily they had a size 15 behind the counter which looked like they’d never been worn. Bowling in China was pretty similar to the United States (we were surrounded mostly by teenagers with nothing better to do), but instead of the typical Bud Light, we were served lemon tea water. Echo and I went to the bathroom and found that there was no toilet paper in the stalls… this is actually pretty typical in public bathrooms in China! You are supposed to carry tissues everywhere with you. We ended up buying some at the counter for 50 jiao (like 10 cents) and were good to go. We played 2 games and well,
The Bund
Notice all the people... there’s not much to say, it was bowling. We said our goodbyes and thanked them for the fun couples’ night out and took the subway home. This night will go down in history as one of our favorite memories in Shanghai!
Tuesday (Oct. 5)...
After working from the apartment again for a while, we decided to take the subway downtown to the Bund. The Bund is probably one of the most popular tourist attractions in Shanghai (and you can tell the minute you arrive). They say if you miss seeing the Bund, it is like going to Beijing and not visiting the Great Wall of China. As we rose from the subway stop at East Nanjing Road, which is home to one of the largest pedestrian shopping malls in Shanghai, we were instantly bombarded with people. The traffic signal changed and hundreds of people started crossing the street. As the crowd reached the other side of the street and people merged onto the narrowed sidewalk, pedestrian traffic came to a halt. Everyone began pushing their way to the sidewalk while the useless traffic police (who only have a life expectancy of 43 due to all the fumes they
inhale) tried to regulate. It was a mess! Once we were safely to the sidewalk and free from most of the traffic, I asked Blair why he wanted to move to Shanghai. He hates Walmart because there’s too many people! 😊 We determined that, even though we don’t enjoy every aspect, it will be a great experience.
Nanjing Road dead ends into the Huangpu River, which is where the Bund is located. The Puxi side of the river (where we were walking) is part of the original International Settlement and the streets are filled with historic buildings built mostly at the end of the 19th century. Across the river is the more recently developed Pudong, where the Oriental Pearl Tower and World Financial Center are located. The Bund is the greatest place to see this architectural difference between new and old Shanghai. Where Nanjing Road opens up to the river and Pudong, it is just stunning to see all the modern architecture. The Bund was of course filled with people. It was tough to find a location along the river where we could take a picture of just the two of us. Normally this would be a great place
Blair stands out a bit!
Notice the historic buildings in the background. to just sit and take in the scenery, but all the spots on the landscaping walls were taken. A girl who asked me to take a picture for her asked where I was from and commented that my hair was a very beautiful color. I suppose they don’t see blond hair that often! We were haggled a little bit by people selling purses, bags and scarves around the corner. When we heard “HELLO”, we just kept walking, pretending we didn’t know English.
We wandered around the area for a while and then decided we would head back toward our apartment to get dinner. We had already discussed our big dinner plans earlier that day... we were going to have an American night! We heard there was a Papa John’s near the office that Blair’s boss Garry eats at all the time when he is in Shanghai. Before we walked into the restaurant, Blair tried to find “carry-out” in our Mandarin phrase book with no luck. So we took the easy way out and just asked if any one spoke English. They found a waiter who did and we ordered one Hawaiian pizza to go! It’s amazing how much it
tasted just like Papa John’s in the US… it even came with peppers in the corners and garlic butter. Oh and by the way, the Papa John’s delivery vehicle is a moped! Haha! After walking home, we cracked some Heinekins and watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother that Blair had found online. What a refreshing feeling to have a little taste of home!
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