We arrived safe and sound in Shanghai yesterday and are staying at the beautiful (and beautifully situated!) Bund Riverside Hotel. We have personal wifi for our room which is very exciting, and have already made friends with the bell hop, Rain, by giving him a nice tip for helping us with our bags. To be fair though, he may or may not have been fired since yesterday as we're yet to see him after he helped Lauren set up her phone by literally leaving work and walking us to the store. (We're pretty sure his boss told him to, but his colleagues seemed pretty confused by it. So many questions.)
We're pretty tired, so I'm going to do my best to be moderately concise in my explanation of our time here so far. As you've likely noticed, brevity is not really my thing, so we'll see how this goes. Highlights:
1. 1. Coco: Coco is Lauren's favorite bubble tea place, and was on our food list. Upon arriving in Shanghai, we needed a little snack to tide us over, and walked through People's Square in a fruitless search for one for more than an hour. We ended up getting a dumpling filled with tofu and spices which sounds weird but was actually delicious. We then immediately stumbled upon Coco after Coco and ended up getting one of those to split. I found it to be pretty whatever, but to be fair, the tapioca balls in bubble teas really freak me out so I was going into the whole experience with a bad attitude. We're hoping to get back to one again before I leave – I'll be going sans bubbles next time.
2. 2. Dinner: We went to Lauren's future apartment for dinner where she'll be living with her friends Andrew and Tracy. They were kind enough to offer to cook us dinner. Their friends Ron, from Canada, and Rambo, from northern China by Russia who chose the best English name ever, were there too. They made a great meal including fish, tofu, potatoes, a couple of vegetable dishes and a lot of beer. Andrew and Tracy are hilarious – we learned all sorts of North Korea jokes, about how the fish should point to the leader, how blood means money, and many other hilarious and exciting things. The apartment is incredible – I'm very jealous that Lauren will be living in such a big apartment in such a great location with such great people! We had a really good time!
3. 3.More fooooooooood – We knocked the famous Shanghai soup-filled dumplings off our list for breakfast this morning. Obviously, they were delicious. We still need to find the steamed version though.
4. 4. The Bund (AM) – The morning, we headed over to the Bund (where the famous Shanghai skyline is) to check it out during the daytime. We have a fairly good view of the Pearl Tower from our hotel room but it was really neat to see it up close(r). Even during the day, it's a pretty impressive skyline, but the real way to see it is at night.
5. 5. Lunch – We met up with another one of Lauren's friends, Chong Hong (Lauren's trying to prove how popular she is here) for lunch. He's super nice and friendly! We went to a fairly fancy restaurant which they had been to before. Lauren knew exactly how to get there which is surprising as her sense of direction is not always 100% - I guess she just followed her nose? We got a ton of food, but were able to knock three more things off of our list: scallops in garlic sauce with glass noodles (ahhhhhsogood), fried buns with condensed milk (incredible, but weird because they were served in the middle of the meal even though they're clearly a dessert-type dish in my mind), and a famous Southern Chinese fish dish (which was made in the best sauce ever). Lauren and I had to tap out of the meal with a lot still left because we were super full, but Chong Hong was having none of it. He said he couldn't stand dishes being left unfinished and proceeded to stuff his skinny body full of nearly everything left on the table. I appreciated his dedication, but was fairly certain he was going to throw up at a few points. He pulled through like a champion though. In his own words, "The Chinese will eat everything but the table and chairs."
6. 6. Tianzifang – Now, after lunch I personally felt disgusting so I could only imagine how Chong Hong felt. We all needed to walk around a bit so we headed to Tianzifang, which is a sort of artsy market area with lots of shops and cafés. It was fun to look around but really disappointing because they had lots of fun food but we were too full to even think about it.
7. 7. The French Concession – Chong Hong had to go, so Lauren and I continued onwards to the French Concession, a fancier area of the city with a large European influence. We saw some cool buildings, almost got shot in front of the US Embassy for trying to take a picture – you know, the usual. There wasn't all that much to see, although we stumbled into the Shanghai Library and popped in quickly before heading back to our hotel.
8. 8. Sweet, sweet exercise – As I mentioned, we felt gross. Luckily, Lauren has her gym here in Shanghai (since she's lived here before) and we wanted to meet up with her friends who worked there anyway, so we headed to that area to go for a run. Lauren's super cool, so she spent most of the time watching me run while she conversed with her many gym rat friends in rapid Chinese – some "exercise," am I right? It was greeeeeeeeeeat to run though. Regardless, we ended up getting free water, using of one of the fancy rooms in the gym for part of our workout, and making plans for tomorrow night (which I hope involve karaoke), so I was okay with it.
9. 9. Warrmarr – Unclear what the Chinese actually is, but that's what it sounds like. Yep, we went to Walmart, if only briefly, because Lauren's friends who work at the gym are the people you hate in whatever city you live in who are trying to hand you fliers to join one thing or another. After Lauren said her hellos we popped in to the store itself briefly to see what sorts of excitement it offered. Some highlights: Lauren's water bottle had to be taped and sealed in a bag before we were allowed in, free samples, and condoms that were labeled "jean" at the checkout. Curious.
10 10. Yang's Famous Dumplings - Dinner. Delicious. Famous for a reason. How did we get there? We asked someone where we could get said dumplings (they're on the list) and they pointed us down this unlit, super sketchy alley. The whole way through I was whispering "we're going to get murdered" under my breath (aka saying it fairly loudly) but we made it and Yang's was well worth the potential death.
11 11. The Bund (night) – Much more exciting. We now have pictures in the same location with the same clothes (I promise we showered after we exercised) on at different times of day. Loves it.
12 12. Dessert – McFlurry - it was like...oreo and caramel and everything good about the world. Not sorry.
We're off to bed! Tomorrow we're hoping to hit the rest of the "must-sees" in Shanghai, because before long I'll have to say goodbye! (I hope you caught the rhyme I was going for.)
No comments:
Post a Comment