January 2012: Three Days in Shanghai

On January 7th, we left for a 14 day adventure in Beijing, Shanghai, San Franciscio and Napa Valley. This post details our time in Shanghai.

1.14.12 – Marriott Courtyard Puxi Shanghai

We basically lost this entire day travelling to Shanghai. Our previous tour took an earlier flight so we at least had the afternoon. This time, we had a 1:30 pm, flight and a hotel departure of 10:30am. We got the Shanghai hotel – The Marriott Courtyard Puxi - around 5:30 pm. The Marriot is very nice.  Our room had a king bed with a glass walled shower looking into the bedroom.

The shower had a rain showerhead and a regular showerhead that could be used at the same time. It was one of the nicest rooms both Glenn and I had stayed in. When we arrived, it was raining and cold so Glenn and I decided to just have dinner at the hotel restaurant. I ended up getting some fantastic carrot soup and a great Black Cod dish. I wasn’t feeling well after dinner so we called it a night.

1.15.12 Big Bamboo, Propaganda Art Center, Boxing Cat Brewery, Xiantaldi, Tian Zi Fung

The breakfast buffet at the Courtyard was incredible and overwhelming. So many great options – sticky rice, BBQ pork buns, plus all the Western options, fresh fruit, Danish, etc. After breakfast, Glenn had a great idea to find a spot to watch the Patriots playoff game. After some internet research, we headed to Big Bamboo.

Walking in was a little shocking – the place was absolutely packed! We found a little spot upstairs at the bar and ordered two of the biggest beers I have seen in a while. The game started at 9:30 am Beijing time.

It was a lot of fun. After 4 hours of beer, BLTs and Patriot victory, we headed out for some culture. I had read about the Propaganda Art Centre in the guidebook so we set out to find it. It’s a little weird because it is in the basement of an apartment complex in the French Concession. Admission was US$4 a person. It features propaganda posters from the 40s thorough the late 70s. Very pro-Russia and anti-American posters in the early years. Lots of pro-worker, we will rise together, and join Korea messaging.

Surprising to me were the posters calling for support of the US Civil Rights and the US Anti-Vietnam movements. It was also interesting to see how the messaging moved to anti-Russia statements towards the 70s. I was surprised by the hand written signs containing quotes from Mao and indictments of neighbors and friends who weren’t supporters. Mao supporters would hang these indictments up in their neighborhood on any open surface.

  We headed back toward the subway – stopping at the Boxing Cat Brewery to try their Scotch Ale and Winter Warmer Ale.

It’s really developed since we were there 2 years ago though the clientele is still all expats. We bundled up and headed toward Xintaldi – a high end shopping area. It’s a few shops along an older set of buildings then conenected to a large mall. The mall was a set of very small boutiques with only a couple shelves of tops or pants. It’s amazing there’s enough business. We then headed down to Tian Zi Fung – a great little shopping area in a series of alleys.

We had dinner in a café. I had the best cup of tea – a citrus tea with honey. I also had a greal meal with Kimchi rice “cakes” – more like very dense long gnocchi. It was so interesting and so good.

Glenn had a good fried rice dish.

After dinner, we headed back to the Courtyard.

1.16.12 Science and Technology Fake Market, Fried Dumplings, Xian Nan Guo Spa and Dim Sum

The day started with a leisurely breakfast. We headed down to the fake market at the Science and Technology Museum. The area was very nice.  Individual stores had one type of item – purses, clothes, jackets, scarves, etc. We went through several of the purse stores.  Merchants offered secret rooms of Louis Vuitton and pulled LV wallets from under piles of other purses. I am not a Louis Vuitton girl so I found it very humorous. I did find a great red travel bag (or bowling bag as Glenn likes to call it). The store owner gave the price at 480RMB (US$80). I got her down to 180RMB (US$30) after walking away. I feel like I got a very good price for this lovely leather bag. I found another beautiful 8.5x 11” pink purse. She started at 780RMB (US$130). I got her down to 165RMB (US$27) again walking away twice. We headed back to the hotel with our purchases. After dropping things off, we headed back out in search of a soup dumplings. We had general info on how to find the dimpling place, but after a thirty minute search, we gave up and headed to a Vietnamese restaurant for pho soup, cuttlefish balls, and sautéed pork. YUum!

We regrouped and headed back out to continue our dumpling search. We found it!!

We bought four dumplings for US$1. The dumplings were steaming hot and the liquid poured out when I bit into them.

They were very very good. After dumplings, we headed west to a bath house. This was definitely a locals’ place. It is affiliated with and located behind a well-known dim sum restaurant Xian Nan Guo.  We were told to follow the signs through the alley.

We were pleasantly surprised to emerge from the dumpsters and employee parking to find a four story building. We turned in our shoes, got slippers, and headed to the separate men’s and women’s areas. It was time to take it all off. No one spoke English, but they pointed me to where to shower and then head out to the whirlpools, steam room, and saunas. I opted for a very thorough body scrub. I laid on a table and an attendant scrubbed off my dead skin cells with a rough glove while I got a cucumber mask. Glenn said the men’s area (and scrub) was very similar. After the whirlpools and steam room, I changed into their Hawaiian print pajamas and headed up to the 4^th floor. The second floor had a café for dim sum. The 3^rd floor was private mahjong and game playing rooms. The 4^th floor had a VIP area, treatment rooms and the recliner room. I walked into a room with 125 recliners, each with their own tv. From here, we ordered juices, dim sum and received an intense 90 minute foot massage. I squirmed a little bit as the masseuse applied pressure to my sore feet. The foot massage even included cupping – where the masseuse heated the inside of a glass cup and applied it to the bottom of my feet. The heat creates a suction to increase blood flow. This was so weird at first and I won’t try it until Glenn assured me that it did not hurt. It ended up being the most relaxing part of the massage.  After five hours there, we figured we should head back to the hotel. The five hours, scrubs, massages, juices and dim sum all totaled $110 for the two of us. Just awesome!

1.17.12 – The Long Journey Back to San Francisco

Our long journey home started with a flight from Shanghai to Beijing then from Beijing to San Francisco. The Air China flight was Beijing to San Francisco was a little scary. During takeoff – water began streaming from the overhead bins.

The woman next to me collected about 7 ounces of water by making a little cup out of her plastic covered blanket. Then we hit turbulence that made the plant pitch and creak in a way that was disconcerting. The leaking began again on the descent. We will not be flying on Air China again. Ever. 

After gathering our bags and our rental car, we headed back to the Vagabond Inn Executive. We got to the hotel around 1:30 pm – about 2 hours after landing. Usually, we try to adapt to the local time, but both Glenn and I were suffering from severe colds so we just slept for 7 hours, had some pizza and went back to sleep. After a very rough night where my fever broke and Glenn could not shake a severe cough, we were ready to head to Napa Valley.

Day 8 – Our own private tour of Shanghai

We met our guide, Eee yore, this morning at 9:00 am. She just finished university last year. Her major was foreign trade, but she can make more money being a tour guide as few as 7 days a month than the salary for a starting position in her field of study. There was a slightly awkward moment when Sam, our Friendly Planet tour guide came down and saw us with her, but oh well. We jumped into a taxi and headed for the French Concession. Our first stop was Fuxing Park. It is an amazing park. It was so great. There were so many there doing their “morning exercises.” This means people were out practicing revolution songs of their youth, practicing calligraphy using water on the sidewalk, practicing tai chi, ballroom dancing, line dancing to “Santa Claus is coming to town”, playing badminton and practicing kung fu. It was just so cool. We walked around. A man who was drawing calligraphy on the sidewalk stopped us and wanted to write a special message for us. He wrote “Happy New Year” and “Wishing you Happy Travels”.

We walked down the street to a many set of alleys filled with shops and restaurants called Tianzi Fang. It was tiny little shops where the owners lived upstairs. It is also the home to many artists and their galleries. After that, we headed to Jade Buddha Temple. It’s the first Buddha temple we visited. The smell of incense hung in the air. We first visited the Hall of Kings – where the four kings reside. Together, each of the characters of their names forms the phrase “Everything will be alright.” Then off to see many different Buddha with the final Buddha – the jade Buddha in the reclining position. It was a little disconcerting to see such a relic smack dab in the middle of a gift shop.

Feeling hungry, we headed to Old Town – the location of the Yu Garden we saw the first day. We tried stinky tofu from a street vendor. It tastes a lot like regular fried tofu except it smells terrible as it cooks. Then we went to a Shanghai restaurant for lunch. We tried soup dumplings. These tiny dumplings magically hold liquid so it’s a burst of soup when you bite into them. We also had fried noodles and regular dumplings. Feeling fortified, we walked around Old Town. Glenn bargained with a street vendor to get a New Year’s decoration. The vendor started at 160 RMB, but Glenn quickly got him down to 25 RMB just by walking away. Yay! We walked down “Food Street” which was filled with street vendors. It was fine because it was winter, but with all the raw food out, I definitely would have been squeamish if it was summer.

We hopped on the ferry to go to the other side of the river to visit the Oriental Pearl Tower. We took the local ferry since it was only 8 cents a person. However, this was also the ferry all the motorbikes so we had to dodge the bikes and the gas fumes getting off the ferry. We walked over to the Oriental Pearl Tower – one of the tallest TV towers in the world. We headed up to the observation deck. It was a pretty good view even with the pollution. One of the coolest parts was one floor down where they have a skywalk – an observation deck with a see through floor. It was really cool and a little scary. Back down on ground level, we wandered through the museum. It had stamps from the Communist regime where people were paid with stamps instead of currency. For instance, you could get a stamp for food, furniture, bus pass, a bike, etc. Then we walked through the depictions of Shanghai over the years. It really is incredible the influence the international community had on the development of this city. After this excursion, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel. All said and done, hiring a private guide and paying for all our transportation and admissions cost us only $44 more than if we had taken the optional tour offered through Friendly Planet plus we got to see more, eat better food, and do it all at our own pace. Tonight we are going out to dinner and drinks with our Friendly Planet tour guide Sam. We are pretty excited to get to just hang out with him.

Dinner with Sam was great. He had heard of a street with bars and restaurants in the French Concession so we hopped in a cab and headed there. Our cab quickly came to a dead stop because a dump truck was blocking the entire road as the demolition crew was using a front loader to fill it – right in the middle of the street. Finally after five minutes of non-stop honking the dump truck took a loop around the block to clear traffic. WE arrived at the street which was just outside a shopping mall. We perused all the restaurants and the busiest restaurant was a German Beer Hall so we ended up there. We think it was Sam’s first time with German food and beer. We ordered a cold cut and cheese platter and pretzels. It was really good. We had a really nice time with Sam just chatting about his family and our life back in the States. We called it an early night because he had to be up early to see some of the tour off on their flights to Hong Kong. This morning we had a leisurely breakfast and finishing getting packed. We have a flight from Shanghai to Beijing, a three hour layover and then our 12 hour flight from Beijing to Los Angeles. We have definitely loved China and will put it on our list of places to visit again.

Day 7 The Bund, Microbreweries and a very interesting taxi ride

Today we headed out into the Bund district just south of our hotel. It’s right on the river and the architecture is quite interesting. We took the advice of the guidebook and found this quaint little café in the middle of an office building and had our morning cappuccino. A cappuccino costs more than most purses, but is SO worth it. Then we walked down to the People’s Square and the Shanghai Museum. Both were very nice. We toured the jade, bronze, furniture, and currency exhibitions at the Museum. The People’s Square had a central park type of feel. Shanghai is very different than Beijing. It has a higher population, more bikes, and was developed by foreign interests. The British began the invasion winning what was called the British concession – a section of Shanghai that was controlled by the British. Many countries followed with their own concessions. The French concession is still the name of a popular neighborhood even though the Chinese are back in control.

After the museum, we headed over to the Bund Brewery – a micro brewery in the Bund area. They had three types of beer: light, wheat and dark. We had a nice lunch of dark beer, chicken wings and fish and chips. Then we headed to the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. This Tunnel was hilarious! It’s a cheap Disney ride that transports tourists from one side of the river to the other. You board single train cars that go on a track through the tunnel passing through paradise, hell, the sky and the underwater world – all designated by different colors of lights. So funny! On the other side of the river, we set off looking for the Chinese Sexual Culture Museum – which we couldn’t believe actually existed. Well, after looking high and low we learned it had closed. Big surprise. The trip was still worth it as we had a lovely walk down the Riverside Promenade. Back through the Sightseeing Tunnel and to Nan Jing Road – the Mecca of shopping. It’s neon-upped just like Times Square and just as busy. It was fun to walk through all the shops and I got a few bargains.

Then we bravely figured out the metro and headed into the French Concession in search of another micro-brewery: Boxing Cat Brewery. We found it pretty easily. I guess our navigation skills are getting better. We tried the four beers on tap: Stout, IPA, Vienna Lager, and the Light Lager. The IPA and Vienna Lager were very hoppy. We got a chance to meet the brew master and he was fascinating. He is originally from Houston and has been in Shanghai for three years. He has to import all his ingredients. The hops are the most difficult to get and he resorts to having friends who are coming to visit bring the hops in their luggage. He has to tailor his beer to the ingredients on hand which can be quite a challenge. We also had dinner there – a shrimp po’boy and a hamburger. We definitely needed a break from the Chinese spinner dinner.

After dinner, we grabbed a taxi, showed him our hotel card which has the hotel address and map in Chinese. Our taxi driver had NO IDEA where he was going. He drove the wrong way down one way streets. We definitely saw areas of Shanghai we would have never seen otherwise. He even tried to drop us off at a place called the Spicy Horse in one of the neighborhoods down by the dock. He finally made it to a place where we recognized where we were and we had him let us off. We headed to the Hotel’s British Bar for a drink. The décor was British, but the music was very loud Dr. Dre. After an overpriced round of drinks, we just decided to head back to the room and chill. We have hired a private guide for tomorrow. It’s less than the cost of the optional city tour with our tour company and we’ll get to see more. We both are pretty excited.

Day 6 – Well, hello Shanghai

We got up early this morning and headed out to the airport for our flight to Shanghai. It was nice because they had group check in so the bellmen picked up our luggage, checked it in at the airport and our tour guide just handed out our boarding passes. No line, no wait. The flight was uneventful. We got to Shanghai and boarded the fastest train in the world – the Maglov! It was VERY exciting. It gets up to 430 km/hour which is something like 220 mph. It’s a magnetic levitation so it floats above the track. It was awesome! It covered 30 km in 8 minutes. Very exciting.

After getting off the train, we headed to lunch. Another day, another lazy susan filled with Chinese food adapted for tourists. Then off to the Yu Garden. The Yu Garden is in a section of town called Old Town. It’s winding, narrow streets filled with tiny shops, then you come across this walled off garden. The garden is filled with beautiful rock structures, waterfalls, and small canals. It was really lovely. It was built by a high ranking official during the Ming dynasty.

After the Garden, we headed back to the hotel to check in. It was about 4:30 pm. Glenn and I laid down for a quick nap. That nap lasted until 10:30 pm when we got up and went to bed. We are very well rested for our day today – wandering around the Bund district.