Shanghai Nights (4)

On Thursday morning I had telephoned Peter, our next door neighbour in Sydney who is working in Shanghai, as we had made loose arrangements by email to meet up while I was there. We arranged to contact again on Saturday morning as Peter was trying to throw off the remains of a nasty cold. After contacting him again as arranged we agreed to meet up at the Hotel at 3PM. This left me at a loose end for a couple of hours so I used the time to explore the local area near the hotel a bit more. I spent the morning strolling around, taking care not to get into any precarious situations either crossing the roads or otherwise. Eventually I ended up in a side road parallel to Dongfang Road. Here were many local shops and restaurants so I chose a likely looking one for lunch.

While entering the restaurant I made the usual enquiry to be sure that they had an English menu and it was just as well that I did. While flicking through the menu looking for something lightish to have for lunch I noticed that the menu contained dishes with dog meat as well as the pigs intestines I had seen on other menus. I am sure that both of these are nutritious and tasty but I don't want to eat either (or chicken's feet) unless I am desperate through starvation. If the menu had just been in Chinese and pictures of dishes I could well have been caught out. Anyway I ended up with a nice spicy duck dish cooked in the Hunan style. As usual there was far too much food but at around 35 RMB I felt justified in leaving some in the bowl.

Returning to the hotel prior to my meeting with Peter I took this shot of the St Regis from Dongfang Road.

St Regis Hotel, Pudong, Shanghai

The hotel is a mere 40 stories and my room was just over halfway up overlooking this road. The blue road information sign just to the right of the hotel is quite interesting. While driving with Yogi and Jasmine by taxi on Friday, I had commented that I found the road signs confusing. This was at a 4-way intersection and the sign had a name in a box at the bottom with arrays and names pointing to left and right, and an array to a boxed name pointing upwards (indication ahead I guessed). I couldn't work out what it was trying to tell me but Jasmine explained. The boxed name at the bottom is the name of 'this' cross street. If you follow the arrow to the right (turn right here) you will come to the street named beside the right-pointing arrow, similarly for the left-pointing array (this sign doesn't have one as there is no road to the left). So the boxed name pointed to by the 'up' arrow tells you the name of the street at the next intersection in the direction you are travelling. Excellently logical once you know how it works!

All of the streets that we saw in and around Shanghai were named in both simplified Chinese characters and in English which made it fairly easy to not get (too) lost. A couple of times the taxi drivers (different ones) taking us to the office got a little lost but they didn't take too long to find the trail of breadcrumbs again.

Back at the hotel I met Peter as arranged at 3PM and he suggested that we head over to the Shanghai side to do a bit of sightseeing. He was still coughing badly but had staunchly come out to make me welcome in his city. We took a taxi to the Bund and had a bit of a stroll along to look at the river and the city from the river. The weather was very hazy so photographs there would have been useless. It was quite cool so we crossed the road using the pedestrian underpass and walked down 'The Golden Mile' of the Bund. Peter pointed out the Peace Hotel building which also houses a bank. Unfortunately the hotel is undergoing restoration so, even though Peter's firm is involved in the project, we weren't allowed in. There was much controversy when it was built. Here is a link to some history (albeit with a biased 'feel' to it).

After looking at the Peace Hotel and also at other architecture nearby, Peter suggest that we go to Yuyuan Gardens in the old city. This is a combination of 400 year old gardens 'protected' by lots of tourist shops in Qing dynasty style buildings. It was incredibly crowded but a good place to visit to look at what is available souvenir-wise etc. Here is a snap of me, and another of Peter with the lake and buildings behind.

Me at Yu Gardens (I'm the one with white hair ;-)

Peter at Yu Gardens

I only made one purchase while at the Gardens - a porcelain mug, containing a porcelain infuser insert for making green tea. I like green tea but don't like picking the tea leaves off my teeth. I would probably be regarded as a major wimp by the Chinese!

Following Yu Gardens we jumped into yet another taxi and headed over to Xintiandi in the French Concession off Huaihai Road. Here there are many original buildings which have been restored with the outsides kept original but the insides modernised. We walked around and looked at some of this architecture which is typically like is shown in this photograph.

Architecture in the French Concession,
Xintiandi, Shanghai

We also saw, being set up, some entertainment being put on by the Irish Consulate for Irish Week leading up to St Patricks Day. There was a stage with musicians and dancers doing a little practicing so we watched for a couple of minutes.

Irish 'line dancers' practising,
Xintiandi, Shanghai

While wandering around, we also came across the building where the first ever Communist Meeting in China was held. The building has been preserved and seems to be a favourite spot for the 'I was here' snap.

Site of first-ever Communist Party Meeting in China

It was now early evening so Peter suggested that we dine at one of the most famous and popular Chines restaurants in Shanghai - XinJiShi which is one of a chain of 'Jishi' restaurants serving typical Shanghainese food. It was certainly most delicious and I appreciate Peter having introduced me to this food. In our western cities we rarely get to sample anything other than Cantonese style Chinese food (although there used to be a restaurant in North Sydney serving Sichuan style food)but there are a huge variety of alternatives arising from different parts of the country. I'd already tried Sichuan and Hunan and now this was one more regional variety which I'd had.