Saturday, August 6, 2011

Shanghai

Our trip to Shanghai was about eating. Every day, I had a list of places to eat, and we'd usually overstuff ourselves at lunch so we couldn't be bothered to eat a big dinner. We met up with Joel, Elisa & her daughter Megan for the first few days, and it's always nice to see friends in a foreign land. Thanks to Joel's Shanghai guide, we got to see some great stuff:
  • Walking to the local bao cart for breakfast each morning. On our last morning there, the cart was missing, and we even saw others asking for it. The baos we found on the food stall street nearby wasn't as good.
  • Walking through People's Park on Sunday afternoon and seeing parents with homemade ads to marry off their kids. We were able to recognize heights and photos of houses and cars.
  • Riding the maglev at 431 kph (269 mph).
  • Eating massive meals at Din Tai Fung, Crystal Jade and Jade Garden.
  • Going to the local favorite soup dumpling restaurant (Jia Jia Tang Bao) and then walking across the street to pick up fried soup dumplings (Yang's Fried Dumplings). JJTB is not as pretty nor consistent as Din Tai Fung (1 or 2 leaks out of 12), but tasty and good value. They run out of the pork filling early, but we liked the crab and pork dumplings. Yang's had stupidly good fried soup dumplings - crispy, gooey, chuy and soupy all in the same dumpling. The soup stayed hot even after our 10 minute walk back to the hotel.
  • Going to the Chinese circus. Mindblowing even if you've seen a Cirque du Soleil.
  • Showing Pete the Muji store. It's like a Container Store with Japanese sensibilities.
  • Taking pictures on the glass floor of the Oriental Pearl Tower. It is somewhat unnerving, pretty impressed that Christine managed to get air for this photo:

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