Jess and I headed up to Shanghai overnight from Nanchang, arriving there the morning before Spring Festival day. We spent a fair bit of time looking for the hostel Jess found online. I recommended we stay at a hotel by the train station, but Jess gave me a stern look when I suggested a sleazy looking place right by the ticket office. That could only mean one thing, so we caught a cab in pursuit of this hostel of which I can't even remember its name. Our cab driver had a hell of a time finding the little alley the hostel was situated in. It took some time and way too much money before we found it.
The people who run this hostel are actually quite lucky I forgot the name because it gets scathing reviews from me. We walked through the antique looking double doors into a very nice quaint lobby, including a small bridge that walks over a goldfish pond. All was looking well so far. Plus, beds were only 50 kuai a night. But this is for good reason, considering the quality of the room our beds were in. It was like a dark cave in the middle of this building. The only window looked out into the hallway, which was right next to the bathroom. A festering urine miasma lingered in the hall, which in turn lingered in our room. Plus it was freezing cold and some stooge was sleeping in my bed. I wanted out, so I got Jess out of her bed and we got our money back and left. This is when I waste our time looking for hotels all around the vicinity of the train station which were all sold out, all while Jess is grudgingly following my lead. I eventually brought us over to Captain Hostel on Fuzhou lu and The Bund and got us some hostel beds for 70 a night per person, with benefits. Each night's stay included a free breakfast, a discount at the Captain Bar
(the hostel's rooftop bar which has one of the most spectacular views of the Shanghai Pudong skyline), and a free internet coupon. Not a bad deal, except that we had to stay in seperate rooms designated for either men or women. I think it was worth the extra dough and inconvinience of having different rooms considering it didn't resemble the cave-like residence of a stinky vagrant.This was my sixth trip to Shanghai, but Jess's first. We spent our time walking the various tree-lined streets and avenues all around the Puxi side. I made sure to cop a few of those listings magazines, including That's Shanghai, City Weekend, and Shanghai Enjoy Classifieds, which were a lot of help as usual when looking for a nice place to eat or drink. Shopping ensued, legs got tired, naps followed. Everyday was utilized to the max and we slept well, or at least tried despite some of our inconsiderate room mates. Jess shared a room with a mother daughter combo who would wake up at 7am and bitch and yell at eachother the entire time they were getting ready. I had a couple of guys who liked to leave the lights on at all hours while they smoked cigarretes and did god knows what else up on their bunks all night. It drove my eyes and nose crazy.
After the whole ordeal of finding a room, our first day consisted of walking. We walked all along The Bund. We got on Nanjing lu and walked all the way down to its west side where the Ritz Carlton is. We scoped out a lot of the shopping opportunities we could share with Jess's mom for when she arrived. We found a pretty good Thai restaurant in one of the malls on Nanjing xilu, where I enjoyed a delicious Thai style salmon steak. Despite the energizing lunch, we were pretty beat from taking an overnight train from Nanchang that arrived at 5am, so we took a nice nap in my bed until that evening. We started out at the Captain Bar for a few drinks. Then we walked out to The Bund again to see all the Spring Festival revelry. There was plenty of souvenier hawkers and yangrou chuanr to go around. It was actually the worst yangrou chuanr I've ever had. It doesn't even deserve to be called yangrou chuanr. More like yangfei chuanr seeing that it was basically grilled lamb fat on a stick. Horribly seasoned too. There must have been a lot of opportunists who were definitely not soldiers of the scene when it comes to grilling a good lamb stick.
We moved on back to Nanjing lu to get a few drinks at Windows Underground. I forgot how amazing it feels to order a 10 kuai whiskey. Not since my study abroad in Beijing days have I had such a treat. There were a few performances at Windows Underground. The magic show was impressive. So was the bianlian (mask changing). Jess wasn't too thrilled about the skanky dancers that came on stage shaking and jiggling it. It got a lot of the guys' attention though. Especially the MC, who was a young tiny Chinese guy attempting to be a thuggish rapper, saying "oh yeah, shake that shit" over and over again with a nearly incomprehensible accent.
We rushed back to the Captain Bar before midnight to catch the crazy fireworks show all along the skyline. People were also sending off those flying red lanterns. It was bright and spectacular. Not to mention noisy. Shanghai's fireworks laws are actually enforced so it wasn't as impressive as I've seen in other smaller cities. Fortunately, the Pudong side has less of these restrictions so we managed to see a pretty good show from where we were standing.The next day we got up for a brunchtime meal at the City Diner. I got a much needed quality burger (McDonald's really doesn't cut it in terms of actual burgers, and Nanchang doesn't have restaurants that sell quality burgers, nor will it seem to be getting a Burger King anytime soon). Jess's quesadillas were good too. It's alwasy nice to eat with your girlfriend when she doesn't want to finish her own meal.
We went to Garden Books afterwards and did a lot of browsing. It was amazing to see a decent foreign bookstore after just several months in Nanchang. The "foreign" bookstore in Nanchang is actually just a language study bookstore, and doesn't even have a selection of foreign language study books, which I found out about when searching for books for teaching Business English. I picked up two books, for which I paid a pretty penny. Bangkok Babylon: The Real-Life Exploits of Bangkok's Legendary Expatriates by Jerry Hopkins is about Bangkok's legendary expatriates, whom most of which belong to the baby boomer generation and are continuing to grow old (or die) in Bangkok's go-go bar scene. It's a pretty fun and engaging read. It's full of some real interesting and unbelievable life stories that make me wonder if one must be in just the right place at just the right time to have a life like that. I also bought The Road To Samarcand by Patrick O'Brian, which is turning out to be just a decent adventure book that uses a lot of old annoying Wade-Giles spellings of Chinese words and places.
After the bookstore, we moseyed up to the Moller Villa on Shaanxi lu, which has been described as a "fantasy castle in fairy-tale imperatorial garden villa-style boutique hotel located at the downtown Shanghai." The Moller Villa was built in 1936 and was used as a hotel then, and has since been renovated by the Hengshan Group where they rent its rooms for ridiculous sums of money to "single-eyed customers, dignitaries and celebrities with all the heart." It has a beautiful garden where Jess and I spent some time strolling. It's one of those unique sites you find in the middle of mega-modern-metropolis Shanghai, and has a sort of classic European feel with a Hasbro's Candyland edge.We spent the rest of the day walking down Huaihai lu, where we found the yet to be open Barbie shop and spa (which is probably open now as I'm writing this). I'm pushing for Jess to work there as Barbie herself. We walked into the Westin on our way back to the Captain to get afternoon tea. We decided it was far overpriced and walked out, getting our afternoon tea at a nearby Family Mart, which ended up being an afternoon Gatorade with hot steamy baozi and cold onigiri. I'm loving the Japanese influence in Shanghai. Every corner seems to have either a Family Mart or a Lawson. They have pretty much all the things I loved about Japanese convenient stores, but cheaper. Plus, they're open all night.
We started that night at Tasca on Tongren lu for Burrito Mama night. It's every Monday and Tuesday. Beef burritos are 10 kuai, margaritas are 20, and beers are only 15. Pretty amazing deal if you ask me. I scarfed down a couple burritos and drank rita after rita. The place was empty besides us and two older gentlemen, one from Germany and one from the States who are both working in eastern China. They weren't aware of the deal that night because it isn't promoted very well. The waiter didn't even mention it to them as they ordered food and drinks which were far more expensive. I must have spent 100 kuai and got a good filling Tex-Mex meal and drunker than I could have expected for that amount of money. The two gentlemen joined us for those after-dinner margaritas we kept ordering. We moved on to a nearby bar afterwards and watched some pole-dancers shake their stuff. We were also the only ones in there and it seemed as if it was more of a pole-dancing practice session. We moved onto another bar called Goodfellas on Julu lu. It was another dive, much like the other bars on Julu lu, but the drinks were reasonably priced and the atmosphere was right. We parted ways with smiles and went to bed.
The next day we went over to the Pudong side to check out some tall buildings. We went into the Jinmao tower, where we saw the amazing interior of the Grand Hyatt. Definitely an essential destination when site-seeing in Shanghai. And if you have the money, stay there. It's awesome. We enjoyed the view from the top residence floor down to the cafe/lounge in the center, 30 floors down. The patrons look almost like ants from that high up, and it's all indoors. We eventually went down into the cafe, where I got an overpriced pot of pu'er tea, which was "not to be shared." You have to pay double if you want another cup to share with your mate. Ridiculous policy, but lucky for me, Jess isn't keen on hot drinks, so I enjoyed the tea by myself. I don't think I'll be going back to this cafe. Overpriced with snobby service. Looking up the vacuous beehive like interior from the bottom isn't as amazing as it is looking down from the top anyway.We did a little relaxing and napping back at the Captain after our Pudong adventure. I found an all you can eat barbeque deal in one of the listings mags for that night at O'Malley's. The place is pretty nice. More of a bar atmosphere than a restaurant, but also catering to family's with small children (they have a big private playground in front of it). The all Filipino staff didn't help us when we walked in and weren't very friendly or helpful after we had claimed a table. They didn't even have the bbq we came for, so we ended up just leaving. I spotted a nice looking Indian place on the cab ride over, so we walked on up there for what was a much more satisfying meal than what O'Malley could have prepared that night. False advertisement is a huge no-no in my book so O'Malley's is dead to me.
Kaveen's Kitchen, the Indian place we found, is a great restaurant. It's located on Huashan lu, above the Old Manhattan Bar. It's small, cozy, and well decorated. The staff is swift, helpful, and charming. And the food is close to impeccable. I highly recommend the place to anyone who wants to combine Indian food with an intimate romantic dinner date. After dinner, we ended that night pretty early, spending the rest of it relaxing in the Captain's lobby before we went to bed.The next day was more walking, site-seeing, and eating. We walked along The Bund again, looking for the Astor House, which interested us because we had heard about it in Rob Gifford's China Road, a book we're both very fond of. No luck. We found the old British Embassy, also featured in China Road.
The old embassy and its surrounding buildings are beautiful, but also depressing, because they're on the chopping block to be replaced by new developments. A short walk from Nanjing lu and/or The Bund, we found a great little International restaurant called Puzzle. It offers many dishes from around the world and it's INCREDIBLY CHEAP! It was like we struck gold. Really good and fresh individual salads for under 10 kuai. Nice sized sandwiches of all varieties for around 12 kuai. Individual soups, also under 10. The pizza was also quite inexpensive and well made. And they had raw oysters, 2 for 10 kuai. I ordered the cobb salad, the smoked salmon sandwhich, and the oysters, which was only about 30 kuai. Amazing. This first trip to Puzzle wouldn't be the last during our few remaining days in Shanghai.
We went to Yuyuan for a walk around after lunch. I played a carnival style bb gun shooter game, where I got ripped off paying the guy too much money for it. It was all shopping after that. We went back to Garden Books for some dessert after I got tired of the crowds at Yuyuan. Jess got her beloved cheesecake, and I got some very tasty sorbet. It was a triple scoop threat, including strawberry, rasberry, and grapefruit. It's really fresh too. The grapefruit sorbet actually tastes like you're eating a fresh grapefruit. That evening was spent relaxing again. We got some Muslim knife-cut noodles around the corner from the Captain on Sichuan lu. Best Muslim noodles I've had in China. I met a few Xinjiang hawkers right around that area selling yangrou chuanr and that really dense peanut cake. I got me a few chuanr and a few grams of that cake, all while making friendly chat with the gentlemen selling them. Much better than those stooges on The Bund new year's eve.
We got up the next day and checked out of our hostel bunks and upgraded to a regular hotel room on the floor above. I got to take a nice shower in our newly acquired private bathroom. We discovered Shanghai has its own English language channel, as well as CCTV9. We watched an episode of Hannah Montana on this channel, which included short interludes where a young Chinese woman introduced "American slang" used in the show. Chinese viewers learned what "peace out" means this episode, along with "holy nuggets," which is apparently common southern American slang. I guess I learned a little something too this episode.
We went out for another lunch at Puzzle. This time I got the tom yum soup, another cobb salad, and the goose breast sandwhich. Another great and filling 30 kuai meal. Jess tried out the garlic pesto pizza, and it was pretty good for what it's worth. A little bland, but this restaurant is great and provides tobasco, so no problem when Jess shared her pizza with me.
We hopped on the subway afterwards, towards the maglev, so we could pick up Jess's mom at the Pudong airport. She made it in on time and we cabbed back to the Captain. We spent that evening walking up Nanjing lu, followed by another meal at Kaveen's kitchen. We sure were hitting up a lot of the same places all throughout our short trip to Shanghai.We thought Jess's mom would enjoy Yuyuan, so we went back there for more shopping. We explored some of the residential areas around Yuyuan that weren't touristy at all and discovered an outdoor food market, something Jess's mom wanted to see. I always hear that Shanghai is "too Western" or "too modern" or that is has "too many foreigners." Sure, it's very modern, and very Western compared to other places in China, but it still retains its Chinese-ness. There's tons of foreigners, but way more Chinese, of course. If you seek the West in Shanghai, you'll find it, no problem. If you seek China in Shanghai, you'll find that too. So like Bill Maher: New Rule! No more saying Shanghai isn't the "real" China. Go back and do a little more than what a Fodor's travel guide or That's Shanghai will tell you, and do a little exploring yourself. Meet the people who don't speak English and don't care about learning it. There's millions of them in Shanghai and they are very Chinese. Shanghai is just one example of China's diversity.
After Yuyuan, we went to walk around the French Concession area. More beautiful tree-lined streets, where colonial style architecture meets the modern. All the walking got our appetites going, and sure enough, we went back to Puzzle. The ladies enjoyed another pizza, and I got the ministrone soup, another cobb salad, and a club sandwich. Again, 30 kuai for all of that. The ladies paid even less for their meal. We went back to Pudong to show Jess's mom the tall buildings. We saw the Grand Hyatt again. The ladies walked around the shops in the World Financial Center, and I went up to the top in the Park Hyatt to see one of the most amazing views in Shanghai, without having to pay to go in some observatory. The Park Hyatt is actually the highest hotel in the world. Its lobby overlooks the entire Jinmao tower, which is 1,380 feet tall. The Shanghai World Financial Center stands at a whopping 1,614 feet, making it the second tallest skyscraper in the world. After making my way down to meet the ladies, I got a C.C. Lemon at a Family Mart, imported from Japan. It tasted as good as I remembered. More Japan nostalgia ensued when I used the high-tech toilets outside the Cold Stone at the bottom of the skyscraper.
We skipped dessert at Cold Stone and got it at Garden Books again instead. We showed Jess's mom the Moller Villa, and looked at various shops along Shaanxi lu, including the Robert De Niro shop. Not sure what that was all about, or if Robert even knows he has a shop named after him. We went back to the hotel to get our stuff and catch our train to Beijing that night. I got us some Burger King for the ride. We turned in pretty early on the train and woke up in Beijing the next morning.
We went directly to the Goldman's house after we finally got a cab outside Beijing Zhan. They were expecting us, but there was a little confusion, and we were there a day before they had expected. I had a key, so I let us in and we relaxed in front of the TV. A half naked Mr. Goldman was shocked when he came out into the living room to find us that morning. We all got cleaned up and sat chatting for a while, followed by a nice lunch at a really good Sichuan place across the street. I wasn't feeling all that great. Something I ate in Shanghai left me with no appetite and what seemed to be a stalled digestive system. Jess was sick with another type of stomach illness. I got her some antibiotics and la duzi medicine, and a couple things the pharmacists recommend I take for my ailment. I love how you can just by antibiotics and other drugs over the counter in China, while they remain restricted to perscription in America. This doesn't apply to all drugs, as I found when I additionally asked the pharmacists for valium and ecstasy.This entire day was spent resting. Shanghai had wiped me and Jess out. All the traveling Jess's mom endured in a short span of time got her pretty beat too. We got up the next day with the grand plan of seeing the Great Wall.
We got a cab to take us to the Mutianyu section of it. Beautiful day and not crowded. A perfect combination for a successful Wall visit. Jess's mom hasn't seen exercise in a while, so those up-and-down stairs wore her out pretty quick. I went a little farther and turned back when I felt good and tired. We rode the awesome toboggan slide down the mountain to where our cab was waiting. He took us to the Olympic Park, where Jess and her mom got to see the Bird's Nest and its surroundings. I had gone just a month earlier so I wasn't up for it again. We made some dinner plans with the Goldman's and some of their other friends when we got back. It was a delicious Thai restaurant called Very Siam. The food was great, but I still wasn't feeling well and that medicine wasn't working. I ended up losing my meal right after finishing it. Perhaps it was okay we didn't go to Purple Haze, my favorite Thai restaurant that I was planning on returning to this year. I'll enjoy it next time when I'm feeling better.
The next morning was the super bowl. Jess's mom got up early with the Goldman's and went to an Irish pub to watch the game. Jess and I happily slept in and rested up for the big day out ahead of us. We did the Forbidden City, walked around half its perimeter back to Tiananmen square, and then walked down to the Qianmen hutong area. They recently developed an old looking walking street in Qianmen, while also keeping many of the old hutong, including the most narrow one in Beijing. We hopped in a cab from there to Wangfujing, to see the infamous snack street. We acted only as onlookers by the many stalls that sold barbequed bugs and strange sea creatures. We got lunch at an overpriced noodle shop instead, which still didn't satisfy me because of my stomach problems. It was time to quit the medicine I had been recommended to take, and just self medicate by buying antibiotics.
The next day was another sleep in and rest day for me. The ladies went over to the Yaxiu market and did some serious shopping. They bought bags and bags of stuff. Jess fulfilled her shopping appetite in Beijing and her mom got to see what those Silk Market like places are all about. I had already done my winter time shopping a month earlier.
We hopped on another train that night to Harbin. The train was like a sauna. They really cranked the heat up, fearing the harsh climate of northeast China. The heat was unbearable and I barely got any sleep. We were riding hard sleeper this time. Jess's mom got to experience soft sleeper on our way up to Beijing, but now we were doing the real deal overnight train experience. She didn't have much luck getting up to the top bunk all while fully clothed in her jacket and warm clothes. And with the incredible heat, she requested we take soft sleeper for the rest of the trip.
We got in to Harbin early the next morning. It was still dark and bitterly cold. We found a hotel on the walking street pretty hastily. We got a nice suite, which included a flat screen TV and a computer with free internet. We napped off most of that morning in the hotel, then walked down walking street. We discovered that all outgoing train tickets to Beijing were sold out for that week. We ended up having to double down and get plane tickets. After procuring the tickets, we found a nice little ice activity center by the river and walking street and went down a really fast ice slide. You hop on a sled and the operator pushes you down. I was the first to go and didn't see anyone else go before me. I was going so fast down, I didn't know how I'd stop, except by running into this dirt mound at the end. 
That didn't sound too enticing, but fortunately the end of the slide is covered in rubble, so the sled managed to slow down and stop before hitting the mound. We then paid a man in a horse drawn carriage to take us accross the frozen river to a snow sculpture park on Sun Island. We admired the sculptures and played a little bit on the giant snow structures.We walked back across the river. Pretty amazing. The ice was yards thick. I couldn't see where it ended, even where it was cracked. These thick sheets of ice are harvested for the ice sculptures and buildings, for which we would see that night at the Ice and Snow World. But first, we got lunch at a relatively well known restaurant that serves Dongbei food. I didn't really know what to order, the ladies don't eat meat (common in Dongbei food), and my stomach was still bothering me, so it didn't turn out to be a very good meal. But the Ice and Snow World made up for it. What an amazing place! Like Disneyland made of ice, and this wasn't even the actual Disney themed ice park which is in downtown Harbin. Ice and Snow world is located outside the city and is huge. There are giant ice structures all around it, lit up with a medley of colorful lanterns. The ice slides would have to be my favorite part. Jess and I had many runs down the intermediate ones, where you slide down as is, without a sled. I waited in line for the giant advanced slide, where you do go down on a sled and actually crash into a mound of snow at the end. I was already freezing from waiting in line. Standing on cold ice stairs will really chill you. Then my final descent into the snow mound had me covered in powder, which kind of melted on my face, then froze again. It felt like Jess was rubbing sand paper on my face when she tried to dust it off with her glove. I ran into a coffee house to warm up, where we got cups of hot chocolate with mysterious white lumps in them.
After we got our fill of ice festivities, we went back downtown, where we got a late-night McDonald's dinner. I was almost starting to feel better at this point. The next morning we got up and ate breakfast at this Russian cafe right on walking street. Delicious home-made bread and Russian style tea made for a good start of the day. We caught a cab over to the tiger park in the north of the city. Now that place was a trip! You get in a bus full of tourists and it takes you into the fenced off grounds of the park, kind of like Jurassic Park. There's tigers everywhere just hanging out. Then there was lions everywhere. Then ligers everywhere. I really felt bad for the lions, since the bitter cold Heilongjiang climate doesn't much resemble the African savanna at all. I guess the ligers have half the Siberian blood of the tigers, so they must have been okay. At the end of the bus tour comes the walking observatory area. It's a caged in walkway, situated inside another caged in area for the tigers. Here you can buy live animals and strips of meat to feed the tigers. One man bought a live chicken, which was tied to a wooden pole by the animal vendor. I think this video I took speaks for itself.At the end of the walkway comes some smaller cages full of wild cats. Leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, panthers, white lions, white tigers, and more ligers. They were all very beautiful, but still sad to see these African climate animals caged up in the freezing cold north of China.
After we got back into town, we met up with a friend of mine I met over at Jiangxi normal. Siwen greeted us on walking street with a friend of her's. I wanted a real Dongbei meal with people who knew what they were ordering, so we went to a famous dumpling restaurant. And damn, I've never eaten so many dumplings in my life. They basically ordered the entire menu. The ladies couldn't even kill the veggie dumplings, and I was basically expected to eat all the meat dumplings myself, which outnumbered the veggie ones. The stomach problems hadn't fully gone away, so this was quite a feat. I came close and finished the beef and mutton ones, but couldn't get through all the pork. Siwen and company brought us over to this famous ice cream place, where crowds of people line up to eat these Harbin style cream popsicles. They were really fantastic, despite it being so cold. I would like to eat one of these popsicles everyday now for the rest of my life. We walked over to the St. Sophia church afterwards and took some nice photographs. We did a little shopping in the underground market, then parted ways.
We got some food at the Russian cafe again, and then went over to the Disney themed ice park in the middle of town. Not as amazing as the Ice and Snow World, but still a lot of fun. I spent most of the time going down slides, while Jess and her mom admired the ice sculptures. The Disney theme was all good and fun, and it provided some good picture opportunities, but the staff was really unfriendly. They must have been tired of dealing with little brats in the cold all day.We rushed back to the hotel after the Disney-iceland, and got our bags and a cab to the airport. Security was tight, but the line was short, so we were at our gate in no time. The flight was over before we knew it and we got a cab back to the Goldman's place. I went out to get our return train tickets to Jiangxi that night, for which we would depart the next evening. The next morning and afternoon was again spent resting and recuperating from the travel and cold of Dongbei. We ordered Papa John's and pigged out for a while, then got on our train. Jess and her mother got off at Jiujiang early the next morning. I stayed on until the final stop, Nanchang, my home.
It was a great trip overall. I feel that Jess's mom got a good winter tour of the country. It's hard to do a lot in so little time in such a vast country as China, especially during the winter. Winter time kind of knocks out a lot of places of interest, except for Harbin of course. Beijing and Shanghai may be nicer during other seasons, but they essentially remain the same in terms of tourism. Jess got to show her mom what Jiujiang is all about. They had a nice time doing the mother/daughter thing, while I was starting work that week. They came to Nanchang that weekend, where we celebrated one of my co-workers birthdays, who I will refer to as Dundee because of his Australianess. It was a lovely fancy Chinese style dinner at the 0791 on Fuzhou lu. This was followed by a long KTV session on Minde lu, another first for Jess's mom. We showed her a few sites here and there in Nanchang the next day, including a lovely meal at Le Bistro. She departed that Sunday morning for Shanghai, to catch her flight home. Jess also departed, but for Jiujiang because she was starting work the following day. Jess's mom definitely enjoyed her time here, and I was glad to show her around. She seems set on coming back, so we're excited about showing her something new for next time.
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