We woke up at 7 or 8 and headed out to the Bund first, one of the most well-know areas in Shanghai. I'll say it now, this post is going to be full of me complaining about the World Expo. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the World Expo is what they used to call the World's Fair (or maybe they always called it this?). A whole bunch of nations are supposed to showcase themselves or something, and I guess the 2010 one is going to be held in Shanghai. Who even knew these still happened? Frankly, I thought they were always a myth generated to hide the real origin of the It's a Small World ride.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the Bund. Well, see for yourself:
Yeaaaaah...lots of construction. The Bund was not quite as pretty as I had been told. I could see a few buildings, and they were cool, but somehow I don't think this was the image people envision when they think of the Bund.
Well, on to fairer matters. Xiao Long Bao! They're delicious soupy dumplings that...well, if you're reading this you probably know what they are. If you don't, get to the closest Chinatown, find a place that serves them and eat them for yourself! They're Shanghainese, so of course my number one goal for my brief visit was to eat them...a lot of them.
I watched Anthony Bourdain's trip to China, and combined with looking in my Lonely Planet book, I determined the place to go was Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant. Mark and I wandered through the old city looking for it; it was hard to find and smelled funny because of all the construction (see: World Expo, above). But we made it, and without further ado:
Man. Freakin' delicious. After ordering two sets of the things, we decided we couldn't leave without another set. I thought they might be a bit better than the American version, but no...they blew the American ones out of the park. The crazy one with the straw you're not even supposed to eat! You just drink the soup right out of it and leave the skin behind!
We wandered towards some garden after that. I figured that I wouldn't have time to see any super-important Chinese garden, so this random one in Shanghai would have to suffice. It was filled with Japanese tourists, but I couldn't understand them well enough for me to eavesdrop on the tour guide. It was pretty cool, and I posted plenty of photos on facebook, but here's a taste.
Next we decided to head to People's Square, and then to the French Concession. It was a fun walk, through random streets filled with shops of all sorts. I bought an eggy pancake snack!
We made it to People's Square and stopped to take pictures of the nearby (or not-so-nearby) skyscrapers.
We went into this free museum there and checked out an exhibit on historical Chinese currency. There were some sweet coins with holes in them and dragons on them; why did they ever get rid of those? But really the strangest thing to me was that when Mark passed through security, they made him take a drink from his juice bottle. Why? Apparently that's how they tell the bottle doesn't contain poison.
Next stop: the French Concession. It's part of the area that was taken by France when a whole bunch of countries split Shanghai during one of those times of imperialism. What remains is a fancy-ish and expensive (we're talking real money now, not as cheap as everything else in China) mall area, complete with a shopping mall and the building where communism in China began. Yeah, that's right. It's free, so we stopped right in. I saw pictures of a Dutch and a Russian guy on the wall and felt a little less intimidated. Here's a picture of the Concession:
The only things left on our agenda at that point were Nanjing Road East (a popular pedestrian walkway and line of shops) and Pudong (skyscraper city, essentially). We decided against the train as we had been doing, and instead walked to Nanjing. We got super cheap milk tea, which was delicious! One of these days I'll go to Taiwan and get the original stuff. We made it to Nanjing Road.
We realized what we had been missing: more xiao long bao! It may only be minutes since you read that previous part about dumplings, but it had been hours for us at this point! We found a local dumplingry in a food court and got the pan-fried version...still really really delicious.
Next it was time for Pudong, before it got too late. Lonely Planet mentioned one way of getting across was the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. Not knowing what it was, we decided China was cheap and that that was the way to go. There were colors, there were projectors, there were wacky inflatable arm-flailing tube men...just watch...
We made it to Pudong a little bit freaked out, but each in one piece. Pudong was less crowded than west of the river, but it was still cool and there were really good close-up views of the skyscrapers.
We started by heading to the currently tallest observation deck in the world, the Shanghai World Financial Center. The darkness made my pictures blurry, but still awesome.
After that we hit up the slightly wussier next door tower which had a bar on the 87th floor. Here's Mark being too good to drink on the ground.
Sadly, there's not a lot left to say about Shanghai after that. We made our way back to Nanjing, chilled out for a little bit, and ate a nasty dinner. A lot of the restaurants were closed, so we submitted to one that some random police guy recommended. I'll just say that the xiao long bao they served were not up to par. We headed back to the room, had a drink, and eventually called it a night, with my trip to Japan the next day.
For more pics and whatnot, check out facebook!
-Benjamin
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