We planned to do some shopping. The air quality was much greyer than yesterday, so we decided to skip the observation deck of the world financial center. Looking out our hotel room window, the pearl tower had grey colored balls instead of their usual vivid red. The pearl tower is only two km away. Ick.
So, we decided to start our shopping at the mall next to breadtalk. This turned out to be rather like a NYC department store, each little store was branded, except each appeared independently run. We didn't see knockoff brands, but what appeared to be strong brand marketing. I wanted the sporting goods store on the top 7th floor, so I was forced up six escalators. The had a nice badminton department, but I couldn't use their bags for my squash racquets. Darn. I couldn't find any running hats either. They had lots of branded caps though. I liked the Jeep brand being heavily promoted. I guess it was the American masculine tough image it provides -- to sell lots of underwear.
We wandered through the people's square to try to find the famous brand market on the otherwise. I found the people's square to actually be a nice park. It reminded me of NYC central park. It's surrounded by skyscrapers and upscale shopping. Inside, there was a small amusement park with some scary rides. On the other hand, in a Chinese style there was a few tents full of public notices. I thought maybe this was a way to promote public expression, maybe even allow some criticisms. Ha! It turned out to be listings looking for friendship. It seems some matchmakers would list your statistics and maybe some other facts about you on this bulletin board, presumably your suitors would contact you through the matchmaker. I was too shy to try asking someone that would actually know how this works. Besides I liked imagining how it might work from what I could observe. There was also another area of the park where you sit yourself, post your facts on a little board standing in front of yourself, and you wait for suitors. Does this sound like speed dating in the sun? Did I forget to mention most all the folks for the listings were over sixty years old?
We never found that knockoff market, though we did go through luxury car corner with Porsche, Mercedes, Ferrari, and maserati all facing each other. We saw the Godly GongDeLin Buddist vegetarian restaurant, we weren't quite hungry enough then. But after all the searching we decided to try the street Shyaolongbao that we were looking for last night. We found it was open, but they were sold out of shyaolongbao! So we went across the street to try Yang's shengzhenbao and dried tofu puffs and vermicelli soup. There was a small line outside their doors to get the freshly fried dumplings, but then we went inside, and up to the third floor to find an empty table. They then brought the soup to us. This was definitely a hole in the wall. The presentation was scary from a food safety point of view. The dumplings were fried upside down compared to every other instance of this dumplings we've tried. Maybe they found it helps seal in the soup better, as we discovered the soup liked to squirt out more than any other version too. We ate 12 of the dumplings, but only half the soup. The soup was curried, and interesting, but I wish the dishes looked cleaner. I'm not sure if it really helped any that we brought along our own chopsticks instead of using theirs.
We strolled back to the hotel in a different route, avoiding the touristy Nanjing road. It was like a different city! We saw the construction supply stores all together. We saw more food shops for locals. I came back later for another CoCo cafe. I like how they use a machine to seal the top of the drinking cup with a thin wrap. You puncture the seal with a straw when you are ready to drink.
I was thinking how wonderful I didn't see any kids peeing in the street, but then I did. Today I also saw too much more spitting, uncovered coughing, and hocking. I guess the honeymoon is over. On the other hand, I saw a nicely dressed woman in heels on the subway platform dragging along a chalk covered sledgehammer. Errr, is there trouble coming? No, it turns out she's just helping her tired looking hubby who appears to be coming home from work.
We stop at a kids department store to see what they sell to the kids. Of course the toy department is all the way at the top on the seventh floor. More escalators. Ugh. We find on the top what you might expect at home. There'd are saleswomen in front of every branded toy type to help demonstrate the toys. We see very few kids for a weekend afternoon. It is mostly young parents who don't know why they should buy one toy over another. We found some expensive performance yoyos but no Chinese ones. They sold jeep branded clothing too. I didn't see if they had the underwear.
We got back exhausted at the hotel. Dad seems to be holding up to all this walking and standing around better Than me. He gets back to the hotel to lie down saying he just needs a rest but not a nap. He is napping inside of ten minutes. My lower back is aching a bit; enough to justify a massage if I can find the right place. :/ the hotel spa wants about five times the street rate, errr, I mean the rates advised on billboards, I wouldn't know what the solicitors want. Ewww...
We make a reservation at Fu 1039 for dinner. Then we take the metro to Tianzifang, the next Xintiandi. It has the authentic shikomen architecture. But the alleys are much narrower, and we see a lot of bamboo scaffolding for the facade renovations. There are a lot of art galleries, and cafes. It's kinda funny how crowded the alleys are with the occupied cafe tables and the crowds milling past them, snapping pictures of the stone doorways as they go. I haven't seen more foreigners in shanghai than here. It was fun getting lost in these twisty alleys. Every time the alley makes a split or turn, you want to explore all of it to see if they threw in a few more stores there. Most of the time, even for the narrowest of twists, they did find another hole in the wall to fill. These stores are a far cry from the tourist stalls we were channeled through on my first china trip. Only two photographers opened two different locations within Tianzifang. They were cool images, but just repeating maybe a dozen shots in various enlargements. I liked the creative t shirts some artists produced, but I couldn't wear any. Just not my style.
We went back to the hotel to rest before our big dinner. I went to the MTee store down the street for that I saw advertising in a the metro. I couldn't resist picking up one interesting overpriced tshirt for fifteen bucks.
Dinner at Fu1039 was in an old mansion. It was hidden down a wide driveway, manned by five doormen. Excessive Man power is still in evidence in china. They had a pianist playing the godfather theme music through almost the whole night -- you have to feel for him. I ordered a drunken chicken covered in wine ice, yummy! We also had grandmother's fried fish sticks in a stack as appetizer, a little bony, but interesting. Our first main course turned out to be baby shrimp with egg whites. Too much egg whites for westerner tastes, but it was easy to pick through to find the tastiest shrimp i have had in a long time. We also had a slightly orange sweet and sour spare ribs. The meat was only the tiny tips of the ribs which made eating dangerous with the little bone fragments. My lest favorite dish of the night. Lastly, there was a beef dish with a hint of red peppers that I think they must have slow cooked and finished with a deep fry. That seemed to be an apt demonstration of the Chinese cooking philosophy targeting full flavor. Yum!!! I had ordered way too much for two people but it was still only $70us. At ten pm, We walked out of the driveway, and quickly flagged the first taxi that drove by in less than a minute. It felt like cheating when we got back to the hotel so quickly. We even contemplated taking a walk after such a large meal. Nah.
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