Democratic People's Republic of Communist China - Part 6 - Shanghai Day 4
Woke up - watched some crappy CNN in the hotel room. What's up with CNN - and what's with all the Oz news rejects getting jobs at CNN like Hugh Rimmingbum?! And what's with the same old news and the horrible non-stop CNN ads about itself and freakin Larry King Live. And who likes Larry King? What a stewpid old dinosaur fart. And what's with that stewpid woman with the horrible mutalated american accent who works in Hong Kong with Hugh Rimmingbum? I would rather drink battery acid than listen to her grating voice. And the stewpid weather people making flipant comments about the crazy weather - why don't you watch An Inconvinent Truth or something... And the worst thing about CNN is that stewpid Richard Quest a$$hole... He is like Britain's version of David Koch without a sense of humour. Although BBC World is slightly more tolerable than CNN - its been banned in China - so CNN is it (either CNN or CCTV 9 news)... Despite all this centralised news bizo in China - I can still access any foreign news service on the net (including ninemsn, abc.net.au/news, etc) - ohh the irony...
As we got out of the hotel - it was a smog free day... as the weather was really windy and must of moved all of the smog over to Hong Kong or something. No smog and lots of wind did mean that the weather was pretty intolerable. It was bitterly cold (felt like Madrid coldness rather than a mildish Canberra coldness) and we were both completely underdressed.
Instead of the bakery thing for breakfast - we ventured over to the Yu Gardens and Bazaar for some "world famous" dumplings (well - world famous according to Lochie Daddo on Qantas TV - and it seems to be popular with the locals too)...
Instead of bringing LP along with us - we brought a China DK guidebook - big mistake. Although DK is pretty and has lots of pretty pictures of tourist sites and crosssections (oooh cross sections) - it is pretty void on any practical information (eg: where to eat, maps, internet, transportation, I could go on and on)...
DK reared its ugly head when we got to the Yu Bazaar for our dumplings - as we wandered around the bitterly cold area with no idea where it was. After about 20 minutes of wandering - we came across the "world famous dumpling restaurant" (knew it was it no thanks to Lochie Daddo's segment on the Qantas Inflight TV show). According to Lochie - you may have to queue up to an hour and a half to get some dumplings and that you should order two lots (to make it worth while)... However the bitter cold wind put a dampner on the queues and we only had to wait 15 minutes... The dumplings (made out of pork and crab) were fantastic - but one serving could have sufficed. Ant got more integestion from them (eating too quickly) and we had to take it easy.
Our next stop was the Huxingting Teahouse in the Bazaar which is right next to the zig-zag bridge. Although the bridge protects the teahouse from evil spirits with its structure - it is pretty unpractical with the Shanghai mosh pits crowds.
The Teahouse is well worth it - it costs 40 RMB per person and we got a selection of Oblong tea (not sure of the spelling), Jasmine and Lychee tea. The traditional tea cermony was very elaborate (lots of water pouring everywhere) and you get your own girl (to pour the tea of course!). We wish we could bring some of this tea back with us to Australia but no thanks to the Steve Irwin advertisments - we can't... :-(
We made our way to the Yu Gardens - which is dated back to the Ming Dynasty. It was peaceful and there was heaps of rock gardens and dragon stuff. My favourite was the "Mildness Hall" - mmmm... mild... We took shelter from the cold cold weather in the "Shanghai Collection (tourist trap)" by hovering around their kick-arse heaters.
Because it was so cold - (so hella cold) and Ant was suffering from some integestion from the dumplings - we had a bit of a midday rest back at the hotel. After about 2 hours - when Ant was feeling better - we went back to the French Concession area. But unknown to me - Ant's motive to go back to the area was to try and track down the Shirt Flag T-Shirt shop (Communist T Shirt Shop) - only to find it was closed (after a 45 min walk dammit!)...
Like lemmings or rabbits in the headlight - we wandered back to the Mosh Pit Mall from yesterday - but the crowds were a lot more bearable... But to make matters worse for Ant (after the t-shirt shop being closed) - I bought a new watch (legit one! from a department store)... Ant was feeling a little jealous (that I had retail therapy rather than him) - so he went bonkers in a shop called Eno which sold lots of t-shirts...
Walking back to town from the French Concession was fairly ritzy and cosmopolitian... There was heaps of small shop strips (a la Paddington in Sydney).
After mulling over dinner for a little while - we settled on a Thai restaurant - which sort of looked fairly ritzy with live "Thai entertainment" and Chinese waitresses dressed like Thai women... The thai food - when it arrived - was more "Chinese" than "Thai". One of the dishes felt like they added cashew nuts and chilli to a Chinese dish... Don't realise how good we have it in Australia when it comes to Thai food. It helps when you have actual thais cook thai food! The Thai entertainment sort of got strange when a very effeminate Chinese guy started to do karaoke out the front. Speaking of which - it seems most guys in Shanghai have had a masculinity bypass... But that is common in Japan and Rome as well... Everyone reminds us of the gay Xander character on the TV show Drawn Together ("I'm on a never ending quest to save my girlfriend"). In a sort of semi drunk state (we had a couple of local brews at the thai restaurant) - Ant bought a couple of more 50c beers at the "7-11" nearby our hotel - and we drank it in the hotel room before bed time... Klassy with a "K"..
Woke up - watched some crappy CNN in the hotel room. What's up with CNN - and what's with all the Oz news rejects getting jobs at CNN like Hugh Rimmingbum?! And what's with the same old news and the horrible non-stop CNN ads about itself and freakin Larry King Live. And who likes Larry King? What a stewpid old dinosaur fart. And what's with that stewpid woman with the horrible mutalated american accent who works in Hong Kong with Hugh Rimmingbum? I would rather drink battery acid than listen to her grating voice. And the stewpid weather people making flipant comments about the crazy weather - why don't you watch An Inconvinent Truth or something... And the worst thing about CNN is that stewpid Richard Quest a$$hole... He is like Britain's version of David Koch without a sense of humour. Although BBC World is slightly more tolerable than CNN - its been banned in China - so CNN is it (either CNN or CCTV 9 news)... Despite all this centralised news bizo in China - I can still access any foreign news service on the net (including ninemsn, abc.net.au/news, etc) - ohh the irony...
As we got out of the hotel - it was a smog free day... as the weather was really windy and must of moved all of the smog over to Hong Kong or something. No smog and lots of wind did mean that the weather was pretty intolerable. It was bitterly cold (felt like Madrid coldness rather than a mildish Canberra coldness) and we were both completely underdressed.
Instead of the bakery thing for breakfast - we ventured over to the Yu Gardens and Bazaar for some "world famous" dumplings (well - world famous according to Lochie Daddo on Qantas TV - and it seems to be popular with the locals too)...
Instead of bringing LP along with us - we brought a China DK guidebook - big mistake. Although DK is pretty and has lots of pretty pictures of tourist sites and crosssections (oooh cross sections) - it is pretty void on any practical information (eg: where to eat, maps, internet, transportation, I could go on and on)...
DK reared its ugly head when we got to the Yu Bazaar for our dumplings - as we wandered around the bitterly cold area with no idea where it was. After about 20 minutes of wandering - we came across the "world famous dumpling restaurant" (knew it was it no thanks to Lochie Daddo's segment on the Qantas Inflight TV show). According to Lochie - you may have to queue up to an hour and a half to get some dumplings and that you should order two lots (to make it worth while)... However the bitter cold wind put a dampner on the queues and we only had to wait 15 minutes... The dumplings (made out of pork and crab) were fantastic - but one serving could have sufficed. Ant got more integestion from them (eating too quickly) and we had to take it easy.
Our next stop was the Huxingting Teahouse in the Bazaar which is right next to the zig-zag bridge. Although the bridge protects the teahouse from evil spirits with its structure - it is pretty unpractical with the Shanghai mosh pits crowds.
The Teahouse is well worth it - it costs 40 RMB per person and we got a selection of Oblong tea (not sure of the spelling), Jasmine and Lychee tea. The traditional tea cermony was very elaborate (lots of water pouring everywhere) and you get your own girl (to pour the tea of course!). We wish we could bring some of this tea back with us to Australia but no thanks to the Steve Irwin advertisments - we can't... :-(
We made our way to the Yu Gardens - which is dated back to the Ming Dynasty. It was peaceful and there was heaps of rock gardens and dragon stuff. My favourite was the "Mildness Hall" - mmmm... mild... We took shelter from the cold cold weather in the "Shanghai Collection (tourist trap)" by hovering around their kick-arse heaters.
Because it was so cold - (so hella cold) and Ant was suffering from some integestion from the dumplings - we had a bit of a midday rest back at the hotel. After about 2 hours - when Ant was feeling better - we went back to the French Concession area. But unknown to me - Ant's motive to go back to the area was to try and track down the Shirt Flag T-Shirt shop (Communist T Shirt Shop) - only to find it was closed (after a 45 min walk dammit!)...
Like lemmings or rabbits in the headlight - we wandered back to the Mosh Pit Mall from yesterday - but the crowds were a lot more bearable... But to make matters worse for Ant (after the t-shirt shop being closed) - I bought a new watch (legit one! from a department store)... Ant was feeling a little jealous (that I had retail therapy rather than him) - so he went bonkers in a shop called Eno which sold lots of t-shirts...
Walking back to town from the French Concession was fairly ritzy and cosmopolitian... There was heaps of small shop strips (a la Paddington in Sydney).
After mulling over dinner for a little while - we settled on a Thai restaurant - which sort of looked fairly ritzy with live "Thai entertainment" and Chinese waitresses dressed like Thai women... The thai food - when it arrived - was more "Chinese" than "Thai". One of the dishes felt like they added cashew nuts and chilli to a Chinese dish... Don't realise how good we have it in Australia when it comes to Thai food. It helps when you have actual thais cook thai food! The Thai entertainment sort of got strange when a very effeminate Chinese guy started to do karaoke out the front. Speaking of which - it seems most guys in Shanghai have had a masculinity bypass... But that is common in Japan and Rome as well... Everyone reminds us of the gay Xander character on the TV show Drawn Together ("I'm on a never ending quest to save my girlfriend"). In a sort of semi drunk state (we had a couple of local brews at the thai restaurant) - Ant bought a couple of more 50c beers at the "7-11" nearby our hotel - and we drank it in the hotel room before bed time... Klassy with a "K"..
posted by NicknAnt @ 12:52 AM
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