August 6-8
With only two days in Shanghai, we were going to try to make the most of it. We got in late, but had enough time to have a Peking duck dinner.
Now, I’m not a fan of eating duck. I think it tastes icky pants. But this duck was delicious.
Michael ordered too much food, including these duck hearts which they had us set on fire before eating.
They were not the best, but a cool party trick!
The eggplant was my favorite – less sweet than the rest of the dishes and had a bit of spice to it.
The next morning we started our day in Old Town. We began by tackling some ice cream. It really is super hot over here.
Then we went to check out the Temple of the Town God. This Taoist temple is dedicated to Cenghuang who is the guardian God of Shanghai. The temple became the city God temple in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty and a large market grew around the temple.
The temple is still an active place of worship.
Then we wandered over to the Yuyuan Gardens which were built 400 years ago, also during the Ming Dynasty by a high ranking official who wanted a place for his aging parents to relax. The word Yuyuan means happy and the garden covers five acres.
The gardens fell into disrepair but then were purchased by rich merchants in 1760. It was opened to the public in 1961. The gardens have a few pavilions that house beautiful Ming dynasty style rosewood furniture plus a lot of jade rocks.
My favorite part of the gardens were these jade window panes.
After leaving the gardens and entering the old town bazaar, we were tempted to just find a place right there to grab dumplings.
We were so hungry and so hot!!! But we held it together and trucked it over to a dumpling place that Michael had read about. For under 20 bucks we got all of this:
We ordered in a super successful manner – we saw what all the locals were eating, pointed, and asked for the same. Not 100% error free ordering, but better than working off the mandarin menus.
That night we wandered down to the Bund which was one of the most important ports in China. It now houses historical buildings and faces the modern Shanghai skyline, across the river.
Some of the cool buildings we saw were:
The Great Northern Telegraph Company Building where the first telephone switch in Shanghai was installed. But no picture to prove we saw it.
The HSBC Building (on the left below) which at time of completion in 1923 was the second largest building in the world after the Bank of Scotland building in Edinburgh. Did you know that HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation? For having been in financial services for 12 years, I was blown away that I didn’t know that. I assumed it stood for the last names of some dead white guys.
The Customs House (on the right above) which has a clock tower that to this day is the largest clock in Asia. (It doesn’t look that big to me, though.)
Then we were off to dinner at Mr. & Mrs. Bund which has a great view of the skyline and even better food.
These two dishes – citrus prawn and a truffle toasted something or another with foam on top – they were incredible. Some of the most flavorful dishes that we’ve ever had.
And steak. Mmmm.
Plus here’s Michael with a lion:
The next day was our last day in Shanghai, but we had a pretty full day to hang out. We decided to take the metro to check out a pizza place called Homeslice Pizza which claims to serve New York slices.
On our way to the metro we happened upon two great finds. The first was this dumpling shop that served xiao long bao which are pork soup dumplings.
Then we found a book store. With a long train ride later tonight and an eight day boat ride in a few weeks, we were hoping to pick up some books.
We found nothing in English. BUT… we walked just another half block and happened upon Shanghai Book Traders! A book store with tons of books in English! We spent the next 30 or 40 minutes browsing and picking up a few items.
We’re not sure what is going on here, but apparently there are new Harry Potter books that are the original stories with added material, possibly related to each of the houses.
What!!! We didn’t buy, but I am definitely interested.
Finally we made it to the train station. Yup – that temple looking thing is the metro station.
We followed google maps to the pizza place and found nothing. We took the long route getting there and by that time we were super sweaty, cranking and ready for food. Not a good position to be in. We spent some time reviewing google maps and determined that it just sent us to the wrong place. But we were on the right street. So we popped into a bakery, ordered coffees and two slices of chocolate cake and regrouped.
After relaxing and cooling off a bit, we decided we were going to follow the street until we found the pizza place, about a mile down.
It ended up being a wonderful walk down a tree lined street with boutiques and small restaurants.
And finally… we made it!
Was it a New York slice? I’d say no – but it had a lot of similarities and it was still delicious pizza.
We had a very short but great stop in to Shanghai. There is still much to see, but at least we ate well! Now off to Tibet.
