Shanghai Diary(3) by Chrissy

August 2009

One thing that I had not noticed, but Dad brought to my attention was that one greeting that most people in Shanghai that work in the food industry know is “good morning”. What they haven’t learned yet is that this particular greeting is only effective when used before noon. It is not uncommon to hear “good morning” when one is sitting down to dinner.

Wednesday was a sad day for my pants. We walked around the corner for a breakfast of mandu and soup with clear noodles. I bit into a mandu and splashed hot mandu sauce all over my pants. I had no choice but to go about the rest of the day with mandu stained pants. All of my shirts already had noodle stains on them anyway.

We were surprised to find tea on the table, but we were never brought cups. Also, the tea was cold. When we brought this to the attention of a cook, he pantomimed that it was to go into the little bowls. It was mandu dipping sauce. I’m glad no one tried to drink it.

This particular cook was enamored that we were westerners. He so badly wanted to talk to us that he apologized that his English wasn’t good, but that was all he could really say. I don’t think a lot of English speakers make it into his shop.

Next stop, The Shanghai Museum, where we saw ancient currency, jade pieces, name stamps, sculptures, bronze work, calligraphy, ceramics, and ancient furniture. Admission was free, which was nice. The building was also very pretty with crisscrossing stairways and a mirrored image of the escalators on the opposite side of the atrium. We spent a lot of time enjoying the museum. I particularly liked this large wooden Buddha statue:

After lunch of mandu, pork, noodles, and jasmine tea near the hotel, we said goodbye to Jamyung and sent her back on her way to Seoul.

Eigyoo and Hyangji moved in with us, and after a short rest, we took a cab to a place called Taikang. This area used to be a bunch of galleries right next to each other like 798, but most of the galleries have since turned into trendy little shops. What makes this area still unique is that it is still home to lots of people. There is evidence of homes everywhere like laundry and wires. Also they were redoing the floors of the alleys so it was a construction zone as well.

Hyangji and I went around these alleys dipping into shop after shop. I even found a shop that was selling my purse hooks for about $50 a pop. No thanks. Right off the main drag we found a full on open air market. This is the kind of market where everything, meat and all, is just sitting there minus the cellophane, out in the open, waiting to get bought by the locals. There was nothing touristy about it. Yet another reminder of life.

For dinner, we walked and walked and eventually made it to the spicy food place. It was food from the Hunan region. We had spicy fish, spicy chicken, mandu, mandu soup, spicy tofu, onions with beef, and rice. We even had to order more rice to counteract the spiciness of the meal. Even though Shanghai “doesn’t have spice”, this was the hottest meal of the trip.

Diaries(1) (2) (3) (4)