Shanghai Diary(4) by Chrissy

August 2009

Thursday was a rainy day. After a wonton breakfast, we took a cab ride to Moganshan, a large group of galleries similar to 798 in Beijing. There were so many galleries, that in two hours of viewing, we didn’t even get through two alleyways. It was great because these alleys were indoors, so we did not have to mess with umbrellas. The art ran from classic to contemporary. There was also a common theme. We were used to seeing Mao as a strong presence in the art, but we also saw many pieces where Marilyn Monroe and Barak Obama were represented. One of my favorite pieces was 20 foot silver ear of corn.

The rain stopped sometime while we were perusing the art, and for lunch, we all wanted a departure from Chinese food. YK found an Italian place with a great lunch deal. Both cab drivers had difficulties finding the location, so we walked a couple of blocks and found the restaurant. Actually, we found where the restaurant used to be. Evidently, the restaurant had moved “5 minutes away” and the sign promised a 20% discount if we made it to the other location.

Our “5 minute” walk was over 45 minutes of walking in the pouring rain. We even paused under an awning to wait for the rain to ease up. It didn’t. When we got to the new location, the building was dilapidated and clearly closed. Then someone noticed that there was another building with the same address that was the Italian restaurant.

Since it was about 2:30 PM at this point, we were the only ones in the restaurant. The special was a salad, choice of pasta, choice of sauce, and coffee or tea. The food was really good. Also, it was an excellent deal and the first salad I had had in three weeks. The deal was so good, Dad didn’t even ask for the 20% discount.

YK had another excellent idea after lunch. We took cabs to the Park Hyatt (the building right in front of the bottle cap building in the picture from a previous email), and we were going to go up to the 86^th floor for an expensive cocktail and a breathtaking view. The 86^th floor didn’t open until 5, which was an hour and half away. Instead, we enjoyed a free view from the 54^th floor.

Unfortunately, it was still grey and cloudy, but the view, as you can see, was spectacular. I don’t think I have ever been that high up in a building ever. I thought these buildings were huge, but from the 54^th floor we were towering over them.

As we left, we thought about going to the bottle opener building next door AKA the third highest building in the world. However, we realized that even if we went up in the building, the view would not have been that great because the top of the building was covered in clouds. This was the view of both buildings from the street:

As we drove off, I saw a sign on the bottle opener building that listed the prices (yes prices) of visiting the building. To go to the 100^th floor, it cost 150 Yuan, the 97^th floor cost 115 Yuan, and the 96^th floor was 100 Yuan (7 Yuan was about a dollar). It seemed like an awful lot to look at the inside of a cloud.

Since the cocktails didn’t work out, the six of us went back to Dragonfly to enjoy massages for our last night in China. We all left jellified, when we got in cabs and headed back to Nanjinglu, the shopping area we went to on Monday. There we were hoping to get dinner from a two-story mega foodery. It was like a swap meet for food. We got into this place and agreed to meet 15 minutes later with food to bring back to the hotel. However, we all were overwhelmed and after touring around the building, we realized that dinner was not there.

I don’t remember the name of the dinner restaurant, but it was beautiful. Though Euigyoo did a great job of ordering, there was some confusion. Euigyoo seemed to clarify everything. One of the things that he ordered was a duck. Soon, a man came that knew English, who was not a waiter or manager. We figured he was one of the restaurant big wigs or something. He explained that they were out of two dishes that we ordered and needed to order some replacements. We did so and thanked him for his help.

Dish after dish came to the table, and finally, the duck came. It was not like the duck that we had had before. Not only was the duck not as much food as we thought there would be, but the head of the animal (on the plate, of course) didn’t really look like a duck. When we were full, another dish came out. It was like the other dish that we thought was a duck, but it clearly was duck this time. The skin was dark like duck and the head of the animal (again on the plate) had a bill. So, we were wondering, what the hell was the other animal that we ate? At the end of the meal, our English speaking friend came over to us and asked how we liked the meal. We said it was great, but I asked, what was up with the animals? It turned out, that when Eigyoo ordered the duck, they only had half a duck left. In its place, he had ordered a goose. Animal #1 was the goose, and animal #2 was a duck. The duck was by far the better fowl.

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