During my Sunday in Shanghai with Charles, Helen, David and Mark, we went to a fantastic restaurant called 城隍庙南翔小笼 (which in English means ‘Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant’) for traditional Chinese dumplings.

The place is said to have the best dumplings in Shanghai, and this claim was certain supported by the HUGE queue of people outside the shop for the take-away service.

What was interesting was the way the pricing structure worked…

1. Cheapest / long wait…
   queue up outside and get your dumplins to take away and eat on the street
   (at least a 1 hour wait)
   This video shows the size of the queue (and how the dumplins were made). . .
   
2. A bit more expensive / less wait…
   queue on the stairs on the way up to the first level restaurant, where you can sit down and eat your dumplins
   (I am guessing a 30 to 45 minute wait)
   
3. Even more expensive / short wait…
   queue at the top of the stairs, where you can sit in the second level restaurant and eat your dumplins and other food from the menu
   (we went for this option and we only waited about 10 or 15 minutes)
   
4. MOST expensive / no wait
   We saw a small group get taken to the back of the second level restaurant and in to their own private room.  I guess they had to book and I guess it was very expensive

I thoroughly recommend option 3.  for westerners, it’s still pretty cheap!

We started our lunch with some Dim Sum, which Helen kindly demoed how to unwrap and eat …

The dumplings which came next contain soup and pork.  They are served in little wicker tubs, in which they are also cooked (by steam).  To eat them you first put some ginger and soy sauce in to a small dish, in to which you dip the dumpling.  You must then bite a small hole in the side, suck out the soup and then eat what is left in one mouth full.  Here is Charles demonstrating. . .

I am just sitting waiting for plane to Tokyo.  The airport in Pudong has a similar design to Terminal 5, in that it is a long building with a roof shaped a little like a wave.  The airport is fairly new, very clean and at the moment quite quiet.  I am sitting have a drink and a Pain D’Chocolate – 40 minutes until boarding.

There are a bunch of shops down stairs selling mainly Chinese souvenirs, although I was already warned that they are very expensive compared to those sold in Shanghai.  I’ll wait for Japan before doing any more shopping

Here are a few shots of the cool airport building ceiling, enjoy

Tonight is my last night in Shanghai, Chris, a colleague from MS Shanghai offered to show me around a little.  We went over to Pudong, which is on the opposite side of the river to my hotel, and hosts many of the local financial institutions. 

We went up to the top of the financial center, which is the tallest building in Asia (I will post separately about that later). Afterwards we wondered down to the river and found a great place called Paulaner’s Beirgarden, which was right next to the river Yangtze river. 

It was a great spot! There was some dodgy Chinese band inside singing ‘Hotel California’ and classics from Shakira, but we were outside so only had the pleasure of hearing them during visits to the toilets. We ended up chatting for a few hours, drinking a few glasses of wine/beer and enjoying the night time heat whilst watching the boats sail by.  Good times

Here is a little video of the place we were sitting…

Xin Tian Di is a lovely little area of Shanghai with lots of restaurants and bars built in renovated old residential properties.  All of the buildings are composed of a mixture of traditional Chinese architecture with what appears to be European (or at least Western) influence to inject a little modernism.  I loved how traditional the building felt, even with the futuristic sky scrapers towering in the background.

Charles and Helen acted as great tour guides…

 

…and they took me to a place called ‘Chat Tea’ (the English name) where we had a Chinese Tea and fruit cocktail…

During our tour of the city yesterday we visited the Yuyuan Bazaar in the old town.  The town is built in the style of traditional Chinese architecture, although feels a little Disney land like since it is so clean.   It is a great place to walk around, immerse yourself in the crowds and take in the variety of smells (not all good).  Here are a couple of photos of the busy market streets…

This is definitely the place to come for souvenir shopping.  There are all kinds of unique shops selling food, decorations, art and many more Chinese style gits/souvenirs.  Don’t forget to barter for a good price!

We also had a great traditional lunch here, but I will blog about that in a separate post   Here is a little video clip of the main square…

I spotted this building near the People’s Square in Shanghai yesterday.  It looks a bit like a tall version of the Cardinal Place building which hosts Microsoft in London.  I wonder if the architect had been to Shanghai before coming up with the design!

We walked down Fucheng Road in Shanghai this afternoon.  A very nice road…

The Bund is a strip of buildings along side the river in Shanghai which used to play home to the city’s financial institutions.  Whilst there are still some banks around, many of the impressively  grand structures now host name after name of designer shops (Dolce and Gabana, Prada, etc…).

Normally, there are apparently impressive views of the Shanghai Pudong’s iconic  skyscapers, however due to the construction work for the Shanghai Expo 2010 I am afraid that the area is a bit of a building site .  I did not even manage to see the river due to the 15 foot fences which were in place to hide the rubble.

I walked along the street for about 15 minutes, however the ‘path’ was not always distinguishable from the road and even when it was, I had to dodge random motor bikes with all kinds of things strapped to the back of them…

My advice: if you want to see the Bund in all it’s glory, come back next year!

• LONG flight!
• Didn’t sleep (hence the bullet points)
• Did catch up on blogs using my netbook
• Just arrived at the hotel
• Been awake for 22 hours and it’s only 11am here!
• Going to go for a wonder, find something interesting to video and take photos of and hopefully try some authentic Chinese street food Here is a quick hello from my hotel room. . .