Day time view.
Cha Ye Dan (Tea leaf brewed egg) and homemade Dou Jian (Soy Milk) for breakfast from Lester's Ah Yi (aunty/temp maid)
Look at that crackly texture. That's quality egg.
Lester asked his Ah Yi to prepare us lunch for my visit. Here we have live crab. The hairy crab variety which the Shanghai region is somewhat known for. Apparently. I'm not sure why the crabs are bound so. I guess it's so they come out all neat when they are cooked and it's too much of a hassle to bind them yourself. Well according to youtube, it's because they move around a lot so I could imagine a bunch of these guys escaping from the fishmonger's crab box.
Veg-
-etables
Fishetable.
Soupetable.
Crabetable.
"No, don't eat me!"
Ah Yi shows us how to take one of these suckers apart. What is not clear is besides the gills, she is removing this kind of eggy substance from the shell that she claims is a laxative. Nope, don't want to eat those.
After lunch, we headed outside for some town sights. Just outside Lester's apartment is this street market.
And not too far away, this nice park.
And waaaay far away (so for Lester's Ah Yi said we'd be crazy to walk it. Which we ended up doing) was this nice grid of somewhat trendy pedestrian stores.
So very tired. Pit stop at a fondue place. Fruit and chocolate!
Teresa and Lester chow down.
Taxi back into central Shanghai (no way we were walking back!). Here is the "Fake Market" where you can buy all sorts of fake brand clothes.
I asked Lester about Xiao Yang San Jian Bao which I read about on David Wu's blog. They have several joints in the city but we queued up at this one. Only 1 RMB per bao! That's like 15 cents! I can't think of anything you can buy for 15 cents in the States. Maybe a stick of gum? Who sells a single stick of gum?
Wrap! Wrap! maybe a rap about wrapping... I wonder if it's been done before...
OK, again youtube has answered my questions with a resounding "yes we have!"
And now back to our regularly scheduled program. If you go to Shanghai, you got to hunt these bad boys down. Nothing like the ones from last night. Juicy and awesome.
Yum
I think this is Nanjing Dong Lu. For some reason, google's map of Shanghai sucks ass. Not only are things horribly labelled, but the satellite and road maps are not spatially synced and you cannot view it in hybrid mode. This is a big touristy section with all sorts of shops and these weird Disneyland-esque train shaped trams that go up and down the middle of the road. People are constantly trying to sell you stuff and put random crap into your hands.
And here I am with fist a'shaking in front of my "Acenstreal birthright," Shanghai Taikang Foods Co. Ltd. My great grand father started this company back in the day. It was pretty big, importing a lot of goods from those places that like to export stuff. That and it's like on the biggest street in Shanghai. Long story short, the Commies federalized (or whatever verb they might use) it and now all we Lohs can do is take our picture in front of it and mildly shake our nostalgic fists and distant ghosts. First time to visit!
Here is the famous Golden Cockbrand Cookie. And there it also is featured in the Ang Lee movie Lust Caution. I could have been the Golden Cockbrand King!
Right across from Nanjing Rd is the Central Hotel where I would be staying in a few days.
China = foot massages! Here is a classy joint inside a building (as opposed to behind a dirty bar or ping pong parlor). For us richies, they are so cheap to get. I boils down to about 1 RMB per minute so a 1 hour foot massage cost us 58 RMB. Remember? 1 RMB is like 15 cents! 58 is less than $9.
For dinner we went to this noodle place.
You get all these ingredients
And dump them into an oily bowl of noodle soup.
And afterwards a Bubble Tea from the happylemon stand.
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