Dining out in "Fish street"

 

Last weekend together with some friends we decided to give the overpriced expat restaurants a miss and hit "Fish street" right in the heart of old Shanghai. All it is is a little road just of Xizong Lu and it is fringed with street vendors barbequeing their latest catches. If you don´t mind that it is a very chinese experience you will enjoy going there and mixing with the local crowd which later at night (that means after 9pm in Shanghai..) seem to be mostly young Chinese on their way to a night out.

You can look forever to find an English menue - you won´t find it. But that is no issue, because all you do is "Zhe ge -it" (point at the uncooked stuff and and say Zhe ge" which means "This! which by the way is any expats way of getting round anything in Shanghai  - or you do it even lazier like us and bring an experienced brother with you who has done this already several times :-) They than BBQ your food an bring it into one fo the many the dining rooms you are choosing to eat it in.

It is a truly messy way of eating which is why you get (and need!!) plastic gloves (need many of them!) and if you want you can also get an aprin. Food is served on skewers or in bowls and comes with a nice sauce which we have not figured out what it is.. Looks like soy sauce and tastes a little sweet.

Winners again this time were the garlic bbq oysters (less than 1 EUR each!), smoked fish on a stick (see piture above), BBQ prawns and my personal favorite "miàn bao" which are sweet tasting little bread dumplings roasted over fire

After dinner the restaurant weighs you and depending on how many kilo´s you put on you pay...

.....only JOKING!!

this guy just tried to make a little money with his scales.

You probably wonder about how our tummys felt the next day?

Mei Venti! - No Problem!! - We will be back again!

Today we are just looking at the frogs - and go to cooking school

  

Last month I wrote about how expensive it is to cook western style in China. (See Post from 30.06). After 6 months in Shanghai now it was finally time for us to learn a bit more about how to cook Chinese food.  Not that we (or to be fair I should really say Paul..) didn´t know how to do it.  But the challenge was always that when we wanted to use our brand new wok we struggled to find the ingredients or didn´t know what they were called in Chinese, or most of the times - we saw something looking good but didn´t know a) what it was and b) what to do with it.

So together with our friends Silvia and Andi we signed up for a Chinese cooking workshop at "Shanghai Kitchen", which is luckily located round the corner form us (- and the Paulaner Beergarden for that matter :-) )

Our teacher was a young Shanghainese called Jimmy, which I soon wanted to start calling "Jimmy Oliver" because he approaches cooking with no less passion than his famous English colleague. When Jimmy is not teaching he is a chef at the Ritz Carlton and therefore we were very excited to find out how he prepares every expats favorite Shanghai dishes:

• Shanghai fried noodles
• Eggplant cooked with spicy sauce
• Kongbao chicken
• Fried Pork with Pinapple

But first we went on a tour to a local wet market. From fruit and vegetables to tofu, meat, fish, rice spices - you can get anything here, see for yourself:

Below Left: Making of Fresh Dim Sum

Below Right: Tofu Stand

Below Left: Frog was not on the menue (maybe part of advanced cooking?) but it is  worth mentioning that Paul had it last friday and aparently it does really taste like chicken.

Below Right: Hairy Crabs - they are a delicatessy in Shanghai. We were told that you take them alive and boil them for 2 minutes in water. After having to swim stacked up in a drum filled with a marinade of ginger, sugar and vinegar probably in some way a relief....

Once we had completed our shopping it was time for the kitchen:

I think Paul was probably ready to kill a chicken....

no worries.. it was already dead...

Hobby Chef vs. Domestic Science Degree:

Here we go - my Shanghai noodles - approved by Jimmy!

 

Now guess how much this 4 course dinner feeding 9 people cost?

100 RMB = ~ 12 EUR!

I just hope that Paul doesn´t expect me to take on the lead in the kitchen now ... :-)

Moganshan - Escape to bamboo forest

Summer has finally taken over the city. With every day temperatures raising above 30°C and 80%+ humidity you start to look for alternative places than bars to cool off. Last weekend we decided to try out Moganshan nature park which is a good 3-4hrs travel south west of Shanghai. It is the closest mountain regin to the city and therefore perfectly suited for a weekend break (providing you know how to cheat yourself a train ticket - see last post).

The beauty of this area was discovered more than 100 years ago by European expatriates who chose it already back than as their cooling oasis in summer. They built stone villas and mansions right amongst bamboo forest about 400-500 meters above sea level. You therefore find a lot of 1920´s European architecture giving the place a very colonial and for us homely atmosphere.

During the cultural revolution many of those houses were abandoned. Some were taken over by Chinese officials and many of them today belong still to the government.
But several of the old buildings have been converted into Bed and Breakfasts or Hotels and therefore make this area a increasingly popular hideaway for Chinese and Foreign citizens again.

Unfortunately when we went the weather was not the greatest.  We had hoped for some clear blue skys which recently seems to be unheard and -seen of in the humidity of Shanghai. Still, it did not stop us having a great time wondering  through bamboo forests, tea plantations and exploring buildings of past times.

Here some impressions

Abandoned place:

View over Moganshan National Park:

Believe it or not, but we have never
seen as many and as large butterflies as here:

With all this green we almost forgot that we lived in China
Until we came across those signs:

Not sure what they exactly mean by pummeling..
And we did not quite figure out our duty...

The best thing about the trip was our stay in House #2 where we had a room (#9) with a great roof top terrace. And to be honest with you - this is where we spent most of the time. Just relaxing, breathing fresh air,  looking into green and enjoying a good read:

At least until they decided to dig up the market square with a hammerdrill on sunday...:-)

Want to know more about Moganshan?

About Moganshan Nature Park: Wiki (English) ; Bericht im Spiegel (Deutsch)
Where to eat?  Moganshan Lodge - .. and forget about time.
Where to stay?  Moganshan House #23 .. house #2 is a true jewel
Where we try next: Naked Retreat  ... who want´s to get naked with us?

Sometimes you just need to know how to ..cheat - buying train tickets

Last week we decided that the best way of resisting the temptation of going clubbing in Shanghai again  is to escape the city. This combined with the fact that we are sweating every day in about 35degrees gave me a clear mission to organize some train tickets to take us to the cool mountain region of Moganshan. We will talk about Moganshan in the next post. Today I want to share with you that buying train tickets can be a bit of a mission.

I have heard that you can book train tickets easily online and also in some smaller tourist offices around town. But I have not quite figured out which websites are trust worthy and where the next tourist office is located.. So I decided that the easiest way is to go to the train station and buy them personally.
Shanghai Southern train station is 4 stops by  subway and therefore I thought it would not be a too hard task to get them.. in theory..

When I got there I was confronted with the choice of either using ticket machines or personal service ticket offices. There were pretty long queues for the ticket machines and most of the time the machines show only Chinese language. So I decided to go for the personal counter and to give my Chinese some practise. There were exactly 12 counters with pretty much exactly 25 people behind each one. All the signs above the offices were displayed in Chinese and therefore all counters looked pretty much the same to me. I thought I´m beeing smart and chose the line with only 23 people in front of me.

Whilst standing in the line I noticed that my queue was a particular stressed one. There were people rushing in from the side and the guy behind the counter seemed like was  close to a nervous breakdown.  20 minutes later I found out why this line was so busy. When I got to the counter and bravely said in chinese that I wanted 2 return train tickets tomorrow leaving to Hangzhou he gave me a wicked grin and said "Mei you" (Don´t have) - and pointed at the other 11 counters on the left. The counter I had waited at was only issueing tickets for this day.

Another half an hour later I found myself again leading  a new waiting line, ready to explain again what my mission was about. It takes a little courage to do this. Because behind you are all these other 24 people who are really not keen on standing behind a foreigner. Like anywhere in the world people know "That can only go wrong and will take forever"

My counterpart  behind the glass turned out to be a woman who probably got up with the wrong foot that morning. So whilst I explained she gave me a look as if I I had told her that her shift tonight would not finish at 5 but at 11 at night. We did not hit it off very well but we were able to work out that I needed a return train tickets to Hangzhou. I actually said that I needed two and was happy when she started typing into her computer.

For some reason I had to hand her my passport for issuing the ticket. This did not surprise me because in this country you are almost not able to do anything without your passport - at least as a foreigner. A couple of minutes later I proudly held the  first two tickets in my hand. "Great" I thought " All I have to do now is ask her for another set of tickets for Paul".  So I waved the tickets at her and  shouted "liang ge" - two times! " into the microphone so that she and everyone else could hear me.

By that thime the crowd behind me started shuffeling with their feet and some people bended over my shoulders wondering what on earth could take that long. The lady behind the counter now looked like I had given her a whole night shift and asked me for Paul´s passport. Here is the exact dialogue - translated into English:

Ticket woman (TW): "Your husband passport?"
Me: " Don´t have!"
TW: "zhzhziojiojw´wefiowj weofjhn zheikj!!!!"
Me: ??????????????????????????
TW and next guy behind me in queue: "Why not have husband passport?????"
Me: "Because my husband needs his and is at work.......!!!!!!?????
TW: "Can not"
Me: "Sorry?"
TW: "Can not"
Guy behind me" You can not get a ticket without your husbands passport"
Me: "Why????????"
Ticket Woman: "Next!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" -
and did this classic "don´t want!- can not´t! -go away and leave me alone-before I loose my face-wave".
And before I realized I was pushed out the line with only one ticket for me to Hangzhou on friday. I thought what a waste of time, how crap my Chinese and how on earth I´m was going to make sure that Paul and I would ride on the same train. It seemed like  there was not much else I could do because there was no way for me to get Paul´s passport on that day. Slightly frustrated I made my way back to the underground.

But hey, what was that? I looked at my tickets and noticed that there was absolutely no reference to my name, my passport or anything personal. "Wait a minute" I thought " "A system is sometimes there to be fooled, a chinese one in particular!"..And so I decided to make my way up again and - to simply queue in another line. Just this time I made sure that the guy behind looked like he had a better day. And whilst I waited I noticed that next to no one! was showing their passports when booking a ticket. This gave me confidence in going ahead with my plan. Worst case I would have lost another half hour waiting.

I put on my best smile and  told my whole story about where I wanted to go ect. Again I had to show my passport. Holding my breath I watched the guy checking it and - believe it or not - punching in my interim residence permit visa which had expired some months ago!  Even I could see that he used the wrong document - latest the large X crossing out the page made it clear. To my luck this did not bother the ticket guy the slightest and the computer did not set off an alarm with crying sirenes and red lights flashing.

Five minutes later I happily wondered back down to the tube station, holding 4 tickets for a ride for both of us to Hangzhou and back in my hands! And in case you wonder - no one found out  about my little cheat.
Not even the ticket boarding machine :-)

What are we doing this weekend?

Last weekend we had planned one of those quiet weekends at home and I´m sorry to say: Mission totally failed. See the problem is that we are living right next to Hengshan road which is one of the largest party areas in Shanghai. Three of the largest clubs in Shanghai are based just round the corner  and nestled amongst countless bars and restaurants. It´s not like we are out there partying all the time, but it seems like it is just the other way round than it was in Germany: You have to make an effort NOT to go out.

So friday night Paul and I went to "Mistral", which is a lovley Spanish tapas place in Fuxing Road, just about 15 minute walk from us. After that we went to "JZ-bar" which is a funky live Jazz club accross from Mistral. We left there about 1am. On our walk home we noticed new flashing lights over an entrance in Hengshan road. Before we knew it a little happy little chinese guy pulled us through the door. We walked through a tunnel and over sudden found ourselfes in a huge two floor dance hall with countless half naked men going crazy to the latest beats. It took a couple of seconds to realize, but we had walked in the opening night of Shanghais new and largest gay club called "Angel"
If you want to get an idea, take a look:

It is a fun place to be but after the Jz club it did not quite fit the theme of the night - or maybe it was just Paul not beeing so sure :-) But I can´t wait exploring this place more with some friends form home one day!!

Next day, Saturday we were really going to stay in. But than we found out that Pauls colleague was playing with his band in a bar.  So we ended up in Yu Yin Tang Garden which is kind of a large pub with a small concert hall and seems to serve the cheapest beer in the city.. Dave (Pauls colleague) was actually playing in 3 bands that night. If you want to take a look at this video of  "Hotter than Teppanyaki"and listen to the tune " I like beer but it does not get me drunk" - Dave is the singer.

A little later that night on we got to see a real Shanghai celebrity punk band. The guys are Canadian and about 2 meters tall. The singer is a chinese girl and probably half the hight. She looks like a totally innocent school girl. But when she gets going on stage she is totally mad. Imagine a rabbit on speed jumping around on stage. I could not help thinking about one of the schizophrenic "Kill Bill" caracters and was waiting every second for her to pull her sword. Unfortunately she is not going that mad in this video. But you get an idea:

I think we were home and deaf at about 3am. It was too hot to sleep anyway (about 34 degrees at night). So what was there left to do on Sunday? Exactly chilling out and recovering. We packed our blankets and took  a taxi to Century Park where we relaxed a little on the lake. The good thing about the heat is that no one wants to get out. So we had the park nearly to ourselfes.

And what are we going to do this weekend? - Well the plan is to do NOTHING.... :-)