0 Comments
After I turned in my final final paper for the year one of my friends and I decided to take a trip to People's Park, the Bund, and Pudong to take some more photos before we leave. To be honest, while it is one of if not the most touristy district in Shanghai I actually quite like the Bund area. There is just something inherently interesting about the mixing of Old Shanghai and New Shanghai in the Bund area. Also, the Shanghai Municipal Government has markers on most of the historic buildings on the Bund telling you, in English and in Chinese, what the building was and why that thing was important. The Royal Canadian Navy apparently agrees with me since they had a very new looking ship docked at the People's Liberation Army Navy base located by the Bund. We then went over to the Pudong side of the river to take some more photos and get some dinner. We went to a Japanese place that, while empty, wasn't bad. They did seat us by the window since I guess they thought that an obvious foreigner (like myself) would drum up customers. We finally took some last pictures of Pudong at night before returning to campus.
Even though there is still finals week and one more day of classes to go the GCP program (my program at ECNU) had their closing lunch at ECNU's Silver Spring Western style restaurant. We heard some short speeches from representatives of the international students, International Student Office, and the professors. The lunch wasn't bad and I would say that the food was 50/50 Western/Chinese. It was short and sweet so I guess that is nice. It is kind of weird how soon I will be leaving China though.
With the year coming to a close it is a good time to revisit my favorite places in Shanghai before I go, check out the stuff I haven't been to yet, and buy souvenirs for my friends and family. Today, a friend of mine and I decided to do all three. Besides being the former home of Mao Zeidong and Shanghai's most famous Buddhist Temple the Jing'an Temple District (named obviously for the temple) is now one of Shanghai's nicest. We actually couldn't get into the temple because it closes at 5:00 and we got there at around 4:50, but we got to go to Dunkin' Doughnuts Shanghai! The doughnuts were actually very different from the doughnuts served in the US, they even just introduced the "new" dunkin' doughnut with the handle (you know, their first product ever). The coffee is on point just like it is in the US. Hopefully Dunken' will expand in Shanghai since I like Dunken' Doughnuts coffee more than Starbucks. We walked around for a bit before deciding to go to Yu Gardens since it is the more interesting neighborhood. I actually wanted to buy a few things for friends and a Mao bust for my room next year at Juniata. Mao stuff is actually kind of hard to find in Shanghai since Mao's Red Cult isn't dominant in modern Shanghai. Most Shanghaiese are big fans of Comrade Deng Xiaoping; it is not like they don't dislike Mao they just like Deng more. The other issue I have is that it is actually kind of heavy; I might just mail it back to the US if only so I can confuse the poor customs agent who opens my package for inspection. I also got to check out a new cafeteria style restaurant in Yuyuan Gardens. It was basically the same as my old stand by Yuyuan restaurant except it has way more of that golden plastic materiel and seems has a giant plastic soup dumpling in the dining area. I am continuing to knock stuff off my final Shanghai to-do list and I even got some time to study for my Philosophy final.
So I got back from Hangzhou (杭州), or well somewhere close enough, since we were a little a bit outside of Hangzhou where there was no cell reception, no internet, and only sometimes spotty internet. It felt more rural than ether Fenghuang or Zhangjiajie, but we could still see the flights from Hangzhou Airport on their first assent. Still, it was nice to be somewhere where the air was nice (for China), I could see the sky, and I heard rumor that you can actually drink some of the water! Some of my friends, my professor, my professor's new cat, and myself all piled into my professor's small Volkswagen "We!". We had some lunch at a street dude who served the local rice noodle dish and some Chinese fruit I had once before but who's name I forgot. We then split up to get some food for dinner at the local Chinese BBQ place. Apparently Chinese BBQ restaurants will sell you ingredients for a barbecue if you run pick up some local vegetable dealer to vouch for you for 关系. We got the meat though than, after a hike around some of the lovley rivers, we made our way to our professor's house, or our professor's brother's house since our professor's brother actually lived there. Dinner was good, it was Chinese BBQ (if you couldn't tell that) and setting one of those up is a bit of a process. It the grill basically a metal box with some air holes that you pile as much charcoal as you can in and start cooking. Food was good, mostly well cooked, and came with the local brew and some Chinese moonshine. Finally we had some tea and went to bed. The morning was actually really impressive, the mountains actually had this silver shine that didn't capture well on camera that was super impressive. We than made our way back to Shanghai, but not before a stop for wantons. At our bathroom stop just outside of Shanghai city limits we got some zongzi (粽子). A zongzi is a type of rise pyramid stuffed with some type of meat, it isn't my favorite snacky Chinese dish but it isn't bad. I had a similar thing in Bangkok, Thailand but I liked the zongzi more. Overall it was a fun and somewhat tiring weekend, I am glad I went to one more Chinese city before I leave.
I made another attempt to use the massive box of bamboo I was mailed, this time some of my friends and I decided to do a Phat Thai type of dish with quail eggs and the bamboo. I would say it worked out better than my first attempt but the street guys in Thailand are still the kinds of Phat Thai. My two biggest problems this time around were that I cut some of the bamboo pieces a bit too large resulting in some that didn't cook right and the noodles were overcooked. I should have paid more attention to the noodles when I bought them because they cook in literally 3 minutes. It feels like by the time I dump them in the hot water they are ready to eat. They are faster than even the pot noodle type things. I did get use to the strange internal film of the quail eggs so using them was much easier this time around. I would say this attempt was more successful than my last attempt, even if it doesn't look pretty.
|
AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
November 2021
Categories
All
|