Shanghai, China

Here's where the adventure truly begins as we start hopping our way across China and Russia.  No more English-speaking waiters and western food buffets for us anymore.  

Somehow we missed the memo that Facebook, Google apps and a long list of other sites are blocked by the great firewall of China.  Since Blogspot is hosted by Google, these entries were obviously a bit delayed in getting posted. We're forced to use Microsoft Bing for searches and maps... we are truly roughing it now.

We have our first little logistics snafu.  Since our cruise ship was so big we didn't arrive at the downtown International Cruise Terminal as we expected - we arrived at a port on the outskirts of Shanghai. A new map and a long metro ride through some scruffy neighborhoods gets us back on track. On the plus side, we get to see parts of Shanghai that the tourism board doesn't promote. Our hotel is next to an identifiable city park so we were able to make the adjustment without a major problem.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that most major street signs are also in English so that helped a bunch too.

We ended up with a great hotel here in Shanghai.  One of the challenges for this trip was picking hotels and neighborhoods in all the cities.  I did lots of searches and read lots of reviews to try to find our version of the Goldilocks hotel.  Not too big - not too small. Not crazy expensive - but not super budget. Not a chain hotel - but with a front desk that speaks English. Not in a completely touristy neighborhood - not in an area we don't feel comfortable.  Our Shanghai hotel was just right: mid range, friendly and in a relaxing tree-lined neighborhood. It even has a roof-top happy hour patio. Hooray TripAdvisor! 

We found Shanghai to be a very modern city with some old school ways still mixed in here and there.  There's a Tesla showroom in the shopping district, a Wolfgang Puck outlet on restaurant row, french macaroons in the pastry shops and skinny jeans on the hipsters.  Yet on the next block you'd come across a dried fruit cart on the back of a bicycle and packages stacked high on a delivery bicycle.  There are tons of fancy shopping in the nice areas of town... but then it gets a little bit scruffy if you start wandering down the side streets and alleys.  Teenagers everywhere are taking photos of everything with their iPhones permanently attached to selfie sticks and elders everywhere are practicing their Tai Chi exercise.

We happened to arrive during their mid-Autumn full-moon Festival. It's kind of like our Thanksgiving with family gatherings and food traditions. Our hotel gave us some traditional mooncakes upon arrival, they come in all different flavors - from savory to sweet - but evidently not 'tasty' (at least the ones we tried).  They're shaped like the full moon to symbolize the togetherness of family... awww.

We have perfect weather our first day and take advantage by walking off some cruise calories.  We definitely love that these large cities are very walkable and have pretty city parks for lounging and  people watching.  The restaurant and shopping diversity of the big cities is also great but we're probably not ready to trade our suburbish house and lawn for a 5th story apartment anytime soon.  For us, it's a great lifestyle to visit - but not live full-time.

Typhoon Dujuan hit China on Monday causing lots of problems in Taiwan but just bringing us a downpour of rain here in Shanghai.  Even though it added to the weight of my pack, I'm glad I brought the umbrella. And Brian thought I should leave it at home... definitely worth it's weight today.  Since it was just a misty day to start with, we take in a little culture at the art museum and a little scenery at a couple of the iconic tourist spots.  Lucky for us we did most of our wandering during the decent weather and we have a cooking class scheduled during the heavy rain. Brian trashed out a pair of shoes walking through downpour on the way home so at least he has something to shop for now.  

We also experienced the Shanghai scooter madness.  They drive on the sidewalks, in any traffic lane and through red lights.  It just doesn't matter - they heed no traffic laws, yield only to buses and definitely don't even hesitate when buzzing by pedestrians. 

We try our best to sample the local foods whenever we travel. So we ate a bunch of street food in Shanghai - both during our own explorations and with a local guide.  Probably the most unusual thing we ate was twice-cooked water snake.  If you can get past the idea of snake and all the little bones, it 'tasted like chicken' (way better than mochi balls!).  Instead of dominating the post with a bunch of street food shots, I'll add most of them at the end of the post.

I love dumplings! That's my "happy dumpling" face in the above picture. We ate so many dumplings that I may have finally overdosed - for a while anyway. Not only did we eat as many as we could, we also attended a dumpling making class at a local cooking school. Check that one off my bucket list. Despite Brian's "concentrating dumpling" face, ours did NOT turn out as pretty as the professionals' but we ate them anyway. More dumpling glamour shots are at the end of this post.

We sweat it out a bit as our reserved train tickets to Beijing arrived to our hotel at 1:00 am the day we were scheduled to leave - but at least they arrived.  Hopefully the Siberian train tickets will also be there ready for us when we get to our Beijing hotel.  On to Beijing...

"Once a year, go someplace you've never been before." - Dalai Lama

Street Food!

Twice-cooked water snake - sounds weirder than it tastes.  Fried up and spiced so it's kinda like chicken wings - although probably not going to show up on the BWW menu anytime soon.

Crawfish boil!  Tastes like crawfish.

Jianbing - an incredibly tasty crispy crepe-like thing that will someday take the world by storm. If you're looking for a killer food truck idea, this is it.  Crepe, scrambled egg, bean paste, fried wonton and some secret stuffs.  We could have eaten about twenty of these.

Scallop-ish thing with garlic.  Tastes like scallop and garlic.

Eating healthy with BBQ-spiced fish and veggies.

Can't eat street food without some meat on a stick - this happens to be lamb with a chili spice rub.

Roasted eggplant, smeared with garlic served with grilled buns.  Simple but delicious!

Stir-fried street noodles!  Check out the jet-engine fire under that wok. Very tasty.

Stir-fry Sichuan-style pork and celery - very similar to the typical Chinese-American takeout but fresher and lightly sauced.

Dumplings!

Pan-fried buns filled with pork meatball and pork soup. Bite a small hole, slurp out the soup then eat.

Boiled dumplings filled with pork and celery.

Steamed dumplings - filled with spinach-like veggies on the left and pork & soup on the right.  The pork/soup ones are called xiao long bao and are the signature dumpling of Shanghai.

Pot-stickers filled with pork.  My favorite - I definitely need this mega dumpling pan to handle my at-home dumpling cravings. Alas, it wouldn't fit in my backpack.

Dumpling roulette.  Never try - never know.

Hand-made by American tourists.