A Little Help From My (new!) Friends

These last 4 days in Shanghai have flown by -- so many amazing moments jammed in!

On Sunday I ventured out on my own to get in a few more "must-sees" in during the weekend.  My sister keeps asking me who it is that I get to take photos of me when I'm traveling around solo - the truth is, there are pretty much only 2 requirements: (1) they aren't holding something: food, a baby, lots of bags, etc -- you don't want to make anyone put stuff down and (2) they don't seem too freaky or like they might run off.  For the last few years I have relied entirely on my camera phone (I'm an Android girl) to take photos.  Biggest pros? They take great photos, auto-upload them to Google Photos and almost everyone in the world knows how to use a camera phone - so it seems less intimidating to ask others to be my personal photographer.

So yes, I basically ask randoms to take my photo all the time!  In return, I'm always willing to take photos for anyone who asks me.  I hardly ever get turned down (though I sometimes get bad photos) but sometimes I luck out and meet a new friend along the way.

I started my day back on The Bund to check out the scene in daylight.  It has a very European / promenade feel to it.

The Bund, Shanghai

The skyline really is incredible -- the amount of skyscrapers here basically puts NYC to shame -- and it is so futurist looking:

From The Bund, I headed up East Nanjing Road - the Madison Ave of Shanghai -- on my way to People's Square.   This street rose to prominence in the 1920s as the sight of China's first department store.  Today, this pedestrian walkway is packed full of shops (including Cai Tong De, one of the oldest and most famous traditional pharmacies in China and the largest department store in Shanghai - the first building in Shanghai to have an escalator).  

My original plan was to head to the Shanghai Museum to explore a bit, however the lines were over 2 hours long.  In my wandering, I was approached by 3 Chinese university students visiting from Beijing (they wanted their photo taken!) and we ended up chatting for a bit.  Turns out they were planning to hit the museum as well, but were thwarted by the long lines.  Instead, they invited me to join them for a traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony that they were headed to.  I happily obliged.

We headed into a building complex, up 2 escalator flights and down a long corridor and knocked on a door.  We were welcomed into a private tea room and were soon experiencing a traditional Chinese tea ceremony (using hand-pressed tea).  The ceremony was all in Chinese, but my new friends Cindy & Peter spoke really good English and translated the entire thing.

Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony

It was incredible how intricate the ceremony was.  There are different tea cups for each type of tea, a particular way to hold the cup (slightly different for men and women), a special ways to swirl and drink (always a full cup in 3 sips), and a few secrets along the way to ensure good luck and prosperity!

We tried 6 different kinds of tea: jasmine, green, black,
lotus flower, lychee and dried fruits/spices

Lotus Flower Tea

It was such a wonderful treat to chat with my new friends all about China, their hometown of Beijing (I was invited to visit with their families & learn to make dumplings), about university life, American vs. Chinese customs and of course tea!  It's always so fun when the unexpected happens and your day turns into one of those adventures you could never have planned inadvance.

With Cindy, Peter and their quiet friend
(who didn't speak any English)

After filling up on tea, I said goodbye to my new friends and headed to the French Concession to check out Shanghai Xintiandi's Shikumen Wulixiang - Wulixiang means home in the Shanghainese dialect.  "Dao Wulixiang Lai Zuo Zuo" means "come to my house and sit for a while."  This museum presents an authentic recreation of a typical Shikumen house built in the 1920s era and provides a real feel for the customs, architecture and furnishings of Old Shanghai.

I stopped at Crystal Jade to rest my feet and sample their dumplings and hot & sour soup. Delish!

Hot & Sour soup with homemade noodles

After lunch, I headed over to Tianzifang - another neighborhood consisting of shikumen (stone-gate houses) and is now an arts & crafts enclave in the French Concession West.  The whole French Concession reminded me of Paris or the West Village: tree lined streets full of boutiques and cafes.

There were so many amazing
alleyways and courtyard to peek into.

And I loved it: scaffolding is made of bamboo!

When I couldn't walk another step, I hopped a cab to Jing'an to visit the Jade Buddha Temple.  Built between 1918 and 1928, this temple is one of Shanghai's few active monasteries.  The highlight is a Buddha carved out of jade (pretty amazing - a huge Buddha carved out of a single slab of Jade - no photos allowed though), one of the five shipped back to China by the monk Hiu Gen at the turn of the 20th century from his pilgrimage through Myanmar & Tibet.

Jade Buddha Temple

Rubbing the Buddha's belly for good luck.
No such thing as too much good luck!

Monks leaving the monastery.

Hall of Treasures: with Past, Present & Future Buddhas (left), Laughing Buddha - my favorite - (right).

I cabbed it back to the hotel (cabs are crazy cheap here -- a 30 minute ride across the city was a total of maybe $8 USD!) and spent some downtime relaxing in my giant soaking tub!  In the evening I met Adam in the lounge to go over our agenda & presentations for the next day (yes! I actually have to do work while I'm here) and then headed to dinner at Jesse.

This was my favorite restaurant -- a bold statement to be sure -- that we tried in Shanghai.  Far off the beaten path, you can't show up without a reservation.  Our hotel made one for us, but due to traffic we ended up a bit late.   When we walked in (a small room and desk on the first floor) we were waved away - closed they said.  We attempted to mime out "reservation" (yup, brought out the old finger-thumb telephone gesture) and then handed over our "calling card" -- a business card from the Park Hyatt with Jesse's name and address written, intended only for the cab driver to deliver us safely.  Luckily this did the trip and we were taken upstairs to a small loft-like room with only about 8 tables (2 filled with other diners) and not a decoration in sight.  What they lacked in ambience, they made up for in food.  

While the menu did have some English translations, the options were all new to us and we must have looked totally baffled.  This is when a local diner stepped in to our rescue.  In somewhat limited English, he determined that we liked everything and proceeded to order our full dinner for us!  His choices were amazing (though I'm still not sure what all we ate).

Our new friend ordered about 5 dishes for the two of us.
Of the ones I could recognize, they included: cold salted
chicken, pork, noodles, tofu with crab and veggies.

Back home to rest up for a jammed packed day in the Shanghai office tomorrow!