Monday dawned. The first day after the guys had arrived, and we were all amazingly hung over. Getting home at 5 or 6 in the morning after a 13 hour drinking session can do that to you, funnily enough. We ended up sleeping in until after midday and lazing around the apartment for most of the afternoon. Finally at around 5pm we decided we were in the right frame of mind to go out and see some sights, so I took the guys up to the subway station to travel across the river to Puxi.
We went for a walk along Nanjing Rd taking the obligatory photo here and there. Aside from having a quick look inside the flagship Nike store (complete with design-your-own-shoe area), we were far too lazy to stop in and explore any of the other stores. We were approached by someone trying to sell us a watch or DVDs every minute or so, but it was fun for the guys to experience it for the first time. We decided not to indulge in any of the offers, and instead just meandered down the road taking everything in.
We had a meal at one of the restaurants along the road after being approached by a guy asking if we were looking for a meal - actually, it was a coffee place with a reasonably westernised version of Chinese food, but it was still pretty tasty (aside from the spring rolls which seemed to have a chocolatey-type substance inside them). I remember that it was amazingly hot inside that place, which was probably for two reasons: 1 - we were still very hung over, and 2 - we sat very close to the neon sign that advertised their presence on Nanjing Rd.
After leaving the restaurant we wandered further down Nanjing Rd and onto The Bund where we took a few more photos of the great Pudong skyline. We walked almost all the way down to the Old Town area before organising a taxi to get back to the apartment. We were heading for an early night, and spent a little time with the Lonely Planet Guide to Shanghai so that the boys could plan what they wanted to do the next day.
The guys spent most of Tuesday wandering around the Old Town area while I was at work. We caught up for dinner, and I decided to show them my favourite meal - hot pot. We caught a taxi as the guys were sick of walking, and made a quick stop at the DVD store that I've been to previously. Shotty bought about 20 DVDs to take back (Cookie was a bit pickier as he'd seen pretty much everything they had), and we caught another quick taxi to the Little Sheep hot pot restaurant.
It was the first time I'd ever been to have hot pot without one of my Chinese co-workers with me to order everything. Luckily they had an English menu version (the standard one is all Chinese text with no photos) so I proceeded to order up a storm on behalf of the three of us. The guys left it completely in my hands as they had no idea what they were getting in for, and initially it looked like I'd stuffed things up completely. The amount of food that came out was extremely daunting - lamb, beef, potatoes, noodles, bean shoots - it just kept coming! Unperturbed, we ordered some Chinese beer (somehow managed to convey the fact that I wanted it to be cold even though I don't know the Chinese word for 'cold') and tucked in.
We must have stayed there for more than 2 hours, and drank a couple of litres of beer each during that time, but we got through all the food. We waddled home afterwards and lay around groaning and holding our bellies. The guys were extremely impressed with the amount of food and beer we consumed considering the price we paid ($AUS22 each), and Shotty rated it as one of the best things he's ever eaten. Another convert to the hot pot cause!
Showing posts with label nanjing rd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nanjing rd. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Massive weekend - part 1
Ok, so I've had a fairly busy weekend. Well, today has been fairly slow due to a massive hangover, so I guess it would be more accurate so say that I had a busy Friday night/Saturday/Saturday night/Sunday morning. In fact, it was so massive that I'm splitting it into three posts.
Friday night after work I wolfed down some dumplings and decided to venture over to Puxi to have a bit of a stroll along Nanjing Rd, which is the main shopping street in Shanghai. For those of you that haven't been to Nanjing Rd, it's a long street with shops/restaurants lining the sides. It's closed to traffic, so it's basically a pedestrian shopping strip. It's extremely popular with tourists and as you walk along, it's not uncommon to see people posing for photos in front of particular stores/landmarks.
I jumped on a train just after 9 and was there in about 20 minutes. I took my new camera along to try out some night shots (I still think I have some tweaking to do there - I'll post some pics shortly). As I wandered down the road, I was approached at least every 2 or 3 minutes by guys in their twenties asking me if I wanted to buy a watch, or DVDs. As I said, it's a big tourist area, so there are plenty of people around trying to make money. I've been down the road plenty of times before, so I knew what to expect (I was warned about such things during my first trip to Shanghai). You have two choices here: if you are interested in buying something, you can let them know, and they'll take you off the main strip through a maze of alleyways into some shady establishment where you'll be shown into a room to look at whatever merchandise you were interested in.
The second option, to be employed if you do not want to buy anything, is to say no or simply ignore them. I had my headphones on with music up fairly loud, so while I saw them approach, I didn't actually hear which products they were spruiking. Most of the time I just shook my head and they quickly moved away again.
It wasn't just young guys approaching me - the girls get in on the action too. I was approached by some girls on a number of occasions - usually in pairs. They typically start out by asking where you are from and ask if it's ok to walk along with you and practice their English. While this sounds harmless, the girls then usually suggest to go to a nearby shop/bar and have a coffee to continue talking/get to know you better. Also sounds harmless...but I've heard tales of people ordering a coffee and having whisky or something like that brought out at hyper-inflated prices. Or getting stuck with the bill after the girls order food/drinks/whatever else. Once again, two ways of dealing with it - you can either ignore them, or answer their questions and (politely) refuse any of their suggestions.
So anyway, I strolled along Nanjing Rd for about half an hour taking pictures and just looking around. I ended up walking all the way to The Bund, which is an area along the western side of the Huangpu River. The Bund has lots of historical buildings and is also a pretty popular tourist area. I went over to take some pictures of the view across the river, which includes the Oriental Pearl TV tower (I'll upload the pics if any of them turned out well). By this time I was getting kind of thirsty, so I figured I'd head out in search of beer. I had three places in mind that I wanted to check out - Windows Scoreboard, Blue Frog and Studio 78. I started at Windows Scoreboard.
The oddly named Windows Scoreboard was a short (10 minutes or so) taxi ride away from The Bund (it cost me $3). I liked what I saw when I walked in - plenty of seating (pretty much all occupied), a couple of big TVs with various sports playing, a few dart boards and a big pool table. The place was absolutely packed, and seems to be a popular expat hangout as there were far more foreigners than locals. I squeezed my way up to the bar where I got my first happy surprise for the night - extremely cheap beer. A bottle of Tiger was only $AUS2. Sweet. I had a couple of beers over the next hour while watching some of the NCAA basketball, and then left. I still had two more places to visit and wasn't planning on having a massive night.
A foolish, foolish dream.
This ends part 1 - next up, the other two bars on Friday night and my day of physical activity on Saturday.
Friday night after work I wolfed down some dumplings and decided to venture over to Puxi to have a bit of a stroll along Nanjing Rd, which is the main shopping street in Shanghai. For those of you that haven't been to Nanjing Rd, it's a long street with shops/restaurants lining the sides. It's closed to traffic, so it's basically a pedestrian shopping strip. It's extremely popular with tourists and as you walk along, it's not uncommon to see people posing for photos in front of particular stores/landmarks.
I jumped on a train just after 9 and was there in about 20 minutes. I took my new camera along to try out some night shots (I still think I have some tweaking to do there - I'll post some pics shortly). As I wandered down the road, I was approached at least every 2 or 3 minutes by guys in their twenties asking me if I wanted to buy a watch, or DVDs. As I said, it's a big tourist area, so there are plenty of people around trying to make money. I've been down the road plenty of times before, so I knew what to expect (I was warned about such things during my first trip to Shanghai). You have two choices here: if you are interested in buying something, you can let them know, and they'll take you off the main strip through a maze of alleyways into some shady establishment where you'll be shown into a room to look at whatever merchandise you were interested in.
The second option, to be employed if you do not want to buy anything, is to say no or simply ignore them. I had my headphones on with music up fairly loud, so while I saw them approach, I didn't actually hear which products they were spruiking. Most of the time I just shook my head and they quickly moved away again.
It wasn't just young guys approaching me - the girls get in on the action too. I was approached by some girls on a number of occasions - usually in pairs. They typically start out by asking where you are from and ask if it's ok to walk along with you and practice their English. While this sounds harmless, the girls then usually suggest to go to a nearby shop/bar and have a coffee to continue talking/get to know you better. Also sounds harmless...but I've heard tales of people ordering a coffee and having whisky or something like that brought out at hyper-inflated prices. Or getting stuck with the bill after the girls order food/drinks/whatever else. Once again, two ways of dealing with it - you can either ignore them, or answer their questions and (politely) refuse any of their suggestions.
So anyway, I strolled along Nanjing Rd for about half an hour taking pictures and just looking around. I ended up walking all the way to The Bund, which is an area along the western side of the Huangpu River. The Bund has lots of historical buildings and is also a pretty popular tourist area. I went over to take some pictures of the view across the river, which includes the Oriental Pearl TV tower (I'll upload the pics if any of them turned out well). By this time I was getting kind of thirsty, so I figured I'd head out in search of beer. I had three places in mind that I wanted to check out - Windows Scoreboard, Blue Frog and Studio 78. I started at Windows Scoreboard.
The oddly named Windows Scoreboard was a short (10 minutes or so) taxi ride away from The Bund (it cost me $3). I liked what I saw when I walked in - plenty of seating (pretty much all occupied), a couple of big TVs with various sports playing, a few dart boards and a big pool table. The place was absolutely packed, and seems to be a popular expat hangout as there were far more foreigners than locals. I squeezed my way up to the bar where I got my first happy surprise for the night - extremely cheap beer. A bottle of Tiger was only $AUS2. Sweet. I had a couple of beers over the next hour while watching some of the NCAA basketball, and then left. I still had two more places to visit and wasn't planning on having a massive night.
A foolish, foolish dream.
This ends part 1 - next up, the other two bars on Friday night and my day of physical activity on Saturday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
