Been very slack in getting these online! Onto the next few days before the trip to Beijing.
The guys spent Thursday the 9th on a day trip to Hangzhou. The 90 minute train ride meant that they didn't get back until after 8:30, and they were both buggered from a busy day of walking. We wandered 10 minutes down the road to a noodle place that sells big plates of noodles for around $AUS2-3 each, and ate until we were stuffed. Once we got back to the apartment Cookie decided to call it a night so that he could recover, but Shotty was pretty keen to go out and do something so I took him to De La Coast.
De La Coast is a funky little bar just at the end of The Bund. I'd never actually been there before, but had read good things about it on some expat websites so figured we may as well give it a try. One thing in its favour - a full moon party was on that night, and they were having a $CNY100 open-bar night. That equates to about $AUS20 for as much alcohol you can drink between 9pm and 2am. Including wine/spirits, not just beer.
We got there just before 10pm...to find the place completely dead. There were roughly 5 other people in the entire place when we walked in. Unperturbed, we decided to stick it out and get our money's worth. The DJ was spinning some pretty decent tunes, so we grabbed a table near the (tiny) dancefloor and started downing the beverages.
An aside here - one of the things that everyone gets caught out with at bars in China are the reserved tables. You walk in to a place and see some big empty tables and go over to sit down...only to have a staff member come over and tell you that the table is reserved for people willing to spent a certain amount of money. Usually there's a price for the table, and then a 'minimum spend' on drinks etc. On an open bar night like the one we were at, you simply pay a set price for the table...and I guess it works out to be pretty reasonable if there's a big group.
Anyway, Shotty and I had just about the whole place to choose from, so we got some prime real-estate. While things initially looked pretty bad, within the next hour a steady stream of people came in, and before midnight the place was packed. Around this time we bumped into the manager of the place, a Californian guy named Rudy. Rudy invited us over to his VIP area and started organising drinks for us. Not such a big deal since it was an open bar, but it was nice having drinks brought over for us instead of having to go get them. We started things off with something that I almost guarantee I will never try again - a double-shot of tequila. A 60ml shot glass full of the evil liquid. They didn't have lemon and salt, and instead gave us lime to suck on after downing the shot. As Shotty put it, it's the only shot he's ever done where he had to gulp twice - you do the shot, and it's still not finished!
We stayed in the VIP area with Rudy until the place closed. The DJ really was playing some good tunes, so we had a little mini dance-off between the three of us at one point (in our own little area, not out on the main floor). A Japanese guy that Rudy knew arrived soon after this, so Shotty and I took it in turns to dazzle him with our extremely limited knowledge of the Japanese language. And when I say limited, we were able to introduce ourselves and say how nice it was to meet him...and that's about it. Awesome.
Finally the place shut just after 2, so we wandered out the front and got into a taxi. Did remarkably well in resisting the urge to kick on at another venue, but considering I was having Monday off I knew I had to show up to work on Friday, so we decided to go home. A good thing too, as I was pretty shabby the next morning. We ended up drinking a lot more alcohol than we thought we would in the space of 4 hours :)
Showing posts with label the bund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the bund. Show all posts
Monday, May 4, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
11 days of mayhem - days 2 & 3
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!
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!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Exploring Shanghai Old Town, or Andrew:1, Beer:0
Just had a larger-than-required pizza for dinner and am now feeling very fat. So I figured I'd sit down and blog about my weekend travels.
After my massive weekend last week (as evidenced by the 3-part post titled 'Massive weekend'), I had vowed to spend a Friday, Saturday and Sunday alcohol free. I'm pleased to say that I didn't have a single beer for the entire weekend, and as a result got some sightseeing in.
Friday night I stayed in and got out my Lonely Planet Shanghai City Guide. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I skipped through the various sections to find out what they had to say about places I had and hadn't been to. I decided that I wanted to spent a bit of time in Old Town, which is the area south of the Bund, still next to the Huangpu river on the Puxi side. I worked out where I needed to go, wrote down some details of the walking path I wanted to take, and waited for Saturday morning to arrive.
Which it inevitably did...along with a downpour. It rained fairly steadily most of the morning, but cleared up around lunchtime. I did a quick shopping trip and then hopped on the subway to get over to Puxi. I got off at East Nanjing Rd and walked 10 minutes down to the Bund (along with hundreds of other people), where I took a few pictures. I've uploaded a couple below:
A huge statue of Chen Yi, the first Communist Mayor of Shanghai.
The Oriental Pearl TV tower in Pudong.
One of the boats that you can take for a cruise along the river.
The Pudong skyline.
Some of the old buildings along the Bund.
I spent about an hour or so wandering along the Bund before I made my way over to the Old Town area. I started off at the Yuyuan Bazaar, which is a maze of laneways and shops selling every type of trinket you can imagine. Tourists abound in this area - looking for souvenirs and taking photos of everything in sight. With good reason; the buildings are a wonderful example of older Chinese architecture. The beautiful Yuyuan Gardens (I went there a few years ago) are right next to the Bazaar, but I didn't go inside due to time constraints. I'll go back another time.
Here are some photos of the Bazaar area and surroundings:
A dragon's head pops out over the wall of the Yuyuan Gardens.
The classic sight of two dragons guarding a building...surrounded by a Pizza Hut and Pepsi logo.
One of the buildings inside the Bazaar area.
Lots of people visiting on a Saturday afternoon.
Huxinting Teahouse, which was built back in 1784. Guests include Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton and Andrew Smith (I had a meal there back in 2007, very nice food).
The Bridge of Nine Turns which criss-crosses the lake beside the teahouse. Supposedly built this way because evil spirits are unable to turn corners.
I spent about an hour or so in the Bazaar, and then went off on a wander around the other parts of Old Town. More photos:
Stores everywhere. There are bargains to be had but it's a tourist area, so you have to haggle.
The entrance to the Dragon Mall. There's a waterfall on each side of this structure, and every so often steam starts shooting out of it. Pretty cool.
Baiyun Temple. Open until 5, I got there just afterwards so couldn't go in. Next time.
Dongtai Rd Antiques Market. A few blocks away from the Yuyuan Bazaar and much more low-key. Still a few tourists looking around but a better place for a bargain I think. Much more pottery/ceramic focused though.
Just what I was looking for - a life sized statue with a detachable head. Awesome.
I went back via the Yuyuan Bazaar to make a trip to the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, Shanghai's most famous dumpling restaurant. Unfortunately, being dinner time, a lot of other people had exactly the same idea. I had to wait in line for about half an hour, but got to see the dumplings being hand-made, which was quite entertaining (when they get going you'd be amazed at how fast they put them together). When I finally got my hands on the dumplings, I was happy I had stopped by. They were delicious. I took a few more photos in Yuyuan and along the Bund before going home.
Yuyuan night photos.
Bund night photos.
Got home at around 9:30pm and resisted the urge to get changed and go out drinking. To be honest, I was pretty tired - I did a lot of walking yesterday. Just out of interest I jumped on to Google Maps and measured the route that I walked - when I add that to the 4km to get to and from the subway station, I walked a little over 16km for the day. Not a bad effort. And yes, I am a nerd.
Today I did another shopping trip (things like extra pillows and towels in preparation for visitors in a few weeks) and walked up past the office just because I (surprisingly) had the energy. I ended up doing about another 10km today. That makes me feel slightly less fat.
After my massive weekend last week (as evidenced by the 3-part post titled 'Massive weekend'), I had vowed to spend a Friday, Saturday and Sunday alcohol free. I'm pleased to say that I didn't have a single beer for the entire weekend, and as a result got some sightseeing in.
Friday night I stayed in and got out my Lonely Planet Shanghai City Guide. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I skipped through the various sections to find out what they had to say about places I had and hadn't been to. I decided that I wanted to spent a bit of time in Old Town, which is the area south of the Bund, still next to the Huangpu river on the Puxi side. I worked out where I needed to go, wrote down some details of the walking path I wanted to take, and waited for Saturday morning to arrive.
Which it inevitably did...along with a downpour. It rained fairly steadily most of the morning, but cleared up around lunchtime. I did a quick shopping trip and then hopped on the subway to get over to Puxi. I got off at East Nanjing Rd and walked 10 minutes down to the Bund (along with hundreds of other people), where I took a few pictures. I've uploaded a couple below:
A huge statue of Chen Yi, the first Communist Mayor of Shanghai.
The Oriental Pearl TV tower in Pudong.
One of the boats that you can take for a cruise along the river.
The Pudong skyline.
Some of the old buildings along the Bund.
I spent about an hour or so wandering along the Bund before I made my way over to the Old Town area. I started off at the Yuyuan Bazaar, which is a maze of laneways and shops selling every type of trinket you can imagine. Tourists abound in this area - looking for souvenirs and taking photos of everything in sight. With good reason; the buildings are a wonderful example of older Chinese architecture. The beautiful Yuyuan Gardens (I went there a few years ago) are right next to the Bazaar, but I didn't go inside due to time constraints. I'll go back another time.
Here are some photos of the Bazaar area and surroundings:
A dragon's head pops out over the wall of the Yuyuan Gardens.
The classic sight of two dragons guarding a building...surrounded by a Pizza Hut and Pepsi logo.
One of the buildings inside the Bazaar area.
Lots of people visiting on a Saturday afternoon.
Huxinting Teahouse, which was built back in 1784. Guests include Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton and Andrew Smith (I had a meal there back in 2007, very nice food).
The Bridge of Nine Turns which criss-crosses the lake beside the teahouse. Supposedly built this way because evil spirits are unable to turn corners.
I spent about an hour or so in the Bazaar, and then went off on a wander around the other parts of Old Town. More photos:
Stores everywhere. There are bargains to be had but it's a tourist area, so you have to haggle.
The entrance to the Dragon Mall. There's a waterfall on each side of this structure, and every so often steam starts shooting out of it. Pretty cool.
Baiyun Temple. Open until 5, I got there just afterwards so couldn't go in. Next time.
Dongtai Rd Antiques Market. A few blocks away from the Yuyuan Bazaar and much more low-key. Still a few tourists looking around but a better place for a bargain I think. Much more pottery/ceramic focused though.
Just what I was looking for - a life sized statue with a detachable head. Awesome.
I went back via the Yuyuan Bazaar to make a trip to the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, Shanghai's most famous dumpling restaurant. Unfortunately, being dinner time, a lot of other people had exactly the same idea. I had to wait in line for about half an hour, but got to see the dumplings being hand-made, which was quite entertaining (when they get going you'd be amazed at how fast they put them together). When I finally got my hands on the dumplings, I was happy I had stopped by. They were delicious. I took a few more photos in Yuyuan and along the Bund before going home.
Yuyuan night photos.
Bund night photos.
Got home at around 9:30pm and resisted the urge to get changed and go out drinking. To be honest, I was pretty tired - I did a lot of walking yesterday. Just out of interest I jumped on to Google Maps and measured the route that I walked - when I add that to the 4km to get to and from the subway station, I walked a little over 16km for the day. Not a bad effort. And yes, I am a nerd.
Today I did another shopping trip (things like extra pillows and towels in preparation for visitors in a few weeks) and walked up past the office just because I (surprisingly) had the energy. I ended up doing about another 10km today. That makes me feel slightly less fat.
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.
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