Shanghai Expat: Final Thoughts

During my last few days in Shanghai and my first few weeks back in California, I reflected on how my life would be and is changing. I found myself in thorough agreement with the sentiment of a friend of mine, B, who spent about a year overseas at various places: he says he came away with a greater appreciation for life overseas but also a greater appreciation for life back home.

Food
I knew as I left that I would miss the food in Shanghai.

I'd miss the soup-filled dumplings: xiao long bao (steamed) (best from Jia Jia Tang Bao) and sheng jian bao (pan-fried) (best from Yang's or Shucaiji). I'd miss the flavorful food, most especially the Sichuan at How Way Restaurant, but also the Shanghainese at Jishi (Jesse), the Hunanese at Di Shui Dong, the Hong Kong food at Bo Do One, and even the casual vegetarian comfort food at Godly. I'd also miss the home-made meals at Di Yin's family friends' houses.

I'd miss picking up fried/roasted breads or steamed buns in the morning for breakfast. The breads I liked the most are thousand-layer pancakes, the rolls stuffed with Chinese cabbage or turnips, and sweet, flaky, layered rolls often cooked in a cylindrical oven. As for steamed buns, I think shepherds purse was my default standby.

I'd miss the nearly endless surprise of Chinese takes on American baked goods. I'll particularly miss the good ones (the "blueberry muffins" with an empty space inside that's filled with a layer of something that's a cross between cream cheese and ricotta and embedded with a few blueberries; and the giant wedge-shaped piece of "French toast") but I'll also miss the novelty of the others, such as the squid-ink roll or the sesame layered bread. I won't miss the baked goods with hot dogs inside or with pork "floss" (finely shredded dried pork). Red bean bread doesn't go in my miss list because I can find it in the states. By the way, I tried most of these at 85 Degrees, a bakery chain.

I'd miss certain ingredients Di Yin cooked with that we don't get in the states. What come to mind right now are certain fish, fresh bamboo shoots, and a type of bean that looks like an overly-large lima bean. I also learned to appreciate the different varieties and widely different qualities of various soy sauces. (Our apartment had four on the shelf when we arrived, I could clearly taste the difference and know which would be appropriate for which dishes.) Near the end of the trip, Di Yin discovered a soy sauce she liked so much that she imported two large bottles of it into the states.

Once back, I noticed I ended up often eating salads--things we couldn't get in Shanghai or couldn't trust if we could get--and also Mexican food.

Anticipating my return to California, I looked forward to eating at my company's cafes in California; I often wasn't excited by the Chinese food served at my company's cafeteria in Shanghai. Even if I ignored the tripe and the meat dishes with twice as much fat as meat, I generally wasn't excited by the dishes with more ordinary (to me) ingredients. During my first month back in California, I reveled in lunch at work.

Weather, Climate, and Pollution
I also reveled in the bay area climate, fixed as it is at a comfortable temperature, a temperature that lasted perhaps a week or two in Shanghai between the cold winter and hot summer. In California, I ate lunch outside every day in May. In contrast, in Shanghai one didn't want to eat outside because, beside the weather, the pollution made it less than pleasant. Eating outside just isn't done.

I also exuberantly started playing ultimate frisbee / exercising again, something I never managed to do in Shanghai.

Language
Oddly, I found my language skills decreased as I lived in Shanghai. I studied a lot before my trip and for my first month, but then my vocabulary shrank to the little that I needed in day-to-day life (basically, just to read menus and order food). I'm sad and embarrassed that I became one of those people I don't like, those people who move to another country and didn't seriously attempt to learn the language (or make much progress doing so).

On the other hand, the trip made me realize that it is reasonable to move to another country without knowing the language. There aren't many interactions that need to happen in order to live somewhere (buy transportation tickets, buy groceries, order food, maybe go shopping, not much else). These can be be done while knowing nearly nothing.

Sick
I got sick often during my stay in Shanghai, perhaps every one or two months. Di Yin got sick every month. These bouts were not food poisoning; I assume they must be germs our bodies aren't used to. In contrast, I get sick maybe once a year in the states.

The Internet
The Chinese internet is just as developed as the English one. In fact, there are Chinese equivalents to every major English site you can think of. Some equivalents look so alike that I think the Chinese ones directly copied the English ones' user interface. Examples of these equivalents are dianping for yelp (very handy!), tudou (or sogou) for youtube, taobao for ebay, alipay for paypal, and fanfou for twitter.

Friends from the states always asked how I dealt with the internet in China -- i.e., what happens with the great firewall. Very few of the sites I tried to visit were blocked, and none that felt like a great loss. The internet was perfectly usable. The only blocked sites I noticed were facebook, youtube, twitter, blogspot, and wordpress. (The last two I noticed mainly because they sometimes appear as search results.) Perhaps the biggest annoyance was that I couldn't view youtube videos that friends sent me links to.

Being Tall
I hadn't thought about this at all, but upon returning to California I found I missed being tall. In Shanghai, I could usually see where I was going and push my way through crowded subway cars to the exit. (People would notice me because I was their size or larger.) In California, it's harder to see over people's heads at talks, for instance, and also harder to get noticed and get around people at, say, grocery stores.

Returning to China, Shanghai Expo
When I left for California in May, I thought I would be returning to Shanghai for four to six weeks in late June or July.

One thing I definitely planned to visit upon my return was the Shanghai Expo. I wanted to see the event that caused Shanghai to pull out all the stops and intensely develop the city and transportation network. I even made a list of the pavilions in the expo that I wanted to see.

The best, most comprehensive article about the World Expo, what it did to Shanghai, and the context around it is this one, China: Futuristic yet fruitful, published in the Financial Times. (The link I provided allows you to click through using Google; the direct link requires registration.) This article discusses more of the issues surrounding the expo than I've seen mentioned in any other single article.

Incidentally, I'm amused by the intellectual-property controversy surrounding some aspects of the expo. In particular, it seems both the Expo's theme song infringed (The Times) on another song and the Expo's mascot is a copy (Associated Press) of the logo of the Xinxiang Haibao Electrical Appliance company.

I didn't end up returning to Shanghai during the summer. As I planned the summer trip in fits and starts, Di Yin kept warning me how unpleasantly hot it was getting. She avoided going outside between 10am and 4pm because it was so unpleasant. Eventually I decided to heed these warnings and abandoned plans for my return trip.

Destinations in China I Missed
There are some major tourist destinations in China that I missed seeing during my stay. The ones I most regret missing are Beijing (the day-and-a-half I spent there doesn't count), especially the Great Wall, the Huangshan Mountains (Yellow Mountains) (if you see pictures from China of a sea of clouds, they were probably taken either there or by Mount Hua), and Yangshuo & Guilin (noted for the countryside's pretty, karst landscape of countless limestone hills). I also regret missing the Shanghai Expo. Incidentally, I missed the Harbin Ice Festival (see these incredible pictures) but don't regret it much (because it's insanely cold!).

Shanghai Expat: May 2010

I had only five days in Shanghai in May before I was to return to the states. These five days were actually all a holiday in Shanghai. Beside the weekend (two days), one was labor day, and two were to celebrate the opening of the latest World's Fair: the Shanghai Expo.

Di Yin and I kept thinking about traveling elsewhere in China during our last few weeks in Shanghai (late April and especially this long weekend right before I left). I wanted to exploit my location (China) to see more of the country's highlights (without having to fly across an ocean to do it). Yet, we didn't manage to put together a trip. There was one place we almost went to but found train tickets were sold out. :( Instead, rather risking travel right before taking an international flight, I ended up working most of those five days in May. Incidentally, I'll list my remaining China places to visit in the next post.

At the beginning of May, it got warm all of a sudden. By the fourth day, it was downright hot.

Outings
Sorry, I just didn't feel like taking pictures this month. Di Yin claims, likely rightly, that it's simply because I was ready to go home.

During these five days, I ended up playing a bit more of the expat lifestyle. We went twice to a cafe/bakery, Paul's, the Shanghai outpost of an international French chain. One day we went for breakfast goods. Another day we went for lunch. I had a decent sandwich made with flute bread (longer, narrower than a baguette). Along the way we stopped by another bakery, selecting a potato curry roll from that one. The highlight of the day, however, was joining one of Di Yin's family friends to visit a local art gallery. The gallery was showing paintings of local buildings, buildings that I've walked by every day. (Recall that we lived in an older part of town, the French Concession, so some buildings have history and/or character.)

One evening, we had a generally mediocre dinner with Di Yin's family friends, wishing us off.

The next day we had to venture out from work for lunch (recall our offices were officially closed); we had a meal of similarly merely okay Japanese food.

Sometime in late April, I realized I'd been in Shanghai for many months but hadn't sampled its jazz club scene. Hence, I grabbed some friends (A and B) and we went to JZ Club, one of the supposedly better ones and one which happens to be not far from our apartment. It had a nice atmosphere; we relaxed, chatting and listening to the Spanish guitarist. I sipped a lychee margarita.

One day I returned to one of the Hong-Kong style joints that I like and tried a mixed dish with BBQ pork, roasted duck, fried clam meat, vegetables, and a thin Chinese pancake.

On May 4, Di Yin and I went for xiao long bao (soup dumplings) at the ever-dependable Jia Jia Tang Bao, the best place for them (in my opinion) in Shanghai. They were great, and a wonderful meal for my last day in Shanghai for now. In addition to the dumplings, we also had a good seaweed-based soup.

Leaving Shanghai was stressful. First, I had to get to the airport in the rain. It took forever to find a taxi; we eventually gave up and took a bus to Japanese mall and then the airport bus to the airport. (Di Yin accompanied me to the airport.) Once at the airport, I learned my bag was overweight. I managed to repack it successfully. Then, after I did so, one of my bags needed to be inspected by hand.

On the plus side, once I boarded my flight to California, it felt like the flight went fast.

Observations
China manages security for travel well. All bags on trains get x-rayed, which never happens in the states. In the last couple of months I was in China, in preparation for the expo they also started x-raying all bags in the subway. Furthermore, airport security is also laid out well. Like in the states, you go through a passport/id check and then security. Unlike in the states, the id check is the bottleneck. This means the long line is for passport control. Because the passport control is orderly and regularly paced, you always feel like you're making progress (compared to the states, where you're waiting in the security line for a long time and it's haphazardly and unpredictably paced). Then, in China, because the id control happens at a slow rate, there's little or no line for security. It's a much more pleasant, less chaotic experience than security in other countries.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: Hangzhou Day 2

I took these pictures this day. Di Yin also took even more. The latter link goes to the first picture from this day (picture #85). If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of our local kindergarten, you've cycled back to the beginning of the album and are seeing pictures I already linked to.

We began the day walking through one of Hangzhou's old neighborhoods on the way back to Zhiweiguan to breakfast. This time we ate at the cafeteria-like place on the first floor.

From there, we walked along the West Lake for a bit, enjoyed the fountain show, then took a smooth boat ride to Three Pools Mirroring the Moon island (Xiaoying Island). It was as similarly pretty and kept up as the parks along the lake that we visited the previous day. Though we didn't see everything on the island, everything was I'm sure the same as what we've seen. Indeed, the same could probably be said of the parks and promenades that we walked the previous day east of the lake; we saw only a fraction of the space, but what we saw was probably representative.

Another smooth boat trip brought us to Gushan Island, where we wandered through Zhongshan Park.

We walked across the bridge to the mainland, then walked along the north-west side of the lake, eventually venturing inland. During this time we hunted for food, a futile effort because there were so few buildings around. It was all parks and gardens and water and attractive nature in general. Eventually we found a place, Emerald Villa. Eating there felt like dining in a forest with a river nearby. Looking out the large windows, we could see a glimpse of blue past all the green.

We tried to find a walk I wanted to do near a temple but couldn't. Instead, we found tea plantations. (Hangzhou is famous for tea.) When we decided to begin returning to the correct side of the lake, we took a crowded bus back to the vicinity of Gushan Island, and walked across the island then down the beautiful Bai Causeway (a long, narrow, pedestrian-only land bridge) and back into town.

We ended up having dinner at a well regarded (mainly noodle soup) place, Kui Yuan Guan, near our hotel, picked up our bags, headed to the train station, and made our way home.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: Hangzhou Day 1

Getting to Hangzhou was easy. Unlike for Suzhou, we left from the South Shanghai Railway station, which is much more pleasant than the regular one. This station is above ground, with a sleek and modern open design much like an airport. Again, our express train averaged 170 kilometers per hour (105 mph). Like Suzhou, we traveled along canals, occasionally crossed them too, but the views on this trip were nicer.

Between the overview of Hangzhou and my pictures, the day is pretty well described. Di Yin also took a lot of pictures. The latter link goes to the first picture from this trip, starting the instant we left the door of our apartment. When you see a picture of me buying a pumpkin cake as a late-night snack (picture #83), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.

We arrived in Hangzhou, headed straight for our hotel, the West Lake Golden Plaza, to drop our stuff off. The hotel room was nice. The coolest thing: the battery powered clock on the nightstand that lights up when you lift it, making it easy to read at night. We headed out, hunting for food and eventually finding it, and in the process exploring some of Hangzhou's historic and tourist streets. It was a nice day, with no need for a jacket. Having seen a good part of town, we made it to the lake and the greenery surrounding it. There I went camera crazy, yet, in retrospect, I wish I took even more pictures. It's just that pretty.

Having failed at finding a filling lunch, we had an early dinner at Zhiweiguan Restaurant, one of Hangzhou's most famous and oldest restaurants. With four stories, it's a big place. As with everything else this day, the details are in the pictures.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: Hangzhou Overview

Di Yin and I visited Hangzhou and its famous West Lake on Friday and Saturday, April 23-24, 2010.

Hangzhou is incredible! Or, more precisely, the parks/gardens surrounding the West Lake (and the islands and land bridges within) are incredible. They're fabulously green, lush, and gorgeous -- nicer than any park I can remember in a long time, including St. James Park in London. There were many people taking wedding pictures around the lake. I can see why.

Better yet, these grounds are enormous. We spent two days walking them yet walked only a fraction. It's amazing the sheer quantity of land that has been landscaped/sculpted to such a high standard of beauty. There are countless nice places to walk, and tons of bridges (in various architectural styles) to cross and to simply enjoy seeing. These parks are so expansive that they can absorb the tourist crowds. We often found ourselves walking on less crowded paths or even, at times, in entirely tranquil areas with nary a soul in sight.

It's no wonder that we saw a lot of people picnicking and many others playing cards/Chinese chess/whatever. Basically, any excuse to spend more time in this area.

People in Shanghai make a big deal about the Bund, but this is an order of magnitude better and I think even saying Hangzhou and the Bund in the same sentence is insulting to Hangzhou. It's a different caliber.

All that said, Hangzhou the city is pretty nice too. Hangzhou (at least the part I saw near the West Lake) is like Shanghai's downtown but less crowded, more modern, and with many more trees (on both medians and sidewalks), and with dedicated bike/bus lanes. (Yes, unlike Shanghai, Hangzhou has enough space to frequently have medians in the middle of their roads.) Furthermore, even though it's much more of a tourist-centered city than Shanghai, I was never offered anything to buy, nothing like Shanghai's touts suggesting "watch, watch, shoes?"

I feel I should mention a bit of background about Hangzhou. It's got a long history, though most relics have been destroyed by fires, wars, and the cultural revolution. It's long been known as a home for Chinese literati. In addition, it's got its own style of cuisine, which also has a long history (longer than Shanghai's style by a substantial margin). These last two sentences are probably related: educated people with cultured hobbies likely have sophisticated tastes.

As for the West Lake--although you wouldn't believe it from its size--it's actually man-made by various emperors over the years. (That's why it's so shallow: it's on average 2 meters deep.) It began as a lagoon. Different rulers added islands (which they then artistically gardened), land bridges, and various estates near the lake. It was very developed by the time Marco Polo made it to Hangzhou in the 13th century and marveled at its beauty and thousands of bridges. Usually when I hear guidebooks describing what an ancient traveler said about a place, I find the description not particularly accurate or representative. In this case, however, Marco Polo was right. It is a splendid place and there are lots of bridges.

By the way, the weather was great during our visit to Hangzhou, and our experience was further enhanced by the diminished pollution compared Shanghai.

Incidentally, there are other sites in Hangzhou I want to see and other places near and on the West Lake where I want to walk. On this trip, we only got to sample some of the Hangzhou's attractions.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: Botanic Garden

On Saturday, April 17, 2010, I took advantage of an unusually nice day to visit the Shanghai Botanical Garden. I wasn't alone: the park was crowded, there was traffic control near the park itself, and the bus to the park from my apartment hit a lot of traffic and took almost an hour. (The return ride was only half an hour.)

The botanic gardens are nice, and a good number of streams and lakes make it more picturesque than most. Judging from the crowd, it's clearly a date and family destination. It's also a large space: I spent more than two hours there before I got satiated with it, but had seen only half of it at that point (though I'd at least visited the main conservatory). Some of the gardens were still under construction -- they hadn't moved the plants in yet (probably because it's still sometimes cold in Shanghai). Also, a flower show was going on this month at the gardens; I only made it to that part of the park on my way out, glancing briefly at it as I passed.

I took pictures on this excursion.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: Suzhou

Overview
On Friday, April 16, 2010, I took the day off of work to visit Suzhou with Di Yin and S, a friend of mine who was in town. Although I had visited Suzhou once before, on that trip I didn't manage to see any of its famous gardens. Suzhou is renowned for having many attractive, classically Chinese, carefully landscaped, meditative gardens, built in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

I took over one hundred pictures on this trip; they document the journey rather well. Di Yin also took similarly many pictures, including a few of things I didn't get to photograph (such as a tea pot with an incredibly long sprout).

I enjoyed our visit to Suzhou. The gardens are pretty, and I liked walking around downtown more than in Shanghai. It's less hectic, less crowded, and the people seem nicer. It's easier to breathe (less pollution). Also, the city's outlined by wide canals, with a few small ones criss-crossing the center. Although I didn't see enough of them for them to significantly impact my impression of the city, S thinks it looks like Venice. Frankly, I'd hope Venice has more waterways, but he's been there and I haven't so I'll let his comment stand.

Judging by the quiet offers of goods for sale on the streets, Suzhou's more upscale than Shanghai. That is, in the pedestrian downtown street in Shanghai I hear "watch, watch, bag" and in Suzhou I heard "watch, iphone".

Incidentally, for background: Suzhou has a long history and was more famous and larger than Shanghai in the middle of the last millennium. Suzhou even had a foreign concession.

The Day
Di Yin and I met S at 8am then (oops!) got on the subway in the wrong direction. We noticed about ten minutes later and switched line. When we finally arrived at the main train station, we ran. This caused us to breathe hard, which made my throat not feel right. I now believe I was right to not go running outside during my stay in Shanghai. In the end, however, the twenty minute detour caused us to miss our train. Happily, the station attendant allowed us to exchange our tickets for later ones. We hung around near the train station.

The express train we took to Suzhou was pleasant. And fast: at times we were going between 150 and 200 kilometers per hour (90-120 mph). In contrast, our evening train traveled slower. I think it's because our train back was delayed and I guess we therefore hit congestion on the tracks.

Upon arrival in Suzhou, we braved the swarms of touts, rickshaw drivers, etc.--this area is more like India than any other place I've been in China--and, after a few misdirections, managed to grab a crowded bus to our first destination. (The bus was likely crowded because the good weather made many people visit Suzhou this day.)

Our first garden was the Master-of-Nets Garden. It's the most famous garden in Suzhou, judging by the multiple (English) guidebooks I consulted. It was compact, pretty, and cozy, and had many courtyards. Indeed, the "garden" is architecturally dense, more focused on its many elegant halls than nature.

After the garden, we took the bus downtown, ate a late lunch, walked the main downtown pedestrian streets, and tried a ton of snacks. (Suzhou's famous for them.) Much of them are documented in the pictures.

Come mid-afternoon, we took a bus to the Lion Forest Garden. This garden is the most famous garden in Suzhou according to the Di Yin and the Chinese web. My guidebooks give it only a little mention. Given that most tourists in China are Chinese, it's not surprising it was very crowded.

I found Lion Forest Garden much more beautiful than the Master-of-Nets Garden. This garden's all about rocks. It's a big garden, with many convoluted paths and winding tunnels through and around rocks (often slippery and dangerous) and strange, natural rock statues.

After the garden we had an early dinner, then made our way to the train station and home.

Although I'd hoped to go to the silk museum--Suzhou's famous for silk--I didn't get the chance. We spent the time that we could have allocated to it instead wandering around downtown and eating snacks. I'm comfortable with this choice: we had a full day, and I'm happy with what we chose to do and the speed with which we did it.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: Shopping Outing

On Saturday, April 10, 2010, as one of Di Yin's presents, I let her drag me shopping. It was a nice day for Shanghai, warm and with clear blue skies, though I still miss being able to see the unobscured sun (as I can in most of the rest of the world). But, I think this is the nicest Shanghai gets.

We glanced in a couple of stores in Huashan Road, but really only spent time in one, the same one in which our guest J on his visit managed to find some clothes that looked good on him. I tried on a bunch of stuff and we ended up walking out with one decent shirt. Di Yin was elated.

Since it was her birthday outing, I let Di Yin pick the place, and, likely because we were in the Jing'an Temple area, we ended up at How Way, a regular destination of ours. As we entered the restaurant, we were engulfed in the smell of spicy oil. (This makes sense, as we, like everyone else, often order the bowl of fish in spicy chili oil, though we didn't order it this time.) See the pictures for details. Due to the strength of the flavors of How Way's dishes, when we left we still had room in our stomachs. We stopped eating because our taste buds were exhausted.

After lunch, we stopped by three Chinese bakeries on the way home, gazing at the wide variety of unusual baked goods China has to offer. Bakeries are expensive by Chinese standards, and one bakery had a day-old/damaged bread line in the back that was crazy crowded! From these bakeries, we ended up with an eclectic assortment: a cream horn (a horn-shaped bread (yes bread, not pastry dough) filled with cream), a potato roll (yes, a roll filled with mashed sweet potatoes), a coffee roll/muffin, a ham loaf (a loaf of bread with chunks of ham inside), and perhaps more that I'm forgetting.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010: The Bund

Wednesday, April 7, 2010, was an uncommonly nice day in Shanghai. It was warm(-ish), the sky was relatively clear, and there was no chance of rain. I took advantage of the opportunity to play hooky from work in the afternoon to see the newly reopened Bund. The Bund, Shanghai's famous waterfront promenade, had been closed for construction for as long as I've been here. (It was under renovations in preparation for the expo.) In fact, the area was under so much construction last summer and the dust and pollution were so bad, after a quick visit one day to see the mess, I never returned. At the end of May, the Bund reopened.

I'm surprised to report that the Bund is actually nice, and disappointed that I realized I'd expected otherwise. Nevertheless, the restoration of the buildings surrounding the Bund hasn't finished yet, and I felt my eyes water slightly as I approached.

I met Di Yin at the Shanghai Archive, and she decided to walk the Bund with me. I took these pictures on or near the Bund. The Bund is a nice, open space, complete with regularly-spaced speakers playing decent music. Today there was a good number of people, enough to be lively and to be able to people-watch, but not enough to feel crowded.

On the way back from the Bund, we walked down East Nanjing Road. I declined offers to buy watches or shoes. I saw a few places serving sweetened steamed rice cakes; I guess it's the season again. We stuck our heads in the #1 Food Store, one of the more well-known foodstuff shops, and gazed, impressed, at its huge assortment of snacks and dried ingredients (meats, vegetables, etc.), among other things.

Near my office, we stopped by a sheng jian bao and fried rice joint, Shucaiji, that I visited in November (but never took pictures) and Di Yin has visited countless times. The dumplings were great, in the style of sheng jian bao that I get from Flushing. And now I have pictures.

Shanghai Expat: April 2010

April was a new month, and with it came both spring weather (intermittently) and two friends from the states. One moved to Shanghai; the other came for three weeks to see how it felt and to decide if he wanted to move to China.

For me, April was an introspective month that I spent figuring out where I wanted to be during the rest of the year and mulling over my feelings about leaving Shanghai. (I was scheduled to be in the bay area for the month of May). I looked forward to returning to California. I won't list here the things I don't like about Shanghai because that would be depressing. However, there is one thing I'll miss upon leaving Shanghai: the food (aside from the food my company serves at lunch, which I don't like much). There are many great, reasonably priced restaurants in Shanghai; I don't eat as well as consistently when I go out in other cities.

Outings
In April, I did day and overnight trips to places near Shanghai. I'll report these in other posts. The rest of this post will be mostly little reports of smaller outings. I also took pictures this month. Some of my outings are only reported in the pictures; others are only reported in this entry. Refer to them both.

On April 1, I went to B and K's engagement party. It was large and fancy; many of B's relatives came to town. They rented out four tables in one of the best-known Shanghainese restaurants, Fu1039. Thus, it felt much like a wedding reception (complete with gifts), not an engagement dinner, but quite a dinner it was: a tasty full-scale Chinese banquet with numerous famous Shanghainese dishes and followed by a Tiffany wedding cake. I've never seen one of these before: it really looks like a present box (complete with a bow) but is actually a cake with layers of cool cream.

The night before Di Yin's dad's flight back to the states, the four of us ate dinner together at home. We ordered take-out from Jishi (Jesse), which we ate at once before and really liked. For details on the food, see the pictures.

Di Yin's birthday was on April 8th. Her mom was still in town (scheduled to fly out the next day) and made Di Yin a birthday dinner. One of Di Yin's mom's friends and Di Yin's mom arranged to get her a cake as well. Fancy! Details are in the pictures.

One Saturday, Di Yin and I took the train farther north in Shanghai than I'd ever previously gone in order to have lunch with one of my co-workers/friends, D, and his wife. They live in a quiet neighborhood (strikingly quiet compared with elsewhere in Shanghai). I liked the look of their main street: bustling with many small shops and, above, hanging clothes. As for lunch, although we'd agreed that each couple would cook/provide two dishes, they went overboard and we ended up with quite a spread: fish in hot oil (take-out), duck (take-out), dumplings (frozen), chicken soup (take-out), sliced tofu (take-out), sliced ham (take-out), sauteed mushrooms (us-made), cucumber salad (us-made), and much, much more. We planned to make a noodle dish but were convinced otherwise upon seeing the spread. We had two plates of tasty northern-style dumplings (from the wife's region). When I innocently inquired whether the two plates were the same (I could reach only one), they said yes and then made two more plates of other types of dumplings, just so I could try them all. (They could not be persuaded otherwise.) Goodness. And they bought three different types of thousand-layer cake, just because they wanted me to try those too. (I don't understand how they could've thought I lived in Shanghai for four months and yet not had some thousand-layer cakes.) Then post-lunch was crazy too. They had bananas, longan, oranges, pork floss sandwiches, plum cakes, potato chips, nuts, and more, just because they were worried about having something I'd like. How's that for overwhelming Chinese hospitality?

After Di Yin's dad returned to the states, Di Yin's mom came to stay with us for a week until she too returned to the states. One night, Di Yin decided we should take her mom to a fancy Japanese restaurant because she likes Japanese food but does not get the opportunity to eat it. (Di Yin's dad does not like it.) We took her to Koyama, one of the fanciest sushi joints you could imagine. We've been there before. Details on this trip are in the pictures.

Passover occurred at the end of March this year and, though Shanghai's Jewish Community Center was holding a seder, I didn't manage to attend. However, a friend from work decided to host his own seder a week later, and I got to attend that! Although I don't have pictures, I have stories. I was one of half a dozen jews in a crowd of about thirty people, nearly all expats (mostly ethnically Chinese). With this assortment of people, we did the bulk of a passover service. I was surprised how respectful everyone was. They seemed interested and actually listened as, through the seder, we told the story of the jews' exodus from Egypt, which took more than an hour. We did all the usual seder activities: asking the four questions (appropriate for such a new audience), counting out the plagues using drops of wine, hiding the afikoman, etc. Before the seder, some people made yamakas by cutting paper into a circle, removing a wedge, then taping it together so it stuck up a little. It worked; I wore mine all night.

We also had traditional passover fare. My friend acquired passover wine and matzah and even, with a friend of his, made matzah ball soup from scratch -- more authentic than any seder I've attended in the states! (All my friends and relatives use a mix.) Another friend made charoset, in ample amounts to prevent running out. (I and he always hate when that happens. He swore it wouldn't happen that night, and it didn't.) Beside the charoset, people brought less traditional toppings for matzah: hummus, baba ghanoush, cream cheese, guacamole. I was assigned the simple task of bringing wasabi. Why wasabi? Because we couldn't acquire any horseradish, the traditional bitter herb (maror) used in the seder, we used wasabi, which is roughly Japanese horseradish. As for the main course, we cheated: my friend ordered food from a Hunanese joint: tasty cumin lamb popsicles and eggplant.

Some other cute tidbits about the evening: because there were so many of us, we sat on the floor, reclining, which is said to be the traditional way seders were held in the distant past. We also gave up on the service (aside from finding the afikoman) after dinner, which usually happens in my relatives' households as well. Finally, the host called his dad using skype to have him participate in the service and answer some questions. It was a nice gesture.

On Saturday, April 17, 2010, Di Yin and I met a bunch of friends of mine (B, K, A, S, and K's dog coco) in honor of their comings and goings in Shanghai. We ate at Duofuyuan, a restaurant owned by one K's relatives (that's why she could bring the dog). It was a good meal; I didn't take pictures so I'll omit the details other than the list of things we ate: jellyfish, deep-fried little fish (that you could eat bones and all), steamed chicken, marinated rare meat, fatty red-cooked pork, noodles, drunken crab, sauteed pea shoots, watermelon.

Other Remarks
The big building being constructed on my block must be behind schedule -- they wake me up with their construction every day at around 6:30am. After about three weeks, I started getting more used to it. However, that's around the time my allergies began kicking it. (I don't have them in California but I have them in China.) I imagine I have allergies indoors because, as I mentioned before, the apartment was poorly insulated. My somewhat stuffed nose interfered with my breathing just enough to disrupt my sleep so the construction noise continued to wake me up. Incidentally, the construction must've fallen more behind schedule: by the last week of April, they were starting before 6am.

Recall the sweetened steamed rice cakes that I found often last summer? Ever since moving to China, I had trouble finding them. I finally learned why: they're seasonal! Maybe it has something to do with rice production, maybe not, but, regardless, it seems they only show up during the warmer months of the year. Huh.

Often, when taking subways during rush hour, I'm amazed I get on and off at my stop. It involves a lot of wiggling and pushing, yet nevertheless I manage to pop out of the subway cars every time.

Also, I think the way people push and cut in lines is Darwinian. There are just so many people in China that if you don't do that, you wouldn't get anywhere quickly.

I think Bashi Fen may be the card game I often saw people playing in parks.

Shanghai Expat: March 2010

This month some restaurants started enforcing--at least when customers complained--the newly enacted ban on smoking in restaurants. Yay! I can notice the change in some places. (The Shanghai government put the ban in place in preparation for the expo.)

Anyway, as for the month, some food outings are described in the pictures I took this month.

A friend of mine, B, got engaged over Chinese New Year. Di Yin and I went with him and K to a Japanese restaurant, Koyama, in Xintiandi to celebrate. I planned on paying. The meal was respectable: a selection of sashimi and sushi and a few unusual items such as marinated sea cucumber and grilled chicken cartilage. I liked the sashimi substantially more than I usually like sashimi. The salmon was my favorite. The meal ended with a pot of beef with onions, then ice cream. The decor was nice, but not as cute as the other sushi place we've been in Shanghai. It was surprisingly expensive, substantially exceeding my intended budget. (I normally don't think twice about paying for someone when it's less than US$30 or maybe even $40 per person. This substantially exceeded that range, which was especially surprising given China's normal prices.) Nevertheless, I paid for dinner (before I thought too much of it). Sorry, I didn't take pictures of this meal.

After I returned from Chinese New Year at the end of February, it rained nearly every day. The culmination of this series was on March 9th when it snowed briefly as I walked home from dinner! They were light wisps of snowflakes, but snow nonetheless. I wanted to take a picture of the flakes stuck to my coat to prove it was indeed snowing, but the snow melted before I got home and could locate and ready my camera (and it stopped snowing outside around that time too, so I couldn't take a picture from home looking out). Ah well, you'll have to believe me. :)

The following days quickly warmed up and the sun came out. It felt like spring had arrived. But I didn't get to enjoy spring in Shanghai right then; I flew to Hong Kong on March 12th.

When I returned from Hong Kong on the 21st, the weather was pleasant: good for a graduate student friend of Di Yin's, P, who came to stay with us for a couple of days, and for J a friend of Di Yin's and long-lost friend of mine, who came to stay with us for the week. They must've brought the spring. Aside from two days of rain in the middle of J's visit, the weather was warmer (13-ish C / mid-/upper- 50s F) and the skies were clear.

While both these house-guests were in town, we went out to dinner with them and two of Di Yin's academic compatriots, I and M, also doing research in Shanghai. We chose to bring the crowd to How Way, a restaurant we've visited many times before (1,2,3). As usual, it was very good. After, we went to Charmant for our regular ice tower dessert.

Another evening, we brought J to our Hunanese restaurant of choice, Di Shui Dong, which we've also visited before (1,2).

Near the end of the month, I headed to Boonna Cafe on a tip. Of the three in the city, one is surprisingly close to me, a mere 200 meters detour from the standard path I walk to the metro station. The cafe, which serves sandwiches, salads, coffees, smoothies, and a few pastas, reminded me of California. It's secluded from the road, with a cute courtyard and a welcoming interior with a long bench seat with pads and also many small tables. I planned to return with my camera to take pictures, and also to relax in the atmosphere. (The next month I did.) My sandwich, incidentally, was good. Plus, they have free internet.

A day or two later, when Di Yin and I headed out for breakfast only to find our destination closed, we ended up at a nearby Starbucks. The Starbucks was even more welcoming than those in the states. The large armchairs were particularly comfortable, and our pastries (an oatmeal pudding scone and a blueberry bar) were good. Funny how I found two places in a row that I want to return to simply to sit and relax.

Oddities
At one point this month, I found myself looking through the pictures from my trip the previous June to Shanghai. Gosh, the parks were green! Sure, they were generally small and scattered, but boy were they lush. It's too bad everything looks so bleak during the winter.

I also noticed how funky some of Shanghai's skyscrapers are, providing a more distinctive skyline than most cities. This didn't sink into my consciousness during my June visit.

Also, only now did I realize nearly all ATMs in Shanghai are in individual, lockable booths. In comparison, in the states, ATMs are either open on the street, open in the bank, or in a room with a few ATMs that is only accessible with an ATM card. In Shanghai, practically all ATMs are in tiny rooms (one ATM per room) that lock from the inside.

Shanghai Expat: February 2010

I spent much of February traveling, not in Shanghai. (I visited Hong Kong for a weekend and, later, I escaped Shanghai for a longer trip to both Singapore and Cambodia.) Thus, I have less than usual to discuss in this post.

I took my longer trip over Chinese New Year (CNY). Chinese New Year is a big holiday: most companies, including mine, give employees the whole week off. Everyone travels home to celebrate with their families. Having heard stories about massive celebrations, fireworks at all hours, etc., I was looking forward to it. Some of my coworkers tell me amazing stories about parades of massive dragons held up by dozens of people, about a huge seesaw to pound sticky rice into flour to make cakes, and more. However, I was told by everyone I talked to who had spent Chinese New Year in Shanghai that Shanghai was boring -- everyone travels to their hometowns. Because Shanghai grew so much due to immigration, it's effectively depopulated.

Indeed, half my office took off the whole week before Chinese New Year for vacation. By the Thursday before CNY, maybe an eighth of the office remained. After 1:30pm on Friday, I didn't see another soul in the office. On Saturday when we left for the airport, the roads in Shanghai were practically empty.

Anyway, suffice it to say: this holiday is huge in China. I expected something comparable to Christmas or New Years in the states, but this was way more. For comparison, in California, I see more people in the office on the workdays between Christmas and New Years than I saw on the Thursday before CNY in China. Furthermore, I even see more people in the office on a weekend between Christmas and New Years in California than I saw on the Friday workday before CNY. And whereas restaurants in the states close only on the day of the holiday, some of our favorite small, family-run shops were closed the whole week leading up to CNY and the first two weeks of the new year as well.

We saw many stands selling large fireworks, some with big cylinders, larger than I've see sold in the states. Di Yin observed that one such stand near our apartment in a block away from a sign that says fireworks are illegal.

The holiday continues for fifteen days, though the first few are the most important (and the only ones people get holidays from work). Nevertheless, even in the middle of the second week--I was back from my longer trip by then--, we'd hear occasional firecrackers in the evening, and this is a part of town where the police enforce noise restrictions. In places with less enforcement, it was worse: some of Di Yin's family friends said they had trouble sleeping due to the noise. I can believe it: Di Yin and I went to their apartment for dinner on the last night (the 15th day, which was February 28th this year) and the noise was incredible. Admittedly, this night is a bigger deal than the other nights in the last half of the holiday, but it made such a crazy racket that speech was difficult. Furthermore, the racket lasted for hours. See the pictures for photos from this dinner and a recording of the sound.

All this goes to further emphasize the scope of the holiday. Can you imagine people in the states setting off fireworks on, say, July 16th (an arbitrary day in the middle of a week, far after July 4th) or January 5th (ditto, except relative to New Years)? It's inconceivable. But the holiday continues here in China for two weeks.

Outings
Here is the smattering of photos from my various outings in Shanghai this month. They document outings not mentioned in this post.

Dumpling Quest
One day soon after our return from Singapore, we decided to go out for some traditional Shanghainese dumplings. We selected Din Tai Fung (DTF), a well respected Taiwanese chain that specializes in xiao long bao (soup dumplings). Though an expensive meal by Shanghai standards and though it was in a classy setting and had good service (a rare event in Shanghai), we were disappointed with our food. Admittedly, we didn't go to DTF's flagship Shanghai restaurant in Xintiandi.

We decided to round out dinner by going for a stroll to the food street not far away.

Sadly, the food street was closed and clearly in the process of being demolished. Instead, we re-explored Wujiang Road, which we'd previously visited for pho. There, we went to a local chain, Yang's, basically a hole in the wall which specializes in a version of pan-fried soup dumplings. (I visited a different instance of this chain last summer.) This was so much better than DTF that there was no comparison. I've very glad we followed DTF with these; they made our night's quest for Shanghainese dumplings a success.

Ice cream for dessert wrapped up the whole evening well.

I took pictures of the evening outing, including the nicely decorated streets.

Oddities & Other Remarks
Only when reading my Hong Kong guidebook did I realize why my office building is missing a 14th floor. I knew 4 is an unlucky number because it's a homophone in Mandarin to the word "death." 14 is apparently very unlucky because it could either be said as "ten four" or as "one four"; the latter is a homophone for "want to die" (in Mandarin) or for "certainly die" (in Cantonese). I guess this is the equivalent of skipping the 13th floor of buildings in the western world. Incidentally, some buildings skip the 4th and all other floors that end in the digit 4; mine, oddly, only skips 14.

In restaurants in China, when you put your jacket over the back of your seat, they put covers over your jacket. The covers are shaped like seat covers (not coat covers), basically holding the jacket tightly against the seat. I'm not sure why the practice started: protecting against spills, preventing someone from stealing the jacket, compressing bulky jackets so they don't get in the way, or securing jackets so they don't fall on the floor. Regardless, though it's probably a good policy, it's a bit hard to get used to. It always surprises me when I'm sitting and talking and someone starts doing something to back of my seat. Of course, at some restaurants, they're slick enough that I don't notice when they cover our jackets.

I will never understand or be happy living in a country where people at home commonly accept being cold enough to see one's breath (despite having a heater and earning enough money to pay the electricity bill).

Shanghai Expat: January 2010

This post is a bit less coherent than usual. The majority of this post is brief snippets (in chronological order) of various outings we did this month. These should be read simultaneously with the pictures I took, which provide more detail, mostly on the food. (Note: there are minor outings the pictures cover that aren't mentioned in this entry.) Some snippets in this blog post also describe things that couldn't be photographed: e.g., aspects of the conversation, or a summary of a dinner party where photography would've been awkward. The only topic this post has aside from the outing reports is a few brief reports on some unusual behaviors we observed in Shanghai. These oddities are listed at the end of the post.

Outings
Returning from Singapore on January 2nd, we stopped for dinner at the previously visited ramen place in the basement of the Japanese mall by Jing'an Temple. In spite of my past delicious experience with a fried noodle dish there, I stuck with the ramen this time and was pleased.

The next day, a Sunday (January 3), we had failed to restock our fridge by lunchtime and thus were forced to eat out. We tried an (okay) soup and dumpling shop nearby. For dinner, both Di Yin and I cooked good dishes. Details about the day are as usual in the pictures. Often I don't take pictures or record what we cook at home. This meal wasn't unusual -- rather, I simply was in a photo-taking mood.

On Monday (January 4), one of Di Yin's friends D (who I met at dinner on Christmas Day) came to stay with us while en route from Hunan back to the U.S. Di Yin cooked some more, plus we had leftovers from Singapore that we brought to Shanghai. To top it off, this friend brought us some Beard Papa desserts, so we could try a few of the flavors they have here in China. Notes (though not photos) are in the pictures page.

Tuesday (January 5) was another day to meet one of Di Yin's friends who happened to be in town. In this case, that meant meeting A, an art history graduate student, his parents and brother, and two of his friends. Over dinner in a small private room in a upscale Shanghainese restaurant, Xin Jishi (New Jesse), we heard tales of what it's like to be a judge in Hong Kong and of attitudes toward judges in China (versus Hong Kong), and stories about amazing negotiating skills (21,000 RMB down to 500) and about how some museums sell fakes.

It was a good meal. Sorry, no pictures; they would have been impolitic. Because of our party's size (8), we ordered a lot of food (16? dishes). I'm not going to attempt to describe them all (otherwise I'll be writing a ton), but I'll mention the menu included the twice-cooked pork belly that we really enjoyed at Jishi (Jesse) (which is, I believe, the original restaurant in this chain), dates stuffed with glutinous rice, and crystal shrimp. We also had a Shanghainese dish I hadn't seen before but quite liked. It was a dish of gingko nuts, rice cakes, chicken, and perhaps other nuts and maybe bamboo shoots in a thick, spicy-sweet sauce. (The "and maybe" is because the items were hard to recognize under the sauce.) Di Yin says this is the only traditional Shanghainese dish that's spicy. Its spicy-sweet sauce reminded me American-Chinese food; it tasted like home. We also had yet another Shanghainese dish that I hadn't seen before. Imagine a bowl of pot sticker dumplings. Replace the dough wrapping with egg, making an egg dumpling with meat inside. Neat!

Leaving the restaurant, we were confronted with beggars ... persistent buggers too (they followed us around and got in our way so we'd have to repeatedly walk around them). I suppose it's because this part of town has many pricey restaurants. I saw more beggars that night than I've seen in total before in Shanghai during this trip.

On Wednesday (January 6), Di Yin spent much of the day with the friend A. I joined them in the evening to hang out for a while and then head to dinner. We returned again to How Way restaurant near Jing'an Temple where I, as on our previous visits, was impressed by our meal. Details are in the pictures.

On Friday (January 8), Di Yin and I cooked enough novel dishes that I thought the evening was worth documenting photographically. We tried three new items, all of which turned out well! :)

On a rainy (but warmer :> ) Sunday morning, I went out to explore a market I'd never previously visited and to buy breakfast. I had a pleasant walk in the rain and also discovered a large park, Huashan Park, not far from our apartment. Even though it was too cold to sit in the park, it looked large enough that it might be worth strolling in on a drier day. (Indeed, I returned some weeks later on an unseasonably warm day. It is a nice park: trees, fields, a pond, streams, plazas.)

That evening (January 10), we walked in a slight rain to a large mall for dinner (Grand Gateway Plaza / Ganghui Guangchang, in the shopping district of Xujiahui). (This mall isn't the Japanese one near Jing'an Temple which we frequent; rather it was one that we ate Korean bbq at before.) After walking by the mall's restaurants--malls in China often have many respectable restaurants--, we selected a Macau restaurant named Lisboa Restaurant. Though our meal was tasty, if Macau food is this greasy, I'll have trouble eating much there. As usual, see the pictures for details.

One evening (not photographed), we went to a large gathering of some of Di Yin's family's friends and their relatives at a restaurant Xiao Shaoxin. It was a relatively ordinary evening; the only surprising event was one dish: sweet and sour chicken (complete with pineapple). This was definitely the most American-Chinese dish I'd seen in quite a while.

Another evening (January 14), we tried a small restaurant not far from our apartment (near our nearest green market) that specializes in noodles and fake meats: Godly Vegetarian Restaurant. It's a small outpost of / spinoff of a restaurant with the same name I visited last summer. It's a warm, welcoming place with, oddly, a flat-screen TV playing dramatic Chinese soap operas (probably for the waitress's enjoyment). Di Yin and I liked this neighborhood joint and plan to go back. The food was light and healthy, yet we left comfortably filled. As usual, details of the food are in the pictures.

For lunch on Saturday (January 16), I returned to Godly. Though only half the customers were white, the only language I heard was English. I wonder if this is the usual clientele for vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai. Anyway, the restaurant was similarly good as my last trip. I again left satisfied and not stuffed. See the pictures.

One Saturday night (January 16), with Di Yin's prodding, we returned to the smoky all-you-can-eat-and-drink grilled meat place and proceeded to eat ourselves into a stupor. See the pictures.

One evening (January 21), to celebrate Di Yin being short-listed for a fellowship, we went to "Sapar" Uygur Restaurant. The Uyghurs are the ethnic group in northwest China, near the borders with Kazakhstan and Mongolia. They're mostly Muslims. The food was decent. Also, we enjoyed the way the waiter and the food runners/cleaners played with language. (Being Uyghurs, they're not native Mandarin speakers.) The details are in the pictures.

One evening I went out drinking with some co-workers. The bar we picked was abandoned at 9pm but, by 10pm, it was filled with people, most of whom were white except for the (generally younger) Chinese women. The crowd danced, or attempted to talk (as I did). The crowd also smoked quite a bit.

Another evening, Di Yin and I returned to Charmant, the Taiwanese place we first visited in December. Details are in the pictures.

Near the end of the month, on January 27, 2010, Di Yin and I had dinner at a friend of mine B, with his girlfriend K and an assortment of his other friends. Seeing his place was enlightening. I knew he lived in a nice place near Xintiandi, the super-fancy shopping strip with old-style buildings, but I didn't know how nice. His place is actually named Richgate, and it's expansive and furnished with numerous high-end (and sometimes high tech) decorations. The building's like a four star hotel, with marble floors and everything.

Hairy crabs were the excuse for the dinner; he bought some that came from a lake substantially north of Shanghai. These crabs had furry claws and thin golden hair scattered around the rest of their body. The hairy crab species with golden hair is said to be the best quality; previously all I had were gray-haired crabs. These were pretty good though too much work to pry open. I'm slower than everyone else at dismantling and eating crabs.

As for the rest of the dinner, B's ayi (household helper) knows how to cook meat well; the other stuff, not so well. We had lightly fried non-breaded chicken, a silky beef and tofu dish that Di Yin loved, a dish of celery with pork, a plate of a stir-fried green Chinese vegetable, bowls of congee, and a delicious chicken soup. The meal ended with two types of eggs--one a salted hard-boiled duck egg, the other a thousand-year (preserved) eggs--as well as nasty cheese, and donuts a friend brought (a sad reflection of donuts found in the states). The thousand-year egg, which is made using lime, was a dark, semi-translucent, forest green (see pictures online).

Mid-afternoon the following day I was to fly to Beijing (see other posts this month). Hence, I needed a big mid-morning lunch to carry me over for dinner. Di Yin and I got lunch at a diner, Long Kee Restaurant, in the Japanese mall by Jing'an Temple; I had to be in that vicinity anyway to catch the bus to the airport. Details are in the one picture I took at the meal.

My first full day back from Beijing, we tried a Hong Kong restaurant, Hengshan Cafe, near our apartment for lunch. Again, see the pictures for more information.

Oddities
We often see clothes hung outside to dry. We usually do the same when we run out of space within the apartment to dry our clothes. One day, we saw meat hanging on the clothing lines in the courtyard in front of the apartment. It looked much like the ham hocks I've seeing hanging, being cured, at the markets in Barcelona (and elsewhere). Nevertheless, this was a surprising addition to our apartment's courtyard.

After returning to Shanghai from Singapore, in the first two taxis I took this month, the taxi drivers were listening to radio dramas (one light-hearted comedy, one capitalist drama). How come I never run across taxi drivers in other countries listening to stories or books?

One day I walked by a shop that, instead of a carpet outside the entrance, had a large sheet of bubble wrap! (Sorry, it was too dark to take a picture.)

Beijing: Saturday: Company Retreat

On Saturday, I awoke early to get breakfast and catch the company shuttle to the location of the day's activities. It was a boring day. In the morning we had talks. After lunch, we went to Hot Springs Leisure City, a large indoor pool park with a large wading pool, other pools, slides, spas, saunas, medicinal baths, etc. After looking around, I relaxed in a reclining chair for a while, then left, bored. Soon thereafter (in early evening), I managed to get to the airport for an uneventful flight home. Getting to the airport was a mess, however, as no one knew where the company's airport shuttle bus was going to pick people up, and, when we managed to actually find it, learned it was going to leave about like thirty minutes late, which would've been too late for me. After a long taxi hunt later, during which time we declined three unlicensed cabs, I made it to the airport in time.

I took two pictures this day, both of meals.

Beijing: Friday: Forbidden City and vicinity, and Company Party

Due to last-minute schedule changes, company events didn't start until 3pm. I had most of the day to explore Beijing! :)

I got up at 6:30am, took a shower, ate breakfast at the hotel, and was soon on my way with some coworkers to explore the Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City, and more. First though, I reveled in the hotel's extensive breakfast spread, eating many American items I hadn't touched in months including raisin bran cereal and banana bread. And it'd been very long since I had fresh pineapple. When I left the hotel, the temperature was cold (-2 C / 28 F) but I dressed warmly and thus being outside the whole day wasn't unpleasant.

I took numerous pictures this day, partially because I was walking around with a coworker who is a photography enthusiast. Had I been walking around alone, I probably would've only taken perhaps half as many.

After spending a while walking through the enormous blank expanse of Tian'anmen Square, we headed into the Forbidden City (a.k.a. the Imperial Palace). Aptly named, it's enormous and could fit a town. Part of the city is composed of large, palatial, expansive halls and plazas, alluding to the vastness of the sky and the world and clearly designed to impress by their sheer scope and magnitude. Another part of the city is composed of similar halls but felt less monumental; these were the emperor's and nobles' residences. Another part of the city has smaller buildings connected by long lanes. Concubines, housekeeping staff, servants, and secondary government officials lived there. I didn't greatly enjoy any of these buildings. Rather, the gardens are the part of the Forbidden Palace I liked the most. They're not actually particularly nice, but what can I say: I like trees and nature.

We also looked through the various museums/exhibits in the Forbidden City. The Treasure Gallery contains crowns, hairpins, tiny wine vessels, ewer flasks, tributes from provinces (mostly high-quality art or jewelry), royal accessories, jade sculptures, and palatial furnishings, all made with fine craftsmanship. We also went to the Clock Museum and an exhibit of jade carvings. The Clock Museum has clocks, all elaborate, made from various regions throughout China, as well as some imported from foreigners and some made by Western-influenced Chinese clockmakers. Of the China-local clocks, I liked the ones from Guangzhou the best.

After the Forbidden City, we walked up and through the neighboring park, Jingshan Park, then walked to another nearby park, Beihai Park (yet another park formerly considered part of the Forbidden City), grabbing lunch on the way (at the first place we saw after we left Jingshan Park).

In mid-afternoon, we returned to the conference center and hotel to do company-related things. In the evening, I attended the elaborate, extravagant company New Year Kick-off Party / gala banquet. When I say extravagant, I mean it: two large projection screens hung from the center of the hall on which were projected images from the party as multiple cameras, including one on a crane, roamed the scene; the front stage was illuminated with multi-colored lasers and spotlights like a concert; an A&V team in the back managed it all.

As for the party, there was an award ceremony, a number of performances (dancing, singing, etc.) by employees, and even an imitate-the-professional-dancer competition (in which dancers were thrown out one-by-one by judges and, near the end, by SMS voting), and more. I, however, found the evening rather boring, and not because I don't speak the language.

Beijing: Thursday: Arrival

Checking-in at Shanghai's Hongqiao airport, I saw a security measure I'd never seen before. Security guards ran a swab on about a dozen people's various items of clothing and carry-on items. Security kept these people in a separate, roped-off area while the swab got tested for chemicals, which took about thirty seconds, then released the whole group when the test came back clean. Then it's time for another group of about a dozen people and another swab. It's a nice compromise between efficiency (analyzing batches of people at once) and specificity (being able to easily identify the infiltrator), as the vast majority of swabs will come back clean.

On the plane, I ate oranges I brought. I didn't expect to be fed on the one-and-a-half hour flight. Nevertheless, the airline provided a sizable snack (a roll (with anonymous meat), fruit, raisins (from California!), and peanuts (overly salty), but I didn't particularly like most of it and was glad I had the oranges.

Upon landing in Beijing, I took a shuttle for ten minutes to meet some co-workers who landed at a different terminal. (Some terminals in the airport are quite a drive apart!) We then took a taxi to the hotel, during which time we were introduced to a Beijing-rush-hour traffic jam. The hotel didn't have my reservation, one item among many that showed this company event was poorly planned. After spending much time sorting it out with the help of some bilingual co-workers, I ended up getting myself placed in the room with the extra person on this trip (the person who happened to be assigned as only one person to a two-person room).

A big group of coworkers walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. I have nothing more to say about the dinner because, despite the number of dishes, I wasn't enthusiastic about any of them. (No, it wasn't the style of cooking; it was simply the quality.)

My hotel room had a cool feature. I'm sad I forgot to take a movie of it. The wall separating the bathtub from the bedroom has a large window with wooden blinds. At the touch of a button, they angled open or closed, or slide up or down. A bit creepy if you were in the room with someone you don't know well, but nevertheless very cool to watch.

Beijing: Overview

I visited Beijing on January 28-30, 2010, for a company off-site / kick-off party in honor of the new Chinese year.

Because this was a company event, I had only two-thirds of a day to myself in Beijing to go sightseeing. I did get a bit of an impression of the city from the short time. First, at least judging by these three days, Beijing's sky is clearer and bluer than Shanghai's, perhaps due to lower humidity. The temperature, though colder, doesn't feel substantially colder (again, maybe because it's less damp). Second, the center part of Beijing has some large, nice, pretty parks: good for walking, and some with hills with decent views. Shanghai doesn't have large parks in the city, and I miss being able to take long walks in nature.

Shanghai Expat: December 2009

Getting Settled
In December, we got more comfortable in our apartment as Di Yin acquired handy household items.

We got two pretty white furry sheep-fur on sheep-skin mats that we used as seat cushions. Sitting on a chair with one of these was much warmer than sitting on an uncovered chair. Also, I simply liked the luxurious, sensuous feeling of sticking my fingers in the fur and feeling its softness. However, I still feel a bit unsettled when I look at the outline of the sheep-skin and can see where the sheep's legs attached to its body. It does remind one that an animal died to give us these seat pads.

I couldn't imagine a sheep having thicker, fluffier, or softer fur than those examples... -- that is, until Di Yin returned one day with an even larger, thicker, brown fur sheep-skin mat. The fur was so thick it could swallow your hand. We used it to warm the foot of our bed then, later, as a cover/cushion on the couch.

The largest single improvement to our happiness in the apartment, however, was a mattress. Our bed, as you may recall, didn't have one. Rather than ordering a Chinese mattress (which is typically hard), we ordered a "mattress topper" which was six inches thick and made of latex foam. It's nice. You wouldn't believe our smiles when we lay on it for the first time.

The additional, big, warm blankets Di Yin acquired at various times also made the bed more comfortable. (For a while we were trying to keep warm on a queen-size bed under blankets meant for a double-size bed, which didn't quite work.)

The second largest improvement was the rearranging we did after Di Yin's mom left, in particular stealing the couch from her former room and moving it into the office cum entertainment room (complete with large iMac screen). The couch, more comfortable than it appeared, was a good size both for lying down and for sitting at with a laptop. Later in the process, we moved the desk into the bedroom so it could get lots of light during the day--the office only had a small window and didn't receive much light anyway--but left the iMac behind so the (now ex-)office was truly purely an entertainment room. Now we have an entertainment room with a nice couch and a bedroom/office. Working in the bedroom (now with a desk) during the daytime (especially in the morning!) is great! It positively glows, and the light heats it a bit too.

Di Yin also made herself happy by buying many other households goods: three tablecloths, extra sheets (handy when one set is hung up to dry (we have no drier)), another set of extra sheets (okay...), an extra quilt, new natural-light light bulbs, eight (!) new pillowcases, etc.

Pictures
I started taking more pictures this month, including many that show scenes from my daily life in Shanghai, and others from various dinner outings (when I remembered my camera) as well as my company's holiday party. The dinner outings ones accompany parts of the narrative in the "food outings" sections below.

Now is also an appropriate time to link to Di Yin's pictures from our stay in Shanghai. After all, my pictures this month cover pictures from our neighborhood and our everyday life in Shanghai. This album of her pictures from Shanghai generally has the same theme (even though not all of her pictures were taken this month). My pictures (for a change) provide more extensive documentation of the Shanghai experience than hers.

Hannukah
I got to celebrate Hannukah! One of my co-workers, an American expat who, though not Jewish, grew up celebrating Hannukah, organized a Hannukah-themed TGIF. We tried to teach our Chinese co-workers a bit about Hannukah. We gave a little background, lit a menorah (I did it), and said prayers in English (me) and Hebrew (an Israeli who's a friend of a co-worker). We ordered latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts, a tradition neither of us American jews had seen before). (Yes, I'm amazed there's a place in Shanghai that caters this stuff.) We even had gelt and dreidels. My co-worker who planned everything--I was sick--wrote up the rules for dreidel in two forms, first regular English and then, realizing who the audience would likely be, in computer code (python-y pseudo-code). The latter went over very well. :) At one point, we had four tables of dreidel games going at once.

This is more than I've usually done for Hannukah in the states in recent years.

Digression: around Christmas, co-workers often asked me what I was doing to celebrate. (By the way, neither Christmas Eve nor Christmas Day are holidays in China.) I gradually learned they didn't want a long explanation about being Jewish and celebrating Hannukah a few weeks before; rather, they simply wanted to wish someone a merry Christmas and find out what westerners do on the holiday, whether spend it with friends or family, and go out or stay in or travel.

Holiday Party
My company's Shanghai's holiday party was on the Monday (!) before Christmas. A Vegas-themed party, most men wore suits and women wore risque dresses. There was gambling--men crowded around blackjack, roulette, etc. tables--and even a cabaret show. For money, we used paper printed with faces of the company's founders, the CEO, and the Shanghai office director. Each represented a different denomination. The food was good and also varied: a nice mix of Chinese (e.g., dumplings) and Western (e.g., pasta, pizza, ceviche) and desserts (e.g. blueberry custard tart, truffles, lots of melons). But perhaps the best feature--that is, besides meeting some expats in the office (people who speak English, yay!) and getting along well with them--was the setting. Held on the 65th floor of a fancy hotel (Le Royal Meridien) by People's Square, the views in all directions of Shanghai's skyline were stunning. I took a ton of pictures. I'm amazed I somehow missed seeing during my trip in June the expansive bright beauty of Shanghai's skyline at night. I was also planning to take some pictures inside of the party but forgot. (Di Yin says it was perhaps good I forgot, as some of the clothing was lascivious, maybe even a tad bit raunchy.)

Fun Stories / Oddities
One weekend morning, walking by the school at the end of our block, I was overcome with music, and not just any music. Every little kid had his or her own accordion! Heh. Accordions in China. Each was doing his or her own thing with it.

Everyone in Shanghai wears slippers in their house and keeps extra pairs around for guests. During the summer, I thought this was simply to prevent the ever-present dust and dirt from making its way into one's home. (If you take your shoes off before entering someone's house, you're less able to track dirt in.) This winter, however, I realized another feature of the slippers: warmth. Even though they're mostly open-topped (and so don't retain heat), I found myself wearing slippers at home more often than the flip-flops I brought: the flip-flops have a thinner sole; the slippers kept my feet farther from the floor and therefore warmer.

One weekend morning I ventured out (as usual) to our local fry-bread stand for breakfast. On our block, there's a large vacant lot undergoing construction. Judging from the size of the pit and foundation, they're building something tall. Anyway, as I passed it, I noticed a cement truck doing its thing. Then, at the end of the block, I found a line of more than half a dozen additional cement trucks, idling, waiting their turn to go down the one lane street to drops their loads. As I walked by I tried not to breathe because the smell of exhaust was so strong. While I thought this was an absurd sight, I was even more surprised to walk by in the afternoon and see another cement truck waiting, and see three more lined up when I passed yet again in the evening.

You'll notice I decided to write down addresses of restaurants when the name doesn't mean anything in Chinese (i.e., couldn't be semantically translated into English) and there is no authoritative way to romanize/transliterate it. (Sure, I could do my best to convert it to pinyin and figure out proper spacing, but I don't think my romanization would be useful if no one else writes the restaurant name in roman characters.)

Random Observations
Amusements: the woman with the megaphone who drives down the alleys and the roads around 8pm reminding everyone to shut off the gas in their kitchen.

Yes, many people smoke. Nearly everywhere (except subways).

Most buses and elevator cars and some subway cars have televisions. Usually these play advertisements.

Food & Sightseeing Outings
The rest of this post is devoted to food outings, some of which also involve sightseeing or other entertaining stories.

Food Stories: Goji Berry Shoots
One evening that Di Yin's mom made dinner--she always makes too much / too many dishes, but who can complain when they're all good--, she made a vegetable dish from goji berry shoots. Neat! They're very thin leafy green stalks, much like kang kung or slightly-stiffer-than-usual pea sprouts, and are ever so slightly bitter in flavor, in the same manner as bitter greens (though not as assertive).

Food Stories: Ruby's Cake
In November, Di Yin and I spotted a bakery, Ruby's (sp?), on Urumqi Road with a crowd inside and tons of identical white cakes in the windows. We looked it up online and discovered the place is crazy popular. One day this month we managed to get some pieces before they sold out, which, despite the amount they bake, happens well before they close at 8pm. The cake was good, with not-dry white cake-flour cake and a light whipped-cream-like frosting: a much airier cake than most.

Food Outing: Bo Do One Hong Kong
One day for lunch I returned to Bo Do One and tried the fried pork and cucumber dish that looked so good last time. In fact, it tasted every bit as good as it looked: delicious! Thin, succulent slices of pork tossed with cucumber (and a couple of other peppers) and flavored with XO sauce, which I'm never sure what it is but it sure worked well here. I should return to eat it again.

Food Outing: Jing'an Temple (Banana Leaf Curry House)
For dinner the following day, we trekked to the Jing'an Temple area for dinner, planning to eat in the food court in the neighboring fancy Japanese mall. The food court is filled with a disproportionate number of ramen joints, an udon joint, a Japanese curry house, a very Chinese-style Thai restaurant, an American restaurant, and assorted others. We ended up getting some take-out sushi which was surprisingly fresh from the attached supermarket and eating it along with dinner in a Singaporean-style restaurant: Banana Leaf Curry House. Good sauteed kang kong (a green vegetable like pea shoots), decent, potent char kway teow (powerfully spiced fried noodles), and a refreshing watermelon juice. The latter was good enough that I decided to order another juice, but the pineapple juice I got was so syrupy and sweet that I couldn't take more than a sip.

Food Outing: How Way
As I've mentioned before, Di Yin's mom spent the last month in China, much of it in Shanghai staying in the other bedroom in our apartment. In return for the many good dinners she'd cooked us at home and just as a natural show of affection, we took her to dinner on her penultimate evening in town. For this event, we elected to return to How Way Restaurant. It was a good choice -- probably the best (non-dumpling) dinner we've had outside the apartment since coming to Shanghai. I've put details on the meal elsewhere.

Food Outing: Jing'an Temple (ramen shop)
After Hannukah TGIF (see above), I met Di Yin for dinner at the Japanese mall by Jing'an Temple. It was more decorated than last time, with more Christmas trees and flashing lights in addition to the tall one we saw last time. Again, I wish I had my camera but I keep forgetting to carry it with me. :( (Note: I'm happy to report I brought my camera with me on one of my visits to the area a few weeks later (actually on Christmas Day).)

For dinner we selected one of the Japanese noodles shops in the mall's basement. It serves many varieties of ramen, each modeled after the style of ramen made in a particular city in Japan. How cool! Di Yin seemed pleased with her bowl. I had a very good dish of thick udon noodles tossed with kimchi and sliced pork and onions and served sizzling in oil on a cast iron skillet. Delicious, especially the bits I got to last that ended up crispy from being stuck to the hot metal for so long.

Outing: West Nanjing Road (sights, plus Pho 26, Krispy Kreme)
The following Sunday evening, we took a taxi to West Nanjing Road and in particular its eponymous subway station. There, we walked part of the Wujian Road pedestrian street. It's a ritzy, snazzy, pretty street, filled with foreign eateries and high-end shops. Neon lights that change color are embedded in the sidewalk. Again, I wish I brought my camera. For dinner, Di Yin had selected Pho 26, supposedly one of the best pho places in the city. Indeed, it was good. Her pho had a rich, meaty, tasty broth, along with meat, noodles, bean sprouts, Thai basil, green onions, lemongrass, and more. It was definitely one of the best phos I've had. The broth was so flavorful (from beef fat I think) that it reminded me more of ramen than most past phos. My dish, in contrast, was merely okay: a bulky mass of vermicelli noodles drizzled with a sweet vinegar-based sauce and tossed with peanuts, roasted garlic, basil, shredded carrots, slivered cucumbers, and more, and topped with slices of a grilled pork chop, appealingly sweetened. The restaurant's space was stylish and comfortable, definitely a high-class restaurant. (Don't think cheap pho joints as in the states.)

Pho 26 apparently was established in 1926. Maybe that's why they know what they're doing in terms of pho. I only wish all those numbered pho joints in the states had so much history / know so much.

Along the street is a major British department store, Marks & Spencer. We walked around it for a while, looking at clothes and foodstuffs but mostly enjoying the Western atmosphere (quiet, no salespeople hassling, items nicely arranged, clear labels, lots of English, etc.). After M&S, we stopped by the Krispy Kreme that was to open in a few days. The first Krispy Kreme in Shanghai, in a pre-opening promotion, they were giving away boxes of donuts in exchange for names and phone numbers. I took a box. :)

The taxi home drove along Nanjing Road, said to be Shanghai's main shopping street. Having not walked down this road this trip (if ever), it's remarkable, reminding me as we passed mall after mall and brightly lit storefront after brightly lit storefront how Shanghai is a truly modern city in places.

Food Outing: Xintiandi (Pizza Marzano)
One Tuesday, I had dinner with B, my only friend in Shanghai (besides Di Yin and the people I know at work). We ate at Pizza Marzano in an expensive, renovated area (Xintiandi) where wealthy people like to eat and shop. I got a fairly good thin-crust (Neapolitan) pizza (marzano pizza: sausage and red onions) of the quality that an Italian restaurant in San Francisco might produce. I was pleased to discover I can get decent Western food in Shanghai (at Western prices: US$14 for a personal-sized pizza). I also had nice garlic cheese bread, and a beer.

It was nice seeing my friend, both to connect to a familiar face and because, as a long-time Shanghai resident, he can give me eating tips for more good restaurants of a type I wouldn't expect to find.

Outing: Xujiahui (sights, Pankoo Korean, ice cream)
One Friday, to celebrate our good health, we ventured out to dinner. We selected an instance of a chain of Korean restaurants, Pankoo, that allegedly serve the best Korean in Shanghai. The location we selected is in a mall (Grand Gateway Plaza / Ganghui Guangchang) in Xujiahui, Shanghai's most expansive shopping district, a twenty or twenty-five minute walk from our apartment. The large and modern mall has two floors devoted to restaurants, and these are good ones, not like typical American mall food courts. The food at Pankoo was decent; details are in the pictures.

After dinner we strolled through the mall, then stopped for dessert first at Cold Stone Creamery (very stretchy ice cream) (we had banana) then at Haagen-Dazs (definitely better quality) (I had cookies and cream). Interestingly, throughout Shanghai, Cold Stones and Haagen-Dazs always seem to be co-located at high-end malls.

Haagen-Dazs did the most remarkable thing when we bought a pint of ice cream to bring home. (Di Yin really likes the green tea flavor.) (Incidentally, ice cream is expensive in Shanghai; the pint was about US$12.) Well, when we bought the pint, the staff-person asked us how far away we lived and used that to decide how much ice to put in the bag with the ice cream to keep it cold on the way home.

Fifteen minutes later, I found the whole question of quantity of ice ironic. As we walked home in 0 degrees C weather (I put it that way because it sounds colder than saying freezing), I wasn't worried in the least about the ice cream melting; I was more worried about keeping feeling in my fingers.

Food Outing: Yanagiya
Another evening, we went to a Japanese restaurant near our local subway station. It was casual, had good food, and also had great service. The details are in the pictures. We felt comfortable there and liked it enough that we might meet there when I'm on my way home from work.

Food Outing: Japanese BBQ
On Christmas Eve, Di Yin and I met a friend of mine, B, and his girlfriend, K, for dinner at a Japanese barbecue joint. (The name doesn't translate; the address is 2007 West Nanjing Road.) Dinner was great fun: for a reasonable price we had all-we-can-eat meat, which we grilled ourselves over charcoal, sashimi, drinks (yes, alcohol), and more. We ate a lot of meat (various cuts of short ribs, ox tongue), broiled eel (they cooked this for us), assorted sashimi plate (arctic clam, tuna, octopus, sweet shrimp, ...), multiple plates of salmon sashimi, two plates of raw beef and egg sashimi, and many plates of very good salad. There were also a bunch of dipping sauces for the meat; we ignored them all except for the sweet ginger one for some of the meats and the soy sauce for some of the sashimi. We also had unlimited sake and, in my case, lots of very good plum wine. It was a fun evening, drinking and trading stories about Shanghai, food, and how we all met.

After dinner, Di Yin and I walked home because, at 50 degrees, it was an unusually warm evening. We had a pleasant thirty minute stroll.

Food Outing: Another Japanese BBQ, plus Charmant
On the evening of Christmas Day, Di Yin and I met up for dinner with two ex-Harvard grad students, D and S, (both in a similar field as Di Yin, now faculty members elsewhere) who happened to be in Shanghai for two weeks doing research. We ate at a restaurant (in our own private room!) (at 768 Julu) that again called itself Japanese-style barbecue, though this time turned out to also have a mix a substantial Korean influence, as exemplified by the kimchi and the rice-and-vegetable dish we had at the end of the meal. D and S are interesting people, and our dinner lasted nearly three hours without it feeling that long. For details, see the pictures.

After dinner, we took a taxi to Charmant. Though a restaurant, we were there for its extensive dessert menu, and, though the menu was lengthy, we didn't look at it much, instead simply ordering the specialty: chua bing, a Taiwanese shaved ice dessert topped with red bean, azuki beans, pineapple, grass jelly, and some kind of berry, and drizzled with condensed milk. It was good. The restaurant's located close to home (I pass a block and a half away from it on the way to the subway everyday); I may have to return for real food. (The restaurant has an extensive menu that looks good and emphasizes the quality of its ingredients and the lack of MSG.)

Food Outing: Lost Heaven Yunnanese
The following evening, the 26th, our last evening in Shanghai before our trip to Singapore, we ventured out again for dinner. We went to a Yunnanese restaurant, Lost Heaven, that I've wanted to go since doing my restaurant research for my first trip to Shanghai. Funnily (and unintentionally), it happens to be surprisingly close to our apartment. We liked the restaurant. It clearly targets westerners: it has a non-smoking section; everything on the menu is translated; even the hip music has lyrics in English. We also liked the food, and got too into the sauces/garnishes and ate too much of them, even to the point of eating them straight. This was a mistake, as they had a goodly amount of oil and we felt a little ill afterward. More details are in the pictures.

Incidentally, though the restaurant is only about three blocks from our apartment, as we walked there, I spotted a small park I'd never passed before. Too bad it's too cold to enjoy sitting in a park.

Shanghai Expat: November 2009 (first month)

I spent a lot of time from mid-November onwards living and working in Shanghai. This post is a summary of my impressions as of the end of November, and stories about what happened that month.

Getting around / surviving in Shanghai wasn't as difficult as I imagined it would be from my previous trip, perhaps because I spent a large fraction of the time I wasn't at home somewhere else (i.e., work) where I didn't have to work as hard to get food or talk to people. (Most of my co-workers could speak English passably well.) That said, there certainly were hardships--some of which I didn't expect a priori--that I'll describe in detail in this post.

After I'd packed up, moved out of my apartment, and obtained my visa, getting to Shanghai was a breeze. I stayed at my friend Oj's high-end high-rise place in San Francisco the night before my flight. I was one of the last people on and first person off my airport shuttle (convenient!). The plane, a direct United flight, was mostly empty; I had a row of two to myself. I loved spreading out, like it was my own personal office. But, not all was great, though. There was no on-demand television, just a limited number of channels of movies on repeat. The meals were decent but too small, the desserts had partially hydrogenated crap in them, and the mid-flight snack was a bowl of instant soup.

Di Yin met me at the airport so I could avoid the misadventures I had the last time I flew to Shanghai. I landed 30 minutes early and customs was faster than I'd predicted, so I was pretty frustrated that Di Yin arrived 50 minutes later than the time we'd planned--the time I expected to be out of customs. Nevertheless, I appreciated her picking me up, and happily traded standing around to re-experiencing the wild goose chase that occurred on my last visit.

It was 39 degrees out when I awoke the next morning, which was unseasonably cold for this time of year. The apartment was likewise cold, having the same poor insulation as (I'm told) the vast majority of apartments in the city. It turns out people in Shanghai are used to / resigned to the cold. Indeed, I gradually realized the lack of heating and the temperature serves the same role as a conversational backbone here as does traffic or the rain in some other cities.

Most Shanghainese keep their apartments heated to the lower 60s and simply wear multiple layers indoors. I guess this is a habit I'll have to learn.

I began learning it the following weekend while visiting one of Di Yin's family's friends' houses and ended up wearing my jacket for half the time. Thankfully, some Shanghainese guests did too. Others were fine and still others accepted offers of sweaters from the hosts.

Our apartment, I realized, may be colder than most. It was made by converting two one-bedrooms into a two bedroom by walling in the connecting previously-external hallway, making it into a kitchen in the process. I imagine this conversion process yields rooms with even worse insulation than typical Shanghai building standards.

Work, incidentally, is a comfortable temperature.

The apartment, besides having a poor layout (many small rooms, which I'm told is a common design in Shanghai) and poor insulation, had another issue: the sliding door to the bathroom sticks, and one day I got stuck in the bathroom! I put a lot of muscle into opening the door to no avail (though I didn't put my full weight into it for fear of breaking the door). Eventually we called the landlord--a friend of Di Yin's family--who came and opened it. A few days later he returned to fix it. The fix helped a little, but over the next months we learned how to slide the oft-sticking door gently. We also got in the habit of leaving it slightly open (open enough to stick a hand between the door and the frame) to make it easier to shove when it gets stuck.

More about the apartment: I liked the apartment's powerful gas stove (which I imagine is typical for China), but disliked the bed -- it was merely a set of planks. (Yes, it lacked a mattress!) We piled three thick blankets on top of it to make it softer, but it certainly remained a obvious plank with soft items piled on. I'm amazed the landlords--the people who lived here before us--liked it that way (actually, without the blankets on top). Overall, the apartment as a whole wasn't entirely horrid (though I may look for a new place), and the location was pretty decent.

Returning to the subject of weather, the week following my arrival, however, was much warmer, with days as comfortable as the best of those I experienced in New York in October (with the exception of thicker air in Shanghai).

In general Shanghai seemed less polluted than during my previous visit, though I think this observation is partially because we're living in what I observed from my last visit to be the least polluted part of town. (I love that my neighborhood--the former French Concession--has trees lining most roads, unlike mostly everywhere else in Shanghai.) In fact, the pollution sensor readings posted on the web say that the pollution is substantially worse during the winter than the summer. Nevertheless, the colder it was, the less polluted it felt (even if the real pollution levels were actually higher). I guess I found the pollution levels easier to accommodate this trip because of my neighborhood and because it simply wasn't as hot.

As for work, my company's office is centrally located downtown by People's Square. Located on the 16th floor, it has good (though hazy) views of the city, including looking down on the Shanghai Museum. A small office (130 people), it occupies only the one floor, and the office provides only lunch, no other meals. The food, which is always Chinese, is fine / acceptable.

Soon after arriving, I meet two other friendly expatriates at the office. They gave me good advice and I'm sad that they both returned to the states within two weeks of my arrival, having completed their one-/two-year stints in this office.

Outings for Food (and sights along the way) (in chronological order)
Most days I either ate breakfast at home (bread) or on the way to work (steamed buns filled with vegetables or meat), lunch at work, and dinner at home. As for the days we went out to eat or explore, here are some reports.

I took only a few pictures in November, but here they are.

One evening Di Yin and I grabbed dinner at a top-notch sheng jian bao shop (fried, somewhat bready soupy dumplings that I'm a big fan of but also rather particular about) on Yunnan Middle Road, a mere 1.5 blocks from work.

After dinner, we walked by People's Square park. I really liked the way the green-tinted lights lit up the trees -- it made it look otherworldly, like a fairyland.

The night was clear. We walked the most of the circumference of People's Square, enjoying the crispness and vividness of the skyscraper's lights and their electronic ads. We took the bus home, thus approaching our apartment from a different direction and letting me see another part of our neighborhood.

My first Saturday, we had a grand lunch at a showroom-like apartment of Di Yin's family's friends: high ceilings, huge TV, marble floors in the bathrooms, walk-in closets, custom-made couches, etc. The lunch was pretty expansive too, featuring more than ten dishes (mostly home-made), including small crabs with some hair on their largest pair of claws (so called ”hairy crabs”).

The following day we had a respectable brunch at one of the many wonton places on Urumqi Road, one of the main shopping streets near our apartment.

Later that day, we explored the dense shopping area near Jing'an Temple. The area is like central Manhattan. We’d end up visiting it often over the following months. Comparatively, the place we're staying is like the upper west side (a lower density of people and shops, though similarly wealthy). In contrast, the area we stayed in the summer was more like Queens.

Near Jing’an Temple, in a stall on the shopping alley near the Fresh Mart (a high-end, fairly comprehensive supermarket), I bought a variety of small Chinese sweets to use as post-dinner desserts the following weeks.

One evening we returned to the Hunanese restaurant Di Shui Dong that we tried and liked during the summer. We attempted to order the delicious eels we had last time, but this time we ended with a whole eel braised in oil and laid out in a spiral, head and neck still attached. The eel was perhaps 18 inches long, divided into inch-wide segments all connected by a knobby series of bones. It was decent but not as good as the previous version. Next time we'll order the right one, and also reserve ahead of time to get the less-smoking room. We also had quite good eggplant topped with ground pork.

After dinner, while attempting to find a bus stop, we ended up walking down a large segment of Changle Road -- it seemed packed with high-end fashion boutiques, a street much like one would find in tribeca in NYC. We actually ended up walking most of the way to People's Square and spotted nice skyscrapers and the elevated highway, all lit impressively at night. The view looked more modern, indeed more futuristic, than views in, say, San Francisco.

One day, working from home in the afternoon, I ate lunch at one of the restaurants on Urumqi Road: Bo Do One - Hong-Kong Style Chinese Cuisine. There was a good chicken soup and a claypot dish. The claypot included rice and was topped with both bok choy and with pork pounded with preserved vegetables that were cooked into a stewy mass that, while connected, was easily separable by chopsticks. It was decent, and I liked the look of the menu enough to want to return, especially for a dish I saw delivered to another table. Di Yin asked what it was: quick-fried pork with cucumbers in XO sauce.

On Thanksgiving, incidentally, we had fowl (takeout goose and duck) and a variety of non-thanksgiving-y things. I did happen to notice (without looking) that a local fancy American (actually American South) restaurant had a thanksgiving spread, but at $65 USD per head it was too rich for my blood.

My second Saturday in town, we explored the area near our apartment in the opposite direction from Jing'an Temple. We found a large conflux of restaurants near the intersection of Yuqing Road and Guangyuan Road and tried one of them for lunch. We had a typical Shanghainese meal: xiao long bao, pure, warm river shrimp (the essence of shrimp), and sauteed pea sprouts. As it turned out, the restaurant's menu ranges widely, and many people online seem to like the fried whole spicy fish.

A block away, we looked through a supermarket, GMS, where I acquired organic beans, pesticide-free produce, and other ingredients I needed to make dinner that night. I also got some chewy rice cakes I'd never seen before and a zong zi, both for eventual use later. The first floor of the supermarket seemed to be filled mostly with nearly identical sweet shops. I wonder how that works. Are they all affiliated with the supermarket or simply renting? Incidentally, on the way home, we stopped by a green/wet market (lots of individual produce, seafood, and meat vendors under one roof) for Di Yin to grab the last few items I and she needed.

Sunday evening, we walked the thirty (or was it forty-five) minutes to the neon Jing'an Temple area for dinner at How Way Restaurant, a place that gets rave reviews on the Chinese equivalent of yelp. It was fairly good, comparable to other Shanghai restaurants we've selected. Perhaps the restaurant's most remarkable feature was its lack of smoke (good ventilation maybe). Of all the food outings I described, this is the only one I took pictures of (linked below). Details on the meal are in the picture captions.

Other Stories
At the end of November, I noticed workers cutting the leaves and small branches off the trees lining the street in our neighborhood. Di Yin tells me she heard that these trees aren't native to Shanghai and such trimming helps them survive the winter.

One evening we ventured out to buy a heater. Though the big box store we targeted had been relocated, the trip wasn't entirely without value -- we spotted a plaza (on Longwu Road) packed with sculptures. It was perhaps one of the most unusual or surreal sights I've found in Shanghai. I think it was the front grounds of a sculpture warehouse shop. Regardless, it would make a good site for a Game clue.

I noticed the most common two-wheeled vehicles on the street are electric bicycles and mopeds. (Contrast this with diesel motorbikes in India.) Rider-powered bikes and motorcycles are less common.

Chinese people can be very direct. (Note: although I say this, this is from second-hand stories. It's not something I recall experiencing directly.) For instance, when shopping for clothes, Di Yin was once told (in Chinese) that her shoulders were freakishly wide. Also, another friend (who is also very thin), when trying on a jacket that made her look fat (her description), said deprecatingly (something like) "Oh, maybe I may have putting on a little weight" to which the person helping her replied "Yes, you have." As a third example, at our local grocery store, Di Yin frequently gets told which items are good today and which items are not. (e.g., "the green beans and the broad beans are good today, but the long beans are not.") Neither I nor she ever gets such tips at grocery stores in the U.S.

Frustrations
As expected, some cultural differences can be frustrating such as the people who push ahead of you line or the tea that you get charged for that sometimes gets delivered unprompted at meals. However, the most egregious examples are often so preposterous they're funny:

One day after dinner we couldn't find the bus stop for the bus that would take us home nor did we want to make the trek to the subway. Instead, we took a taxi. The taxi driver dropped us off two blocks from our apartment with the remark, you're close; you can walk the rest of the way. Until this actually occurred, I couldn't imagine it happening anywhere in the world.

Another day we went to the local police station to register our presence as foreigners in the apartment we were renting. There, Di Yin and the clerk had the following conversation:

Do you have copies of your passports?
I was told that on Mondays through Thursdays that we don't need copies of our passports.
But it's noon.
[Actually, it was 1pm.]
[Also, the clerk may have said, "But it's lunchtime," rather than "But it's noon," but the sentiment is the same and exchange no more or less funny either way.]

I guess the clerk’s not supposed to use the photocopier during lunchtime or on Fridays? (She made an exception in our case.)