Monday in Shanghai

I woke up about 8:00am Monday morning (6pm Sunday evening back home) and booted up the computer to check on the Packer game – which was now in the second half. Enough said.

I then took a shower and it was there that I learned something new. The hotel shower, in addition, to the hand-held shower head, has an overhead rainfall head. It is just after making that discovery, that a life lesson presented itself. When you press the button to switch to the overhead rainfall shower head, it is best to step to the side and let the cold water clear first. Please, do not forget this. Again, enough said.

Normally, my stomach is not up for much more than a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I don’t know why, but I just cannot each much for breakfast. However, one of the great things about being in China is that my stomach is still on US time, and therefore, thinks its dinner time. It is here that I can have a nice large breakfast, that I wish I could have back home. The MoMo Café features your standard nice hotel breakfast, with all of the normal selection we are used to, plus some Asian dishes – which I didn’t try.

After breakfast, I called Jeff and we agreed to meet at his subway stop where we would do some shopping and have lunch. I was a bit nervous to head out into the unknown alone, but in the spirit of adventure, I headed out into the cold 35 degrees rain. The new subway station (actually really new - it just opened on Dec. 31) was about 4 blocks away, and I found it without incident. Proceeding downstairs, I went to the automated kiosk and purchased my RFID card for my subway ticket. It was 4RMB (about $0.60) for a one-way ticket. I got on the subway (I had to duck entering it), and made the uneventful 20 minute ride to Jeff’s stop. There he saw me and jumped on.

We went a few more stops before heading out into a shopping market underground. The vendors are sure excited to see someone from the West as they aggressively try to get you to check out there goods. After an hour or two of shopping, we again took the subway over to downtown Shanghai to eat lunch at the Shanghai World Financial Center (Google that building – it was awesome). From our subway stop, it was a 45 minute walk through busy streets (yes, through some streets – some sidewalks were closed due to construction) heavy traffic, snow, wind, and rain, we finally made it to the SWFC building. The building is quite new, impressive, but shrouded in fog. We occasionally were able to see the top as we approached, but not often. We had lunch in a Hyatt restaurant on the 91st floor. We had some dough crisps w/ peanut sauce to snack on until our food arrived. I ordered the BBQ ribs/clear veggies/pork dumpling wrap appetizer and a fish of the day. Jeff had tasty beef bits in a stone bowl.After lunch, we walked around looking for a way to the observation deck, but found it was 150RMB each ($25) and you couldn’t see out that day because of the weather. We walked back to the subway, Jeff exited at his spot, and I made it back to my hotel around 3:00pm uneventfully.

At 6:30pm, Jeff and his girlfriend met me in the lobby and we went across the street to a hotpot restaurant. This was clearly a locals-only place, and it had been there awhile. We enjoyed a standard hot-pot dinner and I was able to try a few new things. The first one was pig knuckles. It was 100% of the stuff that Lisa detests – bone, bone marrow, connective tissue, and misc. gristle. The locals aggressively go at it and pick them clean – complete with using a straw to get the marrow out. I had one – the bits of meat were ok, but the rest wasn’t too terrific to me. The second item arrived last to our table. It was a plate of about 8 very slimy little fish with the heads just cut off (as in about 10 seconds earlier). They were each about 5 inches long, and did I mention slimy. They all got plopped into the hotpot and what caught my eye is that they started wiggling when they hit the water – Hello! After a couple of minutes in the boiling soup, they were ready. I, of course, grabbed one and told myself it was just like sardines. They actually did end up tasting like sardines without the sauce. They were a bit bigger and I could definitely felt the spinal cord crunch as I ate it. After polishing that one off, I decided that I was full. I walked back to the hotel and got to bed around 10:30pm.