Scenes from Shanghai – Lisa and Tony's Big Adventure

Total Miles Traveled: 39,383

Ahh Shanghai – at 20+ million people, it is the largest city in China. That is an appalling number no? Bigger than many countries in the world! You especially feel it when you fight for a cab when it’s raining. About 30 minutes passed before we successfully out-jockeyed others to get one!

Thus far on our trip, we’ve been blessed with very good weather. That luck changed in Shanghai. The entire time during our 4 day stay, the weather was unusually cold, very windy and rainy due to a nearby typhoon. But we didn’t get the weather dampen our travels! So what do you do? First, go get some comfort food! In this case, it was Lisa’s first and therefore unforgettable experience with Din Tai Fung’s famous xiao long baos (soup dumplings, aka XLBs for short). They’re just so good! And much better than the LA/Arcadia branch by the way. So what did Lisa think? “Holy moly what a flavor explosion!”

Originally started in Taipei, Din Tai Fung has been said to be among the top restaurants in the world. They may not have Michelin stars (though word has it that the Hong Kong branch has one), but really, who cares right? It’s all about the food!! In addition to the original pork XLBs, we had crab roe+pork XLBs, and truffle+pork XLBs – both varieties were worth the extra price and a welcome twist to the originals.

Since we tried the cleaned-up version of XLBs, we wanted to try the local Shanghai XLBs. We found out about Yang’s Fry Dumplings…

These XLBs had a thicker skin, about the size of a racquetball (big!), and pan fried. They were quite greasy but delicious nonetheless. Unfortunately, I had a bout of food poisoning and felt ill for the next couple of days after. I think it was from the XLBs… 🙁

In brighter news, I decided to open a new restaurant. See?

Speaking of food and fun experiences, we liked walking around the Yu Yuan Garden area. It was a really neat preservation of old Shanghai architecture with souvenir shopping and restaurants… (check out all the umbrellas)

We stopped in at the Hu Xin Ting teahouse and tried some Pu-erh tea from the Yunnan province.

What trip to Shanghai would be complete if we didn’t go to the Bund. It’s a pedestrian area along the river where on one bank (the Puxi (“poo shee”) side) you find buildings reminiscent of historic New York City, and the other bank (Pudong) is a modern concrete jungle where you’ll find many financial institutions.

And as we were taking photos, I thought this was hilarious – this guy kept fussing around with his hair as his wife prepared to take a photo:

We also got a chance to meet up with my classmates from Sloan: Rob, David, and Marcus (good to see you guys!). Rob and his girlfriend were kind enough to hook us up with some free passes to the Shanghai World Expo (thanks!).

We were told by many people to go at night because there would be fewer people. Well, I had to admit we were skeptical because it was the last week of the Expo. So, despite the chilly wind, we set out one evening and this is what we found:

“Where are the crowds?” wonders Lisa…

Look at barricades set up for the line to get in to the Expo. A few days before, we had heard on the news they were expecting close to a million people at the Expo on a given day. HOLY CRAP we were lucky. We got through in less than 2 minutes!

The Expo is where countries from around the world sponsor “pavilions” that represent their country’s interpretation of a specific theme – in this case, “Better City, Better Life”. Each country can interpret what that means, from the exterior of the building to the experience inside. There were so many pavilions, one could easily spend a week going to each one. And of course, the most popular ones had the longest lines – For some, the wait was up to 13 hours!?! Saudi Arabia pavilion was one of the most popular – boasting waits of up to 15 hours. Dude. Why? I mean, I’ve seen people at Disneyland wait for 2 hours to ride the newest ride, but 15 hours? Really? So, our strategy was to just walk in to as many pavilions that had short lines, just to see what all this Expo fuss was about.

We had prearranged a “reservation” for the USA Pavilion so that was our first visit. Unfortunately, the pavilion was not impressive. We heard that it was because the US originally didn’t want to participate and there was some politicking between sponsors. So in the end, it came out to 3 short “feel-good” videos, featuring executives from companies who sponsored the pavilion, and then an area where each sponsor had a little exhibit. Here’s Lisa in front of the representation from her former employer.

Wait, there was a little bit of cultural stuff:

Did you know that I almost made it on the South Africa soccer team? Check me out below – South Africa pavilion and the World Cup!!!

Weird display of large faces at the Africa general pavilion:

We thought Greece did a really good job with their pavilion. They featured TV screens showing candid video footage of life in Greece… like a camera looking through the window of a busy cafe, or one overlooking a seafood market, or another fixed above a Greek wedding reception. Does the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding ring a bell?

Finland is minimalist:

Here’s a funny one. Lisa saw this below and blurted out, “What’s the country of UN?” 😛

At each pavilion, you would see a line inside. What? Another line, you ask? Yes, it was for people getting stamps for their Expo passport. People were really serious about it – what a brilliant idea!

Well, that was about it for our very brief stay in Shanghai. Many thanks to our friend Gary and his parents for letting us stay in their apartment. Check out the great view from their living room: