The Super Condensed Post I've promised...

It's been almost a week since my last post, and I've been getting quite a bit of online inquiries as to "What's going on?", "What have you guys been eating?", and the like.  Well, I can explain.  The day after our last post, we went club hopping around Shanghai so we didn't get back til late and I was super tired... The day after, we flew to HK, and Internet's been a bit wonky, so I haven't bothered uploading pics (and we've been going out late in HK, too, so that didn't help either).  In any case, here's the "Super Condensed Post"...
The day after our trip to Suzou, we woke up and headed back to our local noodle shop as I needed another steamed bun (xiaolongbao) fix.  After that, we walked around Nanjing Road and instead of Haagen Dazs, we decided to switch it up and headed to Cold Stone Cremery :)  Then we walked around People's Square and spotted a China "Starbucks" less than a block from the real Starbucks, called ecoffee... the logo, cups, decor... everything looked exact, so I couldn't help but take a picture!  We saw a similar copycat earlier in the week.. instead of L'Occitane, they had Occitown, with the same colour schemes!

The boys wanted to go check out the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, but when we got there, we realized we just missed the last entry and they weren't allowing any more people in. :(  So instead, we found the underground shops there and checked that out instead.  The place was set up to look like what Shanghai used to be in the 1930s, so that was interesting.  You can see below the entry, as well as the boys trying to blend in with the display of people lining up for the tram.

That night, we had dinner at Jade Garden (苏浙汇) with Jas' dad to thank him for the hotel arrangements, bringing us out to karoake, etc.  We got there a little early, and remembered there was a bakery nearby famous for it's egg tarts, so of course we had to try one!  We were good though, Kel and I shared!  However, I still don't know how Kel managed to eat it without burning himself as it was fresh out of the oven and when I bit down, the egg part would cling to to roof of my mouth.. :(  It was awesome nonetheless.  Below, are the pics of us at dinner.

We went club hopping that night, from Mint, (which was mostly caucasians and expats,) to Guandii, (which was all locals,) to Park 97 (, which was more locals, some caucasians).  We didn't get home until late late that night and decided to sleep in the next day and grab some food (or not) before our flight to Hong Kong.  We were flying separately, so Sunny's flight was at 3pm, while ours was at 7pm.  Uncle Tong had advised Sunny to leave the hotel around 1pm to allow time to get to the airport and such.  Kel and I didn't get up until close to 1pm and were packing, but we haven't heard from Sunny, so I told Kel to give him a call "just in case".  Kel figured Sunny should have left or close to leaving, but gave him a call anyways.... well, seems like he didn't quite get up til we called and rushed out of the hotel soon after.  By the time he got to the airport, he had already missed his baggage check-in time, so he had to deposit his lugguage at the airport and called us to help bring it back for him!  Another ten minutes or so later, we got another call from him... and apparently, he was in such a rush to the boarding gate, he had forgotten one piece of handcarry lugguage on the belt at security!  So Kel and I left for the airport a little earlier to try to locate Sunny's various pieces... Uncle Tong had suggested we take the cab to a certain Maglev station and try out the high speed train to the airport, which was exactly what Kel's been wanting to do all this time.  Below, we've documented Kel's Maglev adventure. :)

From Kel at the machine, purchasing our tickets... to Kel posing with the blue Expo guy by the train.. to him boarding the train...

to... us on the train... to "OMG we're travelling at 431km/h!!".. to Kel taking his last picture with the train after it was over

Luckily, we were able to locate Sunny's piece of deposited lugguage with no problems.  However, the lost and found did not have his handcarry... we later found it by asking the security people after passing through ourselves.  There were some issues though, as there was no ID on his handcarry, and we had no idea what he packed in it.  At the same time,  Sunny was already in the air and there was no way to reach him!  Fortunately, after the security people searched through his bag and found nothing of value, they did release it to us after jotting down our information.  This did take a while though, as they've never had this situation before, and they would call more of their colleagues over to deliberate whether to release it or not.  That night, after arriving in Hong Kong, with the help of Kel's god dads, we dropped off Sunny's lugguage to him before heading to our regular wonton noodle place before heading home.

Warning: a lot of food pictures of street food today

We started out the day on foot, in search of QiPu Road, but before we got there, we stumbled upon some local markets with fruits and street food!

Below, you can see the stores we went through, as well as the boys already having these pancake wraps in their hands!

Not much further down, we came upon a shop with skewers!  Of course, we had to have that, too, so we got a skewer of chicken, one of beef, and one of squid (Kel's fav).

After that, we crossed the road to QiPu Road and roamed the local shops.  We didn't have much luck seeing things we were interested in bargaining for.  Our first attempt came when Kel came upon a pair of jeans.  The tag was set at $268RMB and we've been told the max to ever pay for anything was 50%, (which would put it at $134RMB,) and if you're real good, you should be able to talk them down to 30%.  So we figured we'd start at $100RMB and set a max of $150RMB... what we didn't realize was that, the tag was the retail price and this was a distributor building?!  The shop owner started his price at $120RMB, which we couldn't help but show a funny look...so we lost that battle and just paid the $120RMB...  We had better luck later on, scoring a messenger bag for Sunny.  We were able to talk the girl down from $380RMB to $170RMB, so we were happy with that.  (Did we pass Jas? :)  We got wary of looking through the shops after a while, and went back outside to hit the street food.  We gave the chinese version of tacoyaki balls a try, which weren't that great.. it was just gooey in the middle with nothing but dough.  And to top it off, they put ketchup on it as a dressing!  We ended up throwing the rest of it out.  Next, we tried a bowl of sour and spicy noodles, which weren't bad. :)

After that, we decided to hit the Chenghuang Miao (Temple of the Town Gods), but before we started walking, Sunny said he could use a snack... so they boys got the two flavours of wings at McDs and I tried their red bean pie.

The trek to the temple was slightly confusing as it was surrounded by more shops and street food.  We actually located another Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and Haagen Dazs, before finding the temple.

And inside...  you can see Sunny tried to take a picture with one of the "monks" (for lack of a better word)..

And here we have Sunny pointing to a statue inside the temple (I find that he likes to do that.. :P) and Kel hiding under the bell..  (I was sure we'd get kicked out soon..)

After that, what did we do?  More street food!  These crabs caught our eye... We thought they'd be similar to soft shell crabs being on a stick and all, but no.  The shells were quite hard, so we ended up giving up on them after a bit.

After wandering around a bit, we found the gardens Jas' dad recommended to us and we ventured into the Yuyuan Gardens. It was actually a pretty nicely structured garden and well worth the $40RMB/person admission.  Below are a few pictures from there.  And of course, we'll start off with one of Sunny sneaking into the displays and posing on the chairs.

After that, we headed to XinTianDi for.. another Starbucks and tried to get our bearings, before deciding to go locate the massage place to book an appointment for later that night, and then went for peking duck for dinner.  We had time to spare between dinner and our massage appointments, so we headed back to XinTianDi to look around.  We found the Haagen Dazs Jas noted there :) and wow, that one served wine, too!  We each had a scoop of ice cream, but that wasn't enough for Sunny!  He had a slice of cheesecake, too!  We dropped by the DR Bar that Jas' dad recommended as well for drinks, before heading for our massages.

And now, I'm way tired after this long post so I'm signing out!  We have an early day tomorrow as we've signed up for a tour to Suzou! Can't wait!

Stuff we've been eating..

After passing out after our day of travels, we went searching for food on our second day down Nanjing Rd. East.  As it was a Saturday, the masses of people were pretty insane.  Busy intersections required a traffic cop to direct cars and people, and its not to help the pedestrians to cross the road, but rather for the cars!  Masses of pedestrians would just cross at will, ignoring the signals and there's nothing the cars could do about it.  Sure they could honk (and trust me, they do), but really it serves no purpose as the pedestrians simply didn't care.

We ended up coming upon the Haagen Dazs store and anyone who knows me would know we'd have to go there!  So.. we had our first meal at Wu Yue Ren Jia close by for noodles.. and then saw an egg pastry shop next door, so we had that, too!

Below, you can see the boys and their egg pastries.  It wasn't as good as we'd hope, but whatever, its all in the trying, right?

Off we trotted to the Haagen Dazs store.. and yes, we ate at three different places in a row... seems to be the trend whenever we are in Asia...

Below, you can see Kel posing for the picture, as Sunny studies the menu...

And.. this is what he ordered!  And we got our Haagen Dazs 3-tier high tea special.. haha

We walked around a bit after that and met up with Jas' dad for dinner at Lei Garden, and then karoake afterwards at Partyworld.  The look of Partyworld is pretty crazy as the entrance is more like a grand hotel lobby area then any karoake place we've been before.  I guess chinese people take their singing pretty seriously!  But yah, so I didn't end up doing a post yesterday... as we ended up staying out pretty late..  and waking up starving.  That seems to be the trend the last couple days, we're either stuffed from too many meals condensed in a few hours, or starving from passing out..  We woke up today starving (of course) and went to a local noodle/dumpling place we passed by yesterday.  We shared two bowls of beef noodles and a dozen steamed dumplings, all for the price of $33RMB (that's the equivalent of $5.50CAD) which fed all three of us!  (Picture below.) We walked around some more with Haagen Dazs and Starbucks as rest stops before stopping by a Tibetian lamb place for dinner on Yunnan Rd food street.  Gotta love the cheap local food!