As Seen by TV

During the Chinese New Year holiday we hit up Gao Qiao, located on the northern tip of Pudong, just over an hour north via subway from downtown Shanghai.   Our mission was “Holland Village,” a residential complex built by Dutch architects to reflect living in Holland which is part of the “1 City – 9 Towns” initiative.  On the 20min walk from the metro station to this new town, we were fortunate to follow along a picturesque, and relatively traditional Chinese street. 

Well, here they are.  Night #5 of Chinese New Year in Shanghai… once again putting my life in danger… and in the aftermath both camera & photography covered in ash.  All completely worth it.

Keep in mind it wasn’t foggy at all that night… those are all clouds from the firework explosions going on in every direction.  It’s mayhem at it’s finest and most beautiful. 

Enjoy.

CLICK HERE to see the post from last year: CNY – Year of the Tiger (2010)

Day 4 of Chinese New Year… went for a stroll around Xujiahui (actually, the first 3 are from around my office).  Fireworks in every direction, every night for almost 2 weeks long… Shanghai almost literally turns into a warzone.

The night of day 5 is when all hell breaks loose (besides New Years Eve of course)… and those pictures will be uploaded soon.  The images of  Chinese New Year day 5 from last year still holds the record for the highest traffic to my blog, ever… so, why not check out that post again HERE (warning: dope photography!).  This year’s to follow soon!

The first couple images were taken from the roof of the house I was staying in… a perfect spot to try out (only for the third time in my life) a nice proper long “star shot”. Image #1 is a 30sec exposure, while #2 is 2,737sec (+/- 45 minutes)! Unfortunately I didn’t quite get the image I wanted… it really has to be an absolutely clear night for it to work out properly.

The next several pictures are from the Lourdes Grotto, “100 stairs” turned out to be 242. Then finishing our religious tour with the Chinese Bell Church, located at the edge of Baguio City and La Trinidad, which practices a mix of Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity.

The final several are from the top of Upper Quezon Hill, I actually had to DE-saturate some of those images. The [red] city lights reflecting on to the low clouds above, with still some blueness to the sky… quite a remarkable effect only possible at a specific time. Truly VESPERTINE!

A long weekend to Qingdao is exactly what I needed, as the immense heat and lack of a breeze makes Shanghai borderline unbearable (heat index puts it close to 50C!).  Historically, Qingdao was a German settlement (hence the infamous beer brewery), and is also home to Asia’s largest beer festival coming up later this year in August (I’m hoping to go back!).  QD also held many of the maritime events for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which was also news to me.  

Although next time I might skip the +10hr overnight Chinese sleeper-bus (150 kuai one-way).  Leaving Shanghai at 7:30pm one night, putting us in Qingdao around 6am the next morning… carrying all our gear and well-rested (sarcasm) we went on a hotel hunt, stumbling on the Red Wine Street (seriously littered with everything to do with wine… including fake grapes hanging in fake vines arcoss everything).   The bus has no seats, only army-style beds, which barely don’t fit me, 3 rows, 2 levels… and on the way back to Shanghai, add 2 more rows (people lying head to toe in the aisles!).  Yeah, just try and go to the toilet in the back.

By 10am we found ourselves at the Tsingtao brewery… tired, but happy to visit China’s largest brewery.  Two free beers and a couple hours later (1 raw, 1 normal) we found a hotel and crashed.  I’ve been to several breweries all over, and am extremely happy to say that I finally got to see the actual production line, something I’ve always wanted to see.  Surprisingly, completely run by less than 10 workers.  Also, the “drunk room” was interesting, giving me the spins for well over an hour. 

Day 2 saw a visit to the Olympic Sailing Center as well as a quick trip to the beach… water was damn cold, but damn good.  Night was spent drinking Tsingtao’s at Club NY (amazing live Filipino band there, plays everything) while watching a brilliant football matchup between the Netherlands and some country called Brazil.

The last few images show the time wasting before our bus trip back to Shanghai… I managed to buy one single [somewhat illegal] memento. 

I’ve been close to 500 towns/cities around the world, and I believe this to be my first “Q”.  Actually, I can think of only a few others out there, Quito (ECU), Quezon City (PHL), Quebec City (CAN)… and probably some things starting with Queens.

*be warned, some images shot with my the crappy iPhone cam*

For Christmas Day, a friend and I headed down to the Shanghai South Bund Fabric Market (and had some street dumplings right out side)… and I kind of wish I had known about this before.  Just think, having custom-tailored suits, coats, and shirts at a fraction of the price as the pre-made mass-produced and over-priced articles you find in shops (they even have official Boss, Armani, etc catalogs for “help” with your design).  You just got to know how to bargain, which I can’t say I’m too good at, but I think we got a decent deal on our “kungfu-style” shirts (I refer to it as my “Chinese pimp shirt“), for 160RMB each.  After walking around the market (it’s 3 full floors inside a building on 399 Lujiabang Road) and doing some research, typically suits go for 400-600RMB and dress shirts around 100RMB… all of course depending on size, material, and quantity you are buying.

After the Fabric Market, we followed a tip of a nice (and free) view of the infamous Pudong skyline, located on the roof bar/restaurant of the Captain’s Hostel located just off the Bund (which has been closed entirely for renovations since I arrived here). [sorry, those pics will have to wait another day or two]

I learned this a couple weeks ago, and I must admit that if you are planning a trip to China (and thinking about buying stuff), this comes in quite handy (!!!).
Numbers 0-5 are standard internationally, but 6-10 is where it can get tricky:

Although one should always learn to speak/understand the numbers.  Mandarin uses a simple formula, in that you only need to learn 11 seperate words to build and count numbers 0 to 99 (English/French/Spanish requires 28).  For example eight (8) is pronounced “ba”, while ten (10) is “shir”, so eighty (80) is “ba shir”, and eigthy-eight (88) is “ba shir ba”.  Of course keeping in mind that every “word” in Mandarin has 4+ tones, so pronouncing it correctly is another story, learn more precisely here.

DianHua is a great iPhone application for learning the numbers as well as general translations, get it free here.

Week 51, this is the second post in my “Mission: Lunch” series, which will showcase some of the lunches I have had the [mis]fortune of having.

First up was “the spiciest thing on our menu”, a hot beef noodle to which I added some Chinese cabbage at Ajisen Ramen, a Japanese restaurant located in the Infiniti Mall on Huai Hai Road (*update* just found out via wikipedia, that they have over 86 locations in Shanghai alone!)… good stuff (but not spicy enough for me!).

Second and third up are from the company hot spot, where we take new colleagues for their first lunch, definitely a good spot.  A Hunan-style restuarant located just around the corner of the office on Yunnan Road (south of Huai Hai Road).  Their spicy string beans are mighty good, although I am biased as this is one of my favorite dishes (picture #2).  Image #3 shows roughly 2/3′s of the dishes from that day… which included bullfrog (square dish), 2 varieties of tofu dishes (one with shredded pork that was amazing), cabbages, pork, chicken, normal eggs and quail eggs.

The last image is of a pickled pepper sort (very unlike the ones you can find in the US which have no spice-factor whatsoever), from a hot pot spot that were so damn tasty I just had to snap a shot.  I was with 2 other guys, and we held a little contest to see how many we could each eat.  Contestant #1 had zero (0).  Contestant #2 had three (3).  While contestant #3 had six (6).
I’ll let you decide which one was me.

Later that evening [after the spicy peppers] I finally knocked in my first 8-ball off a break… which I have been trying to do for years.  Yes, it was a good day…. yay me!