As Seen by TV

Well, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo opened last Saturday May 1st… 6 months of crazyness now commences.  Our first taste of “Better City Better Life“ occured immediately after, when our local government gave everyone in Shanghai an extra 2 days of holiday (+1 day for Labor Day).  I took the opportunity to hit up the Yu Yuan Garden shopping area. 
It was a zoo.

Yu Yuan Gardens (Fuyou & Lishu Road) is a tourist hot spot for buying (and haggling) for handicrafts… everything from traditional calligraphy brushes and chopsticks to ”new jade” (fake) bracelets and statues.  I also happened upon a “2 Kuai Shop”, which is like the 99Cent stores I am familiar with in New York City, only difference is that 2RMB is equivalent to about $0.30! 

Definitely worth a visit, just keep an eye on your valuables (tourist hot spot = pickpocket hot spot), and prepare to bargain hard.  There is a Line 10 metro stop close by (“Yuyuan Garden“), but at the time of this writing this line is still in test phase, which means it only runs in the mornings, so keep your eyes peeled, or just walk from Line 8 Dashijie station.

I managed to hook up a sweet fake Zippo with classic Mao propoganda art on it (+ fluid & case) for 9.9RMB.  Also don’t forget to stop by the infamous dumpling spot, but be prepared to wait in line.

This is the first post in my “Mission: Lunch” series, which will showcase some of the lunches I have had the [mis]fortune of having over whichever given week.  This was a pretty damn good week… although I have to admit that some of these meals were prior to this past week, hopefully you forgive me.  Also forgive the iPhone camera quality…

First, a little background information… I work in an office building called the Huai Hai Tower located on Ren Min Road and (you guessed it) Huai Hai Road, in south Huangpo.

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The first two images are from lunch a couple weeks back, when it was still warm outside.  Kevin and I hit up a hole in the wall, this is ALL they served… tangyaun.  With 2 choices, vegetable or meat.  The meat ones were absolutely delicious, simliar to a dumpling with a pork gravy inside.  While the vegetable ones looked kinda like tea leaves mixed with crude oil, and were sweet as hell (*update*, wikipedia has me to believe they were actually filled with a “ground black sesame seeds mixed with sugar and lard“).

The next two images are from another little place located on Yunnan South Road, just off of Ren Min Road…  authentic spicy chicken hotpot (notice the chicken foot!).

While the last two are from a random restaurant Kanishk and I randomly walked into (for dinner, hence the beer!) somwhere around Linping Road in Hongkou.   It was filled with locals, so you know it had to be good.  There wasn’t a thing we ordered that wasn’t spicy (besides the rice), I’d have to say that the Hunan-style cuisine is by far my favorite.  The last picture is of one of my favorite dishes, consisting of green beans that have a light crunch to them, cooked with chili peppers and mixed with shredded meat (in this case pork, but shrimp & beef are also used).