Shanghai’d

By Pete
13-20/05/2019
I have to admit that while the scenery and the experiences in rural and small(ish) town China was amazing, after 5 weeks it was great to get to Shanghai a truly international city, no more being stared at or photographed, slightly less gobbing and people with headphones. The comforts and ease of international citys though, come at a cost, literally. Our daily budget, which we had been well below over the previous months, was in for some serious testing here.

We had checked into the ETour hostel right next to Peoples Square and within reasonable walking distance of most of the major attractions. According to booking.com the hostel was a well located, had a nice ambience and apathetic and disinterested staff, it lived up to the write-up perfectly.

As has become our modus operandi, after dropping our bags we headed out to explore, this time we headed to the Bund, the famous riverside promenade of the British concession. We strolled its length in light drizzle gazing at at the grandeur of the 19th century British colonial buildings that line it and the glitzy, ostentatiousness of the Pudong Skyline across the river. Both testimonies to booming economies a century and a half apart.

I have a hazy memory, from the Hassell Principles conference several years ago, of a cool rooftop bar in a hotel within one the colonial buildings that line the bund. We found POP at ‘3 on the bund’ and while I’m not sure its the bar from the conference it was a pretty nice place for an evening cocktail and with the drizzle abating not a bad view either. Bea was pretty happy as finally a city with proper cocktails and craft beers as opposed to the cheap local beer we have been living on.

The thought crossed our minds to stay for dinner then the budget demons kicked in and we headed off to find something closer to our price range. Having missed the pub meal in Chongqing I was still hanging for a good beer and western food, so we headed to West Nanjing Road stumbled upon the Goose Island Brew Pub, what can I say- it was worth the wait, really nice craft beers including an excellent IPA and quality pub grub.

After spending the morning updating our blog and attending to some business issues we headed to the fashionable French concession and in particular the traditional ‘longtang’ (alleyways) of Tianzifang and Xintiandi. Both areas have been converted to trendy festive retail precincts. Tianzifang, despite the souvenir stalls, has a sort of cool, rustic, bohemian vibe while Xintiendi is full gentrification, hip brands and bars.

Lying within the Yangtze delta southern Jiangsu province is renowned for its water towns. Zhujiajiao, actually within greater Shanghai, is one of the most accessible. Zhujiajiao is a quaint town of white painted houses lining picturesque canals. As with all accessible ancient towns, it attracts large crowds of domestic sight seers especially along its main street. Luckily they don’t venture far and the more interesting, back streets are easy to explore. It is

Returning from Zhujiajiao we headed to the fashionable French concession and in particular the traditional ‘longtang’ (alleyways) of Tianzifang and Xintiandi. Both areas have been converted to trendy festive retail precincts. Tianzifang, despite the souvenir stalls, has a sort of cool, rustic, bohemian vibe while Xintiendi is full gentrification, hip brands and bars. Fortunately, for our budget, we did Xintiendi last and the idea of paying 14USD for a pint of Pauliner didn’t appeal so it was back to the Hostel for a Lawson’s microwave dinner and 1USD Tsingtao’s.

We learned that my brother, Doug was going to be in Shanghai on Monday, the day after we were planning to head for Beijing, we looked at options and decided that we could do a side trip to Suzhou and be back Monday afternoon still leaving 3 days to see Beijing. Belinda was also keen to see Chinese acrobats which was also available in Shanghai. The next morning we headed out to find the acrobat theatre and buy tickets and after a little running around scored 2 tickets for the evenings performance. We then headed to the train station to buy tickets for our side trip to Suzhou and onward to Beijing.

That evening we headed back to West Nanjing road and a tapas bar we had seen a couple of nights earlier, before heading to the acrobat show. I really enjoyed the show, maybe not as much as Bea though. It was a series of acrobatic performances from leaping through hoops, to choreographed synchronised straw hat juggling, all presented with a minimum of stage affects so the acrobatic feats were centre stage. (Photo from the web)

We felt that a cocktail would be a lovely way to end the night, we found a trendy looking place and ordered. However after waiting more than 25 minutes still no cocktails, we walked out and back to the hostel. Well almost to the hostel, there happens to be Bar Constellation just around the corner so we popped in. This is a very cool, speak easy style whiskey bar, and it is serious- over 100 whiskies that I could count, and damn good cocktails as well.... Our daily budget was in for some serious testing in Shanghai!

On Thursday we caught up for lunch with Ilma, a work colleague from my HASSELL days, It was great to see their new office, catch up on all the HASSELL gossip and see that her and her family and the Shanghai team were doing well. Ilma took us to very nice establishment restaurant next door to the office where they served seriously good Beijng classics... inside an old rail dining car!

In the evening we headed back to the bund with our cameras. The Bund is one of those photogenic areas that everybody needs to get a snap of, it is continually packed with everything from selfie sticks to hi-tech cameras and tripods. We started from the Cool Docks in the south and, by the time we reached the Rockbund in the north, 4 kms and many photos later, Bea was totally over it, well it was 9.30pm.

On the bus back to the hotel we noticed an Irish pub and Bea perked up, we jumped off and walked back. As we crossed the road we spotted another, well populated, western style, alfresco, pub. It seamed to have a nice atmosphere, an interesting mix of people and importantly the food looked good! Sold! The Yoho it was.

At the corner of Peoples Square is the rather grand Shanghai Urban Planning exhibition building where we headed after a dumpling lunch the next day. The exhibition is surprisingly interesting, even for non-architect/planning types, explaining the history of planning in Beijing as well as the future plans. It also houses a very impressive and vast model of the Shanghai that is kept up to date with each new building being added as it was built.

We spent a lot longer at the exhibition than we had planned so by the time we arrived at our next destination, the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) it was about to close. We were however invited back after six to enjoy a cocktail at a roof top installation art bar, which we accepted. The concept was that the bar was an interactive art piece where you participated through the purchase and consumption of cocktails, the authorities however missed the art component and shut it down saying it was just a bar! Now they could only offer free shots of Sangria... bloody bureaucrats.

Heading back toward the subway Bea noticed a small hole in the wall restaurant called ‘Mutton Noodles Only’. No real confusion over the menu. As it turned out it had only been open about a week and a half. It was owned by a young guy from the province just west of Shanghai and this was the speciality of his home town. It was really really good, simple, thin but firm textured, wheat (I think) noodles served in a fragrant and tasty mutton stock with a hint of chilli and ginger. Slow cooked mutton was served on the side that you then mixed with the noodles. The young owner was really stressed about the business but with simple food this good he deserves to survive. As we continued on to the Metro, Bea recommended it to a group foreigners looking for a place for dinner.

On our final day in Central Shanghai we headed back to RAM this time to see the exhibitions before continuing on to the M50 Art space, a area of old mills that had been repurposed as art galleries, working spaces, studios and creative outlets. The space had an attractive bohemian ambience with wide range of artistic endeavours being pursued and exhibited. One exhibit that caught both mine and Bea’s attention was the work of Liu Dao an eclectic collaboration of writers, painters, multi-media artists and tech-geeks exploring the convergence of art and technology.
We continued our art appreciation day by heading back into the leafy suburbs of the old French concession on the edge of which, in the basement of residential tower block B is an unusual exhibition of Communist Propaganda Posters that included descriptions of the historical circumstances behind them, really fascinating.

There is however a limit to the amount of art one can absorb. Trying to interpret contemporary art can really strain the brain so we headed to the Camel sports bar to watch Fremantle play Richmond. Trying to interpret Fremantle game plan is even more of a brain strain than contemporary art.

Suzhou is another water-town just west of Shanghai which, as Ilma pointed, out is small picturesque town with a population of 5 million!! Despite the population, the heart of the old city remains relatively unspoiled, again, with white painted courtyard houses lining the many canals.

As with Zhujiajiao the most ‘scenic’,ie touristy, streets these have been converted to cafes and snack shops (refer Chongqing old town) but once again, if you meander into the side streets you can get a feel of relaxed daily life in the heart of a bustling city. Staying overnight allowed us to also get a feel of the town once the tourist crowds had departed.

Returning to the outskirts of Shanghai the next day we checked into a nondescript railway station hotel close to both the next day’s departure point and where we were meeting Doug for dinner. We had arranged to meet at ‘The Shed’ a bar restaurant on Hongmei Lu, a short, low scale, pedestrianised lane of expat bars and restaurants.

We met up with Doug and Mike (his boss) and spent the evening/night chatting over several beers and decent, well priced steak....finally. It was great to catch up. Strange how we can live in Bangkok and he in Melbourne but we end up drinking in Shanghai!
We boarded the train to Beijing early the next morning, the head still a little dusky from the night before.