Is This Thing On?

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Autumn

Somehow the trees here are still in mid-autumn colors.

Hangzhou is a very scenic place. There are many tourists here but almost no westerners. The train from Shanghai is only about an hour and twenty minutes if you get an express, so I imagine that many people from shanghai come here to get away for a day or a weekend. There is a very beautiful lake in the west part of the town called West Lake that is transversed by a pedestrian causeway that offers spectacular views. We walked it before and during sunset.

picturesque

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Hangzhou

We just arrived in Hangzhou.

Mobile Blogging from here.

I will post pics later

dinner!

went out with simon and Joyce again for dinner last night. Maybe the best meal yet! It was a Sichuan restaurant so some of the dishes were quite spicy. They ordered so many different things that I cannot remember them all, but there was a frog stew with something like okra, a fish stew, wonton in broth, several vegetable dishes, a fried pork-belly dish, a noodle dish, rice, crispy scallion pancakes, and several others as well as two delicious desserts. One was made from lotus root stuffed with rice and cooked in a sugar syrup and the other was a rice-wine soup with rice and rice balls in it. It turns out that Simon & Joyce are true foodies as well as being great hosts. They can remember and describe dishes they ate long ago at various restaurants. They've already created a 'must try' menu for us for our trip to Hangzhou today... We are very lucky!

far out

this the psycedelic pedestrian tunnel from the bund in shanghai to pudong. Its a little like a disney ride and also a good way to cross the river. However as pure entertainment it falls a bit short. Don't take this unless you need to do a river crossing at the bund or from pudong to the bund.

French Concession

we walked around the French concession a little bit today. Very strange to see old french maisons in shanghai. I honestly don't know much of the history so I'm going to do some research about it.

Pudong

This a picture of the pudong side of the river where we are staying.

The Bund

heres' a picture of the bund at sunset.

Friday, November 28, 2008

what were we thinking?

decided to go to a nearby "steakhouse" for dinner.... big mistake; It was the worst meal so far in China. I guess we should stick to the Chinese food.

ferry 'cross the huangpu

Took the ferry from pudong (where we are staying) into shanghai today. Walked around some very cool old neighborhoods and got some grilled octopus and a soft round flat-bread stuffed with something unidentifiable but good. Next we had dim-sum for lunch and ate crab and pork soup-dumplings, stir fried pea-shoots, shrimp and egg fried rice and red-bean paste dumplings for dessert. Next we went to a tailor recommended by our hosts here and ordered custom-made cashmere coats for an unbelieveably low price. They have books filled with the ads for all of the top label designers, you pick out the one you like, then pick a fabric and they make a perfect knock-off for you in a few days for a small fraction of what you would pay in a store. I really like shanghai a lot!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

is it hot in here?

ok, this fish soup was so spicy that I was sweating more than I did when I ran the marathon; by far the spiciest thing I've eaten so far (but really good). Nam took this pic because I was bright red and dripping with sweat and all of the waitresses were walking by our table to see the red faced white guy. Pretty funny......