fish for thanksgiving

We had to leave the country again…so we went to a tropical island! Javid and I spent our thanksgiving in Boracay, Philippines getting our tan on. We took the midnight flight from Shanghai to Manila, and then an 8am to Boracay and landed at 9:30am in paradise.  Then we took a ferry from the main land onto the island, where we hopped into a motorcycle/taxi with 4 other people and got dropped off in the “center of town” after a long, bumpy ride through the jungle.  Took awhile to find our hotel but it was worth it. The island is only 1 km by 4km long so theres only so many places to look. Plus when we did find it, we were plesantly surpised to find traditional philippine bamboo huts! We proceeded to spend the next three days at the beach. The water was so clear and shallow for a ways out from shore that you could just float around in about three feet of it. Its particularly salty and there are little sand colored fish darting around your toes.  This lazing about was interupted only by some fresh mangos which locals sell and cut up for you on the beach and our fresh seafood dinners bought live at the wetmarket and carried 10 ft to the designated “cooking service” grill.  As much as we enjoyed the island life, we missed friends and family on this holiday.

Nevertheless, we have a lot to be thankful for.

urban gourd

Last weekend we went to an area of Shanghai that is considered the “best preserved” 1920’s style village architecture. It is in the northern section of the city, and while very beautiful, it doesn’t seem very preserved to me! There were three little girls doing tricks and contortions which Javid thought were fascinating but really just freaked me out. There were narrow little alleys, one of which had some type of gourd growing along the electrical wires above the street, it was probably a squash. Also, nearby this idyllic village is what the Chinese call Qipu (pronounced Chea-p) road. And its exactly what it sounds like. Hundreds and hundreds of clothing vendors line this road, selling CHEAP merch out of bundles that look like they got jacked from the factory. Interesting sight but definitely not a relaxing shopping experience.

Saturday night there was a “cyberpunk rave” in an empty building overlooking the river in one of Shanghai ’s industrial districts. We met up with some of Javid’s co-workers and danced the night away to seizure-inducing techno and strobes.

We spent Tuesday night drinking negroni’s and dark-and-stomy’s at a jazz club in the French concession. It was an awesome show and we will definitely be taking our visitors there!

Friday night was finally the Yo-Yo Ma concert that we’ve been looking forward to so much. From the outside the Shanghai Grand Theater is pretty spectacular, however, the auditorium needs a serious up-date. Everything is well maintained but the design as aged noticeably. The performance itself was stellar. Yo-Yo was supported by a string-heavy collection of the Shanghai orchestra, and there was even a tribute song to the victims of the recent fire in Shanghai.

That’s all for now, tomorrow we are on our way to Boracay , Philippines .

 

dos gringos

Shanghai has been relatively quiet, it’s surprising how the most exotic location succumbs to the daily grind just like anywhere else.  Despite our initial shock at the driving habits of people here, stop lights are like Santa Claus; once you realize that no one else believes in them, you gradually stop believing too.

Javid made his famous chicken soup the other day.  They only sell whole chickens here though, so he had to remove the head and feet in our kitchen sink himself.  Luckily for all of us eating the soup, he didn’t make good on his threat to add the “extra bits” to the pot.

Speaking of chicken feet, Siobhan has a Chinese admirer at work, who possibly in an attempt to woo her, gave her a present of vacuum sealed fermented chicken feet.  She had them on her desk for a week until she realized that she definitely wasn’t going to eat them and how gross it was to have fermented chicken feet in your work space.

Equally gross was discovering our water cooler was infested with ants when we went to change the tank.  Suffice to say we went several days boiling tap water until we could get out to the store to buy a new one.

We spent last weekend pursuing English language bookstores for some desperately needed reading material.  I’m currently learning about the fall of the Qing dynasty in the book Dragon Lady, about the last empress.  And Javid, who got a cookbook, is brushing up on his Chinese cooking skills in the hope of finding a use for chicken feet.

Last but not least, we have nose-bleed tickets to see Yo-Yo Ma at the Shanghai Grand Theater next week!

 

short and sweet

We spent 24 hours in Hong Kong.  The city is an eastern showcase of the miracles of capitalism.  It is the most vertical city in the entire world, driven higher by the lack of space (it is an island and part of a peninsula).  It also happens to be the best example of a “laissez faire”  economy.  The western, specifically british influence is palpable.

We reached Hong Kong by taking a flight from Shanghai to Shenzhen, China then, a bus from the airport to the border.  From there, you cross the border by foot, going through immigration and customs, arriving on the other side of an arbitrary line into an entirely different state (of mind).  The metro runs from the border to downtown Hong Kong, and to our choice of CHEAP accommodations: Chungking Mansions, the labyrinth of electronic hawkers, Indian take-away, and hostels.  We approximated that the room, including bathroom, was maybe 6 square meters, enough for a bed.

The afternoon was spent with some beers and exotic bird watching at Kowloon park.  There’s a large Indian population in Hong Kong so we figured that was a good bet for dinner, and was it!

The next morning we got up and checked out the infamous skyline of Hong Kong island from the Tsim Sha Tsui pomenade, (HSBC building, International Financial Center, the Bank of China tower and all). Afterwards, took a hike to see some temples and an nunnery that was supposedly constructed completely with wooden joints, although I’m pretty sure I saw a nail here and there.  By chance, we spotted this amazing cemetery, that was basically a mountain, terrace upon terrace of graves, with impossibly steep stairs snaking up through the maze.  We couldn’t resist climbing to the top.

A quick lunch and 24 hours later we were back on the metro to China…

 

just a shanghai weekend

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We had a lovely weekend in shanghai, our first full weekend here in awhile. Saturday was slow, but we went on our first movie date here in china. I’m not sure what the movie is called in english, but its the sequel to the gordon gekko movie with Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf, about the wall street credit crisis and all that. Decent, but the most interesting thing is that even chinese movie theaters have assigned seating. If you get there just as the movie is starting (as we did) and leap for the only decent seats in the theater (why are there two dead center, not too close, not too far back, middle of the middle row empty in a packed theater you may ask yourself???) you will be asked to move to the front row far left when the two people who own the perfect seats show up…15mins late.  Ps. they only sell sweet popcorn, which I love.

On sunday,  we went to the Yuyuan gardens which are a lovely example of classical chinese gardens.  I am currently learning all about this subject both at my work and through an incredible book a coworker gave me on chinese gardening.  I can’t read a word of it but the drawings were done by the chinese equivalent of Francis Ching and are crystal clear.  I will probably write an essay on this and bore you to death at a later date, but for now back to Yuyuan:  ponds and rock formations are broken up by pavilions and dragon-topped walls, the place is a maze of bridges and moon gates and meandering paths.

Just outside of this sanctuary, is one of Shanghai’s busiest markets.  We got some chinese lanterns (very kitsch) and a bunch of tea, jasmine, rose and plain black.  Javid had a great time bargaining with the tea vendor while I, embarrassed, tried to pretend like I didn’t know him.  Javid got the price down quite a bit by insisting that we lived in shanghai and knew that tea wasn’t nearly as expensive as they were selling it for.

We also got to see the temple of the City God, Shanghai’s patron god, a red faced, bearded deity of the Taoist persuasion.  Very fierce looking.

Tomorrow we are hosting taco night at our apartment and having some of our chinese friends and co-workers over (should be fun, they’ve never even heard of tacos).  Then, we’re headed to Hong Kong this weekend, so we’ll keep you posted.

forbidden snack

More Beijing….

We spent the morning navigating the hoards of tourists in Tiananmen square, we even got our pictures with Mao.  (PS. did you know that he is on display, pickled since his death in 1976?!?! we didn’t have the pleasure of a viewing)

The forbidden city, Beijing’s ancient imperial palace, was next. It is an unbelievably large complex, bigger than Versailles, essentially a small city; at one point in history no man other then the emperor was allowed inside the walls after sunset.  The layout is gate, courtyard, hall, courtyard, hall, courtyard, hall, courtyard, etc… Its a almost unbelievable progression, can there really be another courtyard once we get through this hall?  But yes, there is, and there are also at least 3 gates (gate, courtyard, gate, courtyard, etc…) just to get in the front door.  We plan on doing a little more research into the construction and several renovations/ additions in order to possibly puzzle-out some of the “progression”.

Afterwards we spent some time in the famous snack market, Donghuamen, were we had tripe soup (EVERYone was eating it!), delish pork dumplings, and Javid sampled the tarantula.  There were also eel, squid, starfish, seahorse, scorpion, silk worm larvae, beetles, snake, centipede, you name it, they have have it on a stick ready to grill for you.

The next morning we woke up early to get on the bus to see the great wall of china.  Our chinese “tour guide” insisted on yelling his spiel into the bus’s intercom for the entire hour and a half ride from beijing to the wall. Even though we couldn’t understand a word he was saying, the trip brought us very close to the brink of insanity.

As for the wall itself, yes it is big, incredible, and in the middle of nowhere china.  HOWEVER, when you jam thousands of chinese tourists on to a wall only made for 4 horses to run abreast, it doesn’t seem very big. In fact, it was a downright claustrophobic experience.  If the pictures make it seem empty, that was intentional.  The countryside was breathtaking and the views, unforgettable.

The bus took us to the Ming tombs next which was a very different place.  Peaceful and uncrowded, it really gave the impression of the dignity the chinese dynasty once commanded.  The underground mausoleum had been excavated only recently but it was surrounded by a grove of cypress trees that are over 400 years old.  When this emperor died he had his wives and all his concubines buried alive with him….lovely.  But it really was a beautiful and peaceful place after all the tourist hubbub of the wall.

Next evening, we caught the fast train back to Shanghai.

a slow train to beijing

We got cheap train tickets to beijing for the week, an overnight ride in a “hard sleeper” which is really not very hard it just means there’s no private cabin.  Six bunks to a section, stacked three high directly off a single-loaded corridor.  We had quiet neighbors and a decent nights sleep.  Woke up around 6am with the sunrise as the train lurched to a stop….it didn’t look like beijing so we asked around to see when the train would arrive in the capital.  6pm…no joke we had 12 more hours on a train that only had a turkish style toilet that one could see the tracks below. Luckily we didn’t buy return tickets.

Seeing the Chinese countryside was a perk though.  We passed nuclear power plants, mountains with huge chunks mined out of their sides, fields upon fields of rice and corn and other things with no modern agriculture machinery in sight. We passed cities and towns and piles of garbage.  It was eyeopening.

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Today we went to Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid, a multi-use complex of apartments, offices, retail and even a movie theater.  Its purported to be one of the first green residential buildings in China due to its extensive geothermal wells and grey water collection system.  It was surprisingly desolate and we weren’t thrilled by the already worn metal cladding (its barely 2 years old).  However, the colors and bridges were clever and cheery.

Next, was beijing’s 798 art district.  Hip, lots of galleries and some verrrry interesting art.  It was an abandoned industrial zone until one of the electrical factories was converted into galleries and the surrounding area began to be rejuvenated.

Lastly, we hit up the Sanlitun village, a brand new modern shopping town center kinda thing.  Its got the apple store, a starbucks, tons of restaurants, etc…

We’ll update you on the rest of our Beijing adventures soon.

more soul photos

seoul far…

The air quality in Seoul is wonderful, compared to Shanghai. We can breathe again and its chilly! So we got here yesterday, which is their biggest holiday of the year, Moon day. Staying in a nice little hostel, we walked to an old palace with gardens where loads of parents had decided to go to take pictures of their children dressed up in the traditional ‘hanbok’. Then we went to the only other thing that was open in the whole city…the shopping district! there are stores like H&M, korean versions of H&M and street vendors; selling everything from a good fake LV wallet to fried spiraled potato on a stick (delicious and essentially potato chips). Also these amazing little korean delicacies of hand spun honey threads wrapped around your choice of filling almond, walnut, peanut. We bought a pack of ten yesterday, tried them, and now plan on buying 30 more. We wish we could bring them home to all of you! For dinner we had EXTRA SPICY chicken galbi korean barbeque, grilled on the table in front of us.

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This past weekend we bought bikes! Its like buying a car, takes forever and they check every single nut and bolt before they let you walk off the lot. so we have joined the legions of manic drivers. turns out, i’ve learned in talking with one of my chinese co-workers that there are rules to the road: at big intersections you obey the traffic signals and at little intersections…you guessed it…you don’t. its taken some getting used to, but as you can see this blog hasn’t stop abruptly…yet.
the other night we went to a lecture by Liz Diller and Rick Scofidio at the Hong Kong University in Shanghai’s architecture building (designed by NHDRO!) their lecture was AWESOME if packed and over heated. they explained the highline, boston harbor center, lincoln center project and some installation art that they do. suffice to say : they blow our minds.
afterwards we took a quick cab ride to Pudong, an area in Shanghai known for its skyscrapers and night lighting. there we had a drink at the highest bar IN THE WORLD. the 92 floor of the Shanghai financial center has a park hyatt bar which has pretty cool views of Shanghai at night. (no pics the place was too swank to look like idiot tourists).
finally, leaving for seoul. we’ll let you know how that goes.