Today was the most productive day so far I’ve had in China. Thanks to the time difference, I ended up getting up earlier than I’ve ever gotten up for more than three years.


The night before, the BF and I had an unsuccessful search for vegetarian noodles at a temple near our hotel. This morning we were more lucky. The good news was that we found the vegetarian noodles. They’re in a little cafeteria tucked away in the corner of Jing-an Temple. The bad news was that I picked one of the two busiest days of the month to go visit the temple. Apparently the first and fifteenth of the lunar month are when devout Buddhists have to go and burn incense.

The noodles were satisfying especially with a spoon full of hot chili flakes in oil. I was afraid the noodles were going to be mediocre because the kitchen seemed so for serving just that one bowl of noodles, but I was wrong. The noodles cost 10RMB, which is a pretty good deal especially for something so close to the hotel.

After a few hours of rest back at the hotel, we made our way to Cheng Huang Miao, a famous and touristy area in Shanghai. There’s a restaurant there that’s supposedly the first place that served xiao long bao. Now there are other restaurants that make it better, but it’s still fun to eat there just to say you visited. The line for take-out was horrifyingly long, so we tried to get into the restaurant upstairs. The second floor, which has slightly higher prices than take-out was jam packed and didn’t have that big of a menu. The third floor was a little better, but still crowded. Eventually, we just relented and let them seat us in the fancy area where you have to spend 120RMB per person to sit there. The xiao long baos were good, but just those alone aren’t worth the 120RMB hit to the wallet. The not having to sit in a crowded and loud section of the restaurant where people are breathing down your neck is worth it.

Afterwards, we went to get fitted for outfits for my cousin’s wedding. My cousin then took us on a ferry trip to the other side of the Bund river to a fancy tea house. The place was a bit overpriced, but I guess their clients are usually business men who have a lot of money to burn and connections to make. The fact that the price of having tea there also includes an okay buffet to choose from makes it a little better.

After that, we met up with my other cousin for a night of karaoke. Karaoke in Shanghai is serious business. There weren’t that many songs in English and the ones that were in English had hilariously nonsequitor videos accompanying it. Luckily, no pictures of karaoke hijinks have been uploaded.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 6:54 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.