Eat streetfood in Shanghai

Ok, first of all I just want to say that this visit to Shanghai was short, and most of my lunches and dinners was Mc Donald's or Kentucky fried Chicken in the car in between of meetings. We where several cultures that had to agree on the food and the local colleagues thought it was easy and exotic to go with fast food. Oh, I almost forgot the sea food where I tried the mud-tasting fish and a shrimp that did its lats nerve wracking movements when I cut it with my knife. Horrible experience.

The few nights I had in Shanghai was spent in the alleys trying to find local food. I was so happy when they actually considered the confused tourists and properly explained the menus in English...

So Burn a chick or the Dirty acid beans didn't really convince me so I tried other type of foods, just hoping it was pork, beef or chicken. From a hygienic point of view it felt safe that everything always was put on the the table with plastic wrap.

And drinking the lovely beer Tsingtao compensated for the Dirty Acid beans.

I think eating the street food is a much more fund experience than going to budget restaurants full of western food. And this been cost a fraction of the price compared to the main street restaurants.

So, just a few blocks away from a main street such as Nanjing Road you can find safe street food or small local restaurants with exiting and cheap food, so much more fun than pizza hut :)

Walk the streets of Shanghai with me

Hello all!

So let me bring you on a short walk on the streets of shanghai. Its afternoon and soon the night will come, enhancing all the street lights and neon signs. The pictures are from two different days and are all taken with my phone so they quality is so and so.

So this is the first day I came to Shanghai, jet lagged and hungry. It's afternoon and I start to explore the streets outside one of the main shopping streets Nanjing Road.

People, people and people :)

 

I remember on this street they were cooking  a special mushroom and the smell was horrible, but it's apparently a local niche delicatess.

Hip youngsters buying drinks in a small shop

The night pictures are from the last night I had in China, I just came back from Nanjing by train and took the subway to my hotel before going back to Sweden the next day. I changed from my white shirt and black pants and put shorts and a top on. I felt a bit tired and cold so I was happily wearing a grey scarf with starts on (in all colours you can imagine)  that I couldn't resist purchasing in one local market. I thought it looked "summerish" and very stylish. Well, I can say I haven't used it since this night in Shanghai. How come I buy clothes aboard that I never end up using at home? Anyhow. Here comes the pictures from that night strolling the streets alone.

 

Subway, can you see how long the train is? It's like never ending...

And some rain came and I felt like walking in an Asian action movie

 

Lights are common everywhere but you will get neon-overload on the main streets

 

 

I'm not a selfie queen but I had to proof that I actually was in Shanghai :)

 

 

Bamboo constructions outside a house

 

So, that was the few pictures I got from the streets. Talking about my grey scarf, I also bought a T-Shirt with a rabbit on and a rocker style shirt. Walking the streets all you see is black and white styles. Walking the streets in Asia you see all colours you can imagine and they LOVE T-shirts with prints. So I felt very inspired and got my rabbit T-shirt and used it on the flight home styled with the rocker shirt, open of course so you could see the rabbit. Haven't used that one either since the flight...

Di Shui Lake Shanghai

In august I visited a lot of placed in the area of Shanghai and Nanjing. It was a business trip so I had not too many opportunities to capture a lot of pictures. I spent 7 days in China and I stayed at 4 hotels, traveled in and around Shanghai, went to Nanjing by train and then back to Shanghai by train. It's the feeling where you constantly need check out to bring your bag with you during the day because the next night will be somewhere else. Hectic.

But, it was also a fun trip, I love trips, and I tried a lot of new food (good and bad) and met great people and saw some interesting things. One location worth sharing is Di Shui Lake outside Shanghai. It's an circular artificial lake and we spent 2 nights here at a Crowne Plaza hotel.

The hotel was beautiful, huge, but so empty. It felt like we were the only people staying there. From the inside the hotel looks like a space ship and it was shiny like a diamond. The pictures below I took with my old iPhone and still it looks sparkling, so you can imagine how it was in real life.

The lake it self, Di Shui Lake is completely circular and very popular among the locals. Personally I wanted to stay on Shanghai city but the local colleagues where very stubborn and wanted to stay here by the lake. Also, the few other guests at the hotel were families with younger kids, enjoying a getaway closer to nature. Because that is how the hotel did their PR, come here and enjoy the lake and the fantastic closeness to nature. You can see a picture of the location and lake below.

Source

I guess you are used to different things dependent on where you lived. I'm happy they could photo shop the above picture because the reality looks like this. These pictures are taken one morning when I decided to have a walk by the lake before going to work.

It looks a bit foggy right? You are looking at air pollution. Grey, sticky, polluted air. It was disgusting and just breathing normally outdoors gave you a feeling of throat pain. Air pollution was worse then when I last visited China, when going by car on the highway you could see the polluted air taking away the sight, even on the level of where cars and people are moving, not only just covering above the city as a grey lid. And remember that this is over 1 hour by car outside Shanghai in the "nature".

I found a nice brochure at the hotel that I guess makes people want to travel to Di Shui Lake, but I'm not so sure that the picture is describing the reality... Eco Tour...

I kindly asked my colleague what is making the sky grey. And she confidently answered that the farmers are burning a special plant on the fields and that is making the skies and air grey... right.  Its scary how governments and media is affecting peoples beliefs.

This experience by the lake was ok, despite the polluted air, until I was served seafood. I try to avoid seafood in China but I ended up in a small secluded room, everyone around one big round table, and they started to serve the food. Of politeness I didn't take any photos but they were extra proud of the white fish that was caught in the lake (!!) and I could not avoid tasting it. Never eat fish in Shanghai, it tastes like mud. And I don't want to know what that fish was eating in that lake.

Nevertheless, I had a good time and got a good reminder that we all need to pitch in to save our fragile world, we only have one.

Allt the way from Mexico to China

Hello again!

6 months has passed since the latest update. What has happened since? Well food has been cooked and several travels have been performed. The coriander we were following grew big and fresh and we ate it all. We even created the best coriander sauce ever! We figured that it would be excellent to start sharing our pictures as a new start of 2016. Lets kick off with the travels!

So we have been to Brazil, China, US and Mexico these last months.Here comes some snapshots to start with.

Harbour in Palma, Mallorca

Street of Shanghai, China

View over San Francisco, US

Exhibition of "alebrijes" in Mexico

Teotihuacan, Mexico

 

Painting of Diego Rivera at the National Palace, Mexico