xiaohua

4 Days in Shanghai 上海 – 1st Day, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008 November 24, 2008

4 Days in Shanghai – Oct 11 – 15, 2008 上海

Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008 – Shanghai 上海

Yesterday I checked the shuttle bus schedule posted on the bus stop near our hotel 龍堡大飯店. The shuttle bus is supposed to come every 24 minutes and the first bus arrives at 6:30 every morning. I figured that we need to be out there around 8:30 AM to catch the K5 shuttle bus to Kowloon Station and that would give us plenty of time to catch our flight to Shanghai at 11:15 AM. We got there at 8:35 and waited for the bus. We waited, waited and waited for at least 24 minutes. And we didn’t see any K5 bus. Maria got nervous and wanted to check with the hotel front desk. I told her not to because if the shuttle came, we had to leave her behind. Many big buses also stopped by to pick up hotel customers to the airport. We had to wait but I began to get worried a bit. The shuttle finally came around 9:05 and it took less than 5 minutes to reach Kowloon Station because our hotel is the last of the five stops on this route. We got on Airport Express (light rail) and arrived at the airport near 9:30. Check-in at China Eastern Airline was swift and easy. The front desk agent was very courteous and efficient. We went through security and custom with little delay and arrived at the gate with plenty of time to spare.

The flight was pretty full and the meal was quite enjoyable probably because we haven’t had anything to eat since this morning. We arrived at Pu Dong International Airport at 2:40 or so in the afternoon. I decided to keep one of our two pieces of luggage at airport so that we didn’t have to drag both of them around. The luggage storage counter near the luggage claim wasn’t working because they were testing the facility. I had to go to the top floor near Gate 4 to check in my luggage. Based on the info the guy told me, it probably will cost me around 20 dollars. I thought that was a good deal. However, I didn’t realize that China Eastern is in Terminal 1 while Air Nippon Airway is in Terminal 2. This created a bit of hassle on the day we left Shanghai. That’s for another day though. We would stay here 4 nights.

I checked the options to downtown and decided to take the express bus. It would stop at 人民公園 People’s Park which was not too far from our hotel in Shanghai: 中福大酒家 The Charms Hotel on Jiu Jiang Lu. The bus was crowded and it made several stops before dropped us off at a busy intersection near the People’s Park. Before getting off the bus, I asked the girl who was in charge of the tickets about direction to the hotel. She said that it is quite far and it would be better to take a taxi. After getting off the bus, I realized that it would be quite an effort to drag a luggage and walk a mile or two to the hotel. We called a taxi and told the driver where we were going. He asked us to put the luggage in the trunk (he had no intention to give us a hand) and took us there in less than 10 minutes. 中福大酒家 is a government managed hotel in the heart of Shanghai downtown 黄浦区. It is one block south of Nanjing Dong Lu 南京东路 or 南京路步行街 on Jiujiang Lu 九江路. It was renovated about 6 years ago and our travel agent in Vienna, Virginia chose it for us.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were surprised to see my brother already there waiting for us. My brother left the US about 2 weeks before we left for Japan. He was visiting his college friends in Shanghai and we had planned to get together in Shanghai after we got there. I was going to call him after we checked into our hotel. Now that he was here, we were quite happy to see him. After we checked in and got our luggage, he wanted to take us for a body massage before dinner with him and his friends. He said that he had enjoyed body massage since he arrived at Shanghai three weeks ago and swore that massage has benefits such as relaxing over-stressed muscles, promoting blood circulation, soothing pressure points, etc.

I have never been to a massage place because I wasn’t used to be handled by a stranger. My brother promised us that it would be a nice treat to our bodies after a long flight and encouraged us to go. I finally agreed because on one hand I might be embarrassed to be touched by a stranger but I was also curious and wanted to know what it is like in a massage parlor. The place he took us to is called 益力(雪莉)保健按摩中心Yili (Shirley) Massage Center. The massage center has 6 stores in Shanghai and we went to the one in the 虹橋 section of the Shanghai metropolitan area. The 虹橋 store was close to where he stayed in Shanghai; an apartment rented by one of his friends. It is also very close to where the dinner was.

The Massage Center was located on the second floor. My brother took us to the front desk and told the receptionist that we liked to have a full-body massage. The Center wasn’t very flashy at all. It has no decoration, no fresh flower, no soothing music, no paintings on the wall, and no comfortable lounge chairs in the small lobby. It appeared that lobby was a common area shared with other businesses on the second floor. In fact, it was just like an ordinary office with separate rooms. The center has probably 7 or 8 small rooms, each about 150 square feet in size. The female receptionist looked like a supervisor or the leader of this division office. She asked us whether we like to have a masseur (Male) or a masseuse (female). We both requested a masseuse. My brother also requested a masseuse as well. The supervisor then called out for 3 masseuses for full body massage and asked another lady to take us to a room just around the corner. The room has 3 massage tables and she asked us to wait in there. Soon, a boy in his late teens or early 20’s stepped in the room and gave each of us a pajama and a wash pan. He asked us to change, put our dress in the wash pan and leave it under the massage table. He came back later, dimmed the light and left.

Soon after we changed into our pajama, three ladies showed up and asked us to lie on our stomach on the massage table. From our conversation, I believed that they were in their 20’s or early 30’s and they came from Shan Xi province. They learned the skill from school and have done this for many years. They are all certified by the city and have the important relationship between pressure points in our body 穴道, qi 氣 (our body’s vital energy,) meridian or channel 经络 and circulation of blood. My brother forewarned me that it might hurt and if it did, I could tell her to put less pressure on the pressure points. Since I didn’t know what to expect, I decided to see what it was like without any restrictions on their hand strength. They proceeded to massage us according to a pre-determined procedure. They started from the upper body and gradually worked their way to the legs. My brother was right! It really hurt at times but I didn’t yell or ask for mercy. Not too far into the procedure, she said to me that my stomach seemed to be a trouble spot in my body. Maria said to her that I had some problem with my stomach for some times now. Although it wasn’t very serious, I had to take medicine to fix the reflux problem about a year ago. It occasionally still gave me some problem in the night, but for the most part, the problem had gone away. I am not sure how she figured that out but I was amazed. I have heard from a friend of mine who has studied traditional Chinese medicine that there are hundreds of pressure points in our body and many are related to our internal organs in our body. If an organ is not well, it will be reflected on pressure points 穴道 along the meridian 经络 corresponding to that particular organ. I guessed that there was something on that pressure points 穴道 which let her make that comment. She also said that many muscles on my upper body especially around the shoulders were very tight. I didn’t know whether that was from the 3-hour flight or that was like that all the time. She kept telling me to relax but I couldn’t help but to resist the pressure she put on my pressure points 穴道 because it really hurt. This last an hour or so and at the end I couldn’t tell whether I felt better than I first came in. I did feel kind of warm all over my body probably from loosening up those pressure points 穴道 which might have promoted blood circulation in my body. In any case, it was a nice experience and Maria liked it too. The fee was $60 RMB (about $9 USD) with $20 RMB ($3 USD) tips for each of us. It was a great deal and I might want to come back for one more time before we left Shanghai. Also from our conversation with the ladies, I figured that they each had 7 to 10 customers in any given day. These ladies do not receive any salary from the owner. For each customer, I figure that they could keep $20 to $30 RMB or so. Add $20 RMB tips, that comes to about $50 RMB from each customer. Each day, they could make some where between $350 to $500 RMB.I guessed that wasn’t too bad for a skilled person from a small village.
We then took a taxi to the restaurant where my brother’s friend had arranged a dinner party to welcome us. The restaurant is called 来天华 万都店. It is a Shanghai restaurant. We were led to a small private room on the second floor. My brother’s two friends were already there. They also brought their girl friends too. Both of them were my brother’s college friends and I have met one when we were here last time in 2001. Back then, we accompanied our parents to our home town in Hubei Province. We flew into Shanghai and my brother’s friend, who works here as a manager for a solar company based in Taiwan, invited us for a memorable dinner. The restaurant was called 當紅炸子雞. It was a huge restaurant with capacity for 3000 people. The big open hall downstairs was so large that waiters and waitresses wore roller skates to take customers orders and bring food to their tables. Near the entrance along the right wall were two banks of 20 live seafood tanks. In addition, there were about 50 big buckets which also filled with live seafood. We ate downstairs but took a unscheduled tour upstairs. We were told that the up stairs had 99 private rooms of various sizes. It was amazing. The other friend studied law in Taiwan and worked for Department of Legislature in Taiwan for 20 years. He has recently retired after 25 years and was traveling several cities to look for business or working opportunities.

After introduction, the waitress started to bring cold plates to the room and we started to drink a bottle of 8- or 10-year old Chinese wine 黃酒 called 古越龍山. When I was in Taiwan and sometimes after I came to the US , I occasionally drank 黃酒 called  陳年紹興酒 made by Taiwan’s Bureau of Tobacco and Wine Sales , mostly with friends. I have never liked it because it wasn’t very smooth nor it had any body or finish. This wine was quite different and quite drinkable: smooth, full of flavor and has some body. I will look for it after I came back to the US. There were six or eight cold dishes and all of them were very light but full of flavor. The presentation was beautiful too. That’s what I like about Shanghai Cai 上海菜: no heavy sauce to overshadow the original taste of the meat or vegetable. There were 8 entrée including the famous 水晶虾仁 Crystal Shrimp and 红烧肉 Pork Stew. The shrimp was small but tender. It came without any vegetables at all: all shrimp and lightly covered with a creamy sauce. The Pork Stew was soft and not greasy at all. I could do the pork stew but can cook the shrimp as good as it does. The diner last about an hour and half and I invited them to a dinner on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, our host couldn’t make it because he has to go back to the plant about 2 hours away from Shanghai.

Since it was still early, they took us to a very popular place called Xin Tian Di 新天地 which was on

my list of places to visit. I have also picked restaurant T8 in Xin Tian Di 新天地 to try its contemporary cuisine. It looked like I have to put this off along with either Jean Georges or Laris on the Bund until next time we are in Shanghai. Xin Tian Di 新天地 is a neighborhood of old Shikumen 石庫門 which is a type of houses with stone carvings, on the wall, raw stone streets and brick walls found only in Shanghai. The area was renovated several years ago and converted into a chic place full of boutiques, restaurants and night clubs. The area was very crowded with foreigners, tourists and young local people. Every restaurant and club was busy. We first walked around and saw a small Shikumen Museum there but didn’t go in because it required paid admission to see the inside. We then went to a bar (Spanish?) and had some beer there. The bar was small with a small band. The music was loud, people were yelling when they talked and our pretty, tall and young waitress pushed us to buy Heineken in a small keg. My brother’s friend went to the front and checked out the band because he is an armature musician specialized in bass guitar in Taiwan. He and a few of his friends had a band playing at various functions. We sat there for about an hour and left. We then took a taxi back to our hotel. My brother told me that another of his friend would invite us to dinner tomorrow (Sunday) night. I told him that we’d return the favor the night (Tuesday) before we left Shanghai. He agreed and said he’ll talk to his friend and look for a place. We agreed to meet at the restaurant tomorrow night at 6:30.

It was still early when were got back to our hotel. We decide to walk a couple of blocks and check out 南京路步行街 in the night. We were told that Shanghai is a very safe place and there were many people there even at around 10 O’clock in the night. We walked around the blocks and had some ice cream. Tomorrow we would be on our own. We planned to visit Yuyuan Garden 豫园, Temple of the Town Gods 城隍庙 and The Bund 外滩. I also planned to call a friend of mine who has retired from restaurant supply business in Maryland. I tried to contact him before we left for the trip but was unable to get hold of him because he was in Shanghai. His wife, still in Maryland, got the message and called him. He called me about a week before our trip and I said that I wanted to meet him and wanted to talk to him about the real estate market in Shanghai. Well, that’s for tomorrow.