Today is supposed to be Shanghai Expo day, but Ann and I decided to just skip it entirely. We’ve been hearing horror stories of lining up as long as 6 hours (!) on the pavilions that are worth visiting (e.g., Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Germany). That’s gonna be one heck of a waste of time. After that nightmarish trek at The Bund last night with that mass of people from every nationality imaginable, we thought going to the Expo on a Sunday is going to be hell. We also thought RMB160 is too expensive for a photo-op outside the pavilions, so we decided to just change the itinerary and visit Shanghai itself. We can buy Expo merchandise (available just about anywhere) and pretend we did go there, anyway.
We decided to go to Zhou Zhuang water town instead. Well, at least that was the plan. See, we were so tired last night that we woke up late this morning. We had planned on trying to catch the 2:10pm bus to Zhou Zhuang and since we left the hostel at 12:00nn, we skipped both breakfast and lunch and headed straight to the bus station located, according to the directions Ann got from the ‘net, “close to Shanghai People’s Stadium near Xujiahui.” As you can see, the directions were very vague. For one thing, distance is relative. What is near to some people may be far from others. For another thing, how the heck do we get there?
Since the directions mentioned Xujiahui, the first natural reaction is to go to Metro Station Xujiahui. Which turned out to be a bad idea, because to get to Shanghai Stadium, you must go to Shanghai Indoor Stadium station, not Xujiahui. Or maybe there is a way through Xujiahui station once you have mastered your way around Shanghai, but for first-time, non-Chinese speaking people like us? Na-ah. Long story short, we ended up on the wrong station, which cost us an additional RMB3 each to go back to Shanghai Indoor Stadium station. Once we got to the correct station, here comes dilemma No. 2: where exactly is “close to Shanghai People’s Stadium”?
The stadium itself is huge. We might end up walking the entire circumference of it before we see the bus station.
After a looooong walk and some missed turns, we finally found it. It’s near the stadium ticket booths. We got in, but not before some guy stopped us to say that there is no bus for today (!!!) and he is offering a private tour service in case we still want to go to the water town. Of course, that’ll cost an arm and a leg, so no, thank you. We proceeded to the Tourist Information counter, and true enough, the tour guides said there is no bus today.
But the service resumes tomorrow, and we can buy our tickets now to reserve our seats. We decided to get the 9:30am trip.
Ok, tour tickets? Check. Now we must eat. It’s already about 2:00pm at that time and we still haven’t had a single meal. I promised Ann that I’ll treat her to Ding Tai Fung in Shanghai as a belated birthday gift so we decided to head off to Xintiandi. But not before we stopped by a Family Mart to grab a sandwich and drinks because I still don’t have any idea how far Xintiandi is from where we were and we were already close to passing out from hunger.
After a few missed turns mainly caused by vague directions such as, “get out at Exit 2 and walk 200 meters along Madang Road” without specifying if we should go left or right once we reach Madang Road, we finally found Xintiandi. But before that, there’s little amusing incident that happened. You see, the reason why I decided to choose Ding Tai Fung’s Xintiandi branch to treat Ann is because this restaurant happens to be Rain’s favorite. He was seen dining at this particular branch when he was in Shanghai. So it’s basically a Rain trip
but as soon as we got out of the Metro station, this is what welcomed us:
We went there for Rain; instead, we got Song Hye Kyo. Is this a sign?
And I should stress that I did not see any traces of the ‘puor homme’ model in there.
Anyway… Ding Tai Fung. Can I just say that I love this restaurant? I little bit pricey especially if you know that food in Shanghai is generally dirt cheap, but the food is awesome.
I ordered xiao long bao (of course), pork and shrimp dumplings, double-boiled chicken and shrimp fried rice. The soup from the double-boiled chicken is heavenly; it reminds me of good ol’ nilagang native na manok.
As for the xiao long bao, it met all my expectations. Except that I botched on the proper way of eating it, that the waitress had to approach our table and handed me a guide on how to properly enjoy xiao long bao:
This is the second time I majorly failed on eating this dumpling. Yesterday, we got some Yang’s Fried Dumplings (actually, I had wanted steamed dumplings from the one across Yang’s but there was no English menu so I had to regretfully turn away) to take home to the hostel and I just ate it as I would normally eat any dumpling. The result is that all the soup squirted out of the dumpling and drenched my camera.
I think I should’ve had a clue since this thing is called “soup dumpling”.
For the second time, the soup got drained all over my plate because I forgot that I was supposed to place it on the spoon before biting it. Thanks to the instructions, we also figured out what that mound of ginger is for.
After that delightful meal, we strolled by East Nanjing Road until our feet ached. We also emptied our pockets - in my case, scratched the hell out of my credit card - on Expo merchandise. We decided to call it a day early since we have to check out early tomorrow for the Zhou Zhuang trip. But not quite yet. We’re just resting; we’re gonna go out and pig out some more after this.



Of course, we’re in China, so there are sites that we can’t access. But I can live without Twitter and Facebook as long as my blog and my emails are available.
But the dish is quite tasty and the servings are good enough for four people and we only paid RMB39. That’s not bad at all.


She took care of my airfare and accommodations; the only thing I have to pay for are travel tax, terminal fee and pocket money. How could I say ‘no’ to that?
If you’re really his fan and not just a simple bandwagoner of Kpop, you would know this very, very well.


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