A gorgeous day in Shanghai

This is too funny not to share.

I’m sitting at a coffee shop checking and sending emails while sitting next to the streetside window watching everyone walk by basking in the amazing sunshine, and what is coming through the speakers???

A Duet

“Baby it’s Cold Outside”, a duet between Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart!

Exactly the oposite of what should be playing.

The other most humorous moment in my Shanghai Soundtrack was the other day when I was grocery shopping at the nearby Tesco, and they were playing a gimmicky version of the Happy Birthday song.

On-coming Traffic

For the past week, I have focused most of my time on the job search. I’m sure you’re wondering what I have been doing for the past five weeks if I haven’t been looking for a job, and the answer is tough. I have been looking for a job, researching various companies, exploring the city, meeting new people, updating this website, designing a website for my mom, updating my resume, reformatting my portfolio…..but honestly, I wasn’t doing any of this very well. For some reason I hadn’t mustered the real confidence I needed to actually follow through and do my due diligence to find work. I think I was waiting for something to fall into my lap. I made excuses for why I wasn’t getting any calls from the five resumes I sent out…the economy is bad, I’ve never worked in China before, I don’t have any connections. In reality, I only sent out five resumes. And nothing else. No one would get a job in a completely new continent by sending out five resumes blindly into city where there are architecture offices on every corner. I’m not sure why I thought I would be any different.

Then last Thursday, I snapped out of it. I finally realized I wasn’t doing enough, and then I thought about the past year in terms of the-money-I-didn’t-earn for the first time. That’s thousands of dollars my bank account will never see. The money isn’t what is driving me to get a job, but it is a factor. I am proud that I took the risk and walked away from everything for a little while and I never would have done it differently. The added advantage is that now I am fresh and energized and filled with dreams of Asia…past and present. I have begun to take looking for an architecture job in Shanghai seriously, and the fruits of my labor are already paying off. I don’t have a job yet, but I have started conversations, and conversations will hopefully lead to more conversations and those conversations will lead to interviews and those interviews will lead to work. I am optimistic, and there will be great things for me in Shanghai, I just know it.

On the exploring side of things, Nik and I joined a couple of his co-workers for a Saturday ride around the city. At first the destination was ambiguous. We rode past the Moganshan Lu galleries and along Suzhou Creek, then stopped for coffee and smoothies in the middle of Nanjing Road shopping chaos. We eventually found ourselves riding along the Huangpu River towards the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. Prior to Saturday, the only time I had ever heard of this tunnel was when Nik and I visited last December and we saw a sign while we were walking around near the entrance. I wrote it off as a tourist trap rip-of, and never thought twice. But let me tell you. If you come to Shanghai, you have to go on the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, it is worth it!!! Talk about wierd Shanghai.

A small scale photo shoot

The photo shoot of the photo shoot

After walking down a flight of stairs into a subway-like tunnel just off of the northern tip of the Bund (the riverside park on the west side of Huangpu River lined with colonial architecture), you enter into this amusement park ride entrance filled with vending machines and jade dealers and viewfinders with provocative pictures of Chinese women. The ticket counter isn’t anything special, but it plainly displays the prices in Chinese and English. 40RMB for one-way, 50RMB for round-trip. We paid our fair and filed through the turnstyles and into the ride entrance. Here’s where I got completely confused. I thought this was just a tunnel where you walked under the bund and there were photos all about Shanghai and perhaps the history of the Bund, but no. It is a tunnel where you ride in a little glass car though an elaborate series of Christmas lights of various colors flashing and spinning while an intercom announces the phase in which you are traveling through such as “heaven and hell” and “metior showers plummeting towards earth”. It was the most bazaar thing I have ever paid money for, and I’m glad I did.

50RMB of round-trip Fun and Excitement

Including stuffed animal vending machines

All Aboard

Maybe this was heaven? or was it hell?

The Bund seen from Pudong

When the ride is finished you end up on the Pudong side of the river with a nice view looking across at the Bund. Because I am recommending that you do this the next time you are here, I recommend that you only purchase a one-way ticket then go to the Super Brand Mall or Century Park or something else in Pudong and take a ferry or the subway back to the city. It just isn’t worth doing the ruturn trip.

Then Nik and I split from the group because he had to go into work. Since he wasn’t going to be long, I found a table at my favorite Shanghai cafe, A:Mokka, to sit and enjoy Saturday afternoon. I started reading Ann Pachett’s book Run, and love it.

One of my favorite spots

The rest of our weekend was uneventful. Sunday we spent most of the day at home with just a short ride through some construction sites and then I got hungry so we headed back to the apartment. Of course, as soon as we locked up our bikes, all of the clouds went away and we were left with an amazingly clear blue sky. But it didn’t last. The clouds were back within 30 minutes, and we were in for the day.

A fleating moment of clear blue skies

On Monday, I spent all day doing research, then met up with a new friend to have hand pulled noodles at a little shop called Noodle Bull on Changle Lu. This place is also quickly becoming a favorite, and will certainly be one of my staple dining options.

Then on Tuesday, I rode over to Xiantandi. If you’ve visited Shanghai, you have probably been there, but I had never even heard of it until last week. Xiantandi is two city blocks of of old buildings that were converted into modern restaurants and luxury shops. The weather was nice, so all of the restaurants had outdoor tables and the inner courtyard seemed like a European beer garden. I like the effort that is being made, but the tables were filled with westerners in suits so I’m sure that most of the prices went along those same lines. Luckily my new friend recommended the bakery, Paul, which sits at the very edge of the complex so I had my lunch there. I picked a smoked salmon sandwich with fresh greens, and it was pretty delicious. Good bread is one thing I miss most about America, so it’s good to know I can find it here!!

Lunch hour in Xiantandi

The back alley of Xiantandi

My final new favorite is this quilt that my mom gave me for Christmas. It is new because it just arrived in Shanghai on Monday, so I finally have something to hold on to from home. The quilt itself has an awesome story because it is the first quilt my mother has ever made (didn’t she do good??)…and I had no clue that she was making it before I opened it on Christmas morning. It now has a permanent home on our couch, and I huddle under it every night. Thanks Mom for giving me my first hand-made family heirloom! It’s nice to have a little piece of you here with me.

Mom's 1st Quilt

View looking North from our rooftop

In one of our many daily emails, Nik mentioned today that he ate lunch on the roof of his building at work. I replied that I wish I had eaten my lunch on the roof, to which he replied, “Is there a roof(top deck) on our building I wonder. It would have a cool view, but I doubt there is one.”

Luckily for him, I am procrastinating today, so I went up to the 37th floor to investigate. As I stepped off the elevator, the hallway looked exactly the same as the 18th floor, but the fire escape door was wide open and daylight was pouring through. I walked up one short flight of stairs to find that there is a rooftop deck. In fact there are two, but that the doors to it had been locked with a dead bolt. The consolation is that the top landing of the stair is enclosed with windows, and the one to the north was completely gone, and the one to the east had been shattered so the views were still impressive!

When Nik gets home we’ll have to go up to see the city at night.

ONCE UPON A TUESDAY IN SHANGHAI…

I planned to ride bikes all day.

And I did indeed ride bikes all day. First, I went to the flower market.

Where there are hundreds of flower stalls.

Selling hundreds of flowers.

They sell orchid flowers...

And red carnation flowers...

And yellow long stem flowers with pom-poms on top.

Outside the flower market, there's a very strange building.

That has a Lady Liberty on top???

Next I went to the M50 Galleries on Moganshan Lu

Where the Shun Art Gallery was by far my favorite.

The art was clever and beautiful. There were even nice girls working there and hideous leather couches. What's not to love?

I must admit that I wasn't very excited about the rest of the galleries. Instead, I was taken by the sinks...

And the cracked wall paint...

And the sidewalk planter...

And the stair well with the antique light fixture and stacks of doors.

Next I took my bike for a photo shoot in front of a blue wall, where scribbles aren't allowed.

In the yellow parts, Mother nature is trying to take this building back.

Across the street was this amazing structure which is either in the middle of demolition, or never finished construction. Or both.

On the way home, I stopped by the UHA shop. I stopped because I liked the pink mascot, and I discovered that UHA is a chocolate brand. Kind of like Chinese Godiva, but cooler.

I also stopped by a pedestrian street filled with food vendors.

And I took a self portrait.

And finally, I made my way back home and my beau was there. We cooked dinner and lived happily ever after.

THE END

Roof Detail

Update: I changed the order of the photos and a few captions because they bugged me. Sorry for any confusion!

Tuesday morning, I set out to explore the area south-south-west of our apartment. My specific destination was a small green spot on my map, Guilin Garden. It turns out that Guilin Garden is a small public park that used to be the home of a Shanghai gangster, Huang Jinrong. The walled garden was devastated by the Japanese in the mid-1900′s and then restored and opened to the public in 1988. The elaborate gardens surrounding the main house, which is now a tea house, contain a series of courts with various focal points. In one, a raised and covered wooden pathway flanked with built in benches meanders through heavily landscaped areas and over a stream. In another, an “athletic pavilion” floats in the middle of a large pond. In a third, a large stone-paved court is surrounded by picnic tables where small groups gather to play cards, and in a fourth a flat grass lawn is surrounded by large shade trees. Even mid week, the garden was teaming with people, but there were so many discreet areas that it was easy to find a peaceful place to be alone to read my book, The Good Earth (which by the way is a fantastic book about a Chinese farmer in the early 1900′s). I will certainly return to this park throughout the summer to watch the gardens change as the trees bloom and evolve for the season.

Court transitions

Circular Transitions

Card Tables

The grass is greener here

Yellow Blooms

One of many pavilions

A covered path

The tea house

Tea House veranda

A serene pond with the city buildings seen in the distance

Earlier that day, I thought the garden to the left of the canal was Guilin Garden, but the security guard quickly told me I wasn't welcome! Apparently, this one is private.

Saturday morning, I talked Nik into exploring the south-south-west area with me. This time we didn’t have a specific destination, but wanted to get as close to the Huangpu river as possible. The thought was that we would see some pretty impressive industrial areas, but what we found were small neighborhoods, construction and markets that line the South Shanghai Railway. We were out for most of the morning, and here is what we saw.

The Tracks

Rust and Green

A muddy road on the way to the construction site

Construction Trucks

Earth Mover

Advertising Stairs

Modern Fossils

Crazy tile building with amazing windows

The windows

The grey-scale reality

A concrete wall

A typical random item store...there's at least one of these every block

The lane cafe

The Bird Shop

The beautiful birds in itsy bitsy cages

Green, blue, rust and sunshine

Nik has also done a post about this week, mostly photos of yesterday: Biking, Gaming, Resting, Saturday in Shanghai