Fast train to Shanghai

Thurs, Aug 6

Mike

We recevied our wakeup call at 6:00AM. After we finished packing, we went down for breakfast, which was supposed to begin at 7:00. Brealfast was all set out, and about a dozen kitchen girls were finishing their breakfasts. They took note of the Americans (probably the only foreigners at the hotel), and brought out a pot of coffee with milk, 4 fried eggs, a plate of bread with jam, and a plate of watermelon. Wow, what service.

We were out of the hotel at 7:30. We grabbed a cab for the 1 km walk to the subway station. One the way, we saw a vendor with Hami melons, but didn't stop. Perhaps the only Hami melons we saw on the whole trip. We headed into the subway, and took the train to the station, arriving about 8:15 AM for our 9:03 train. We went into the waiting room, where we talked for a few minutes with a Chinese guy from Singapore. He had also lived in the States, so his English was excellent.

Train D5411 starts in Nanjing and terminates in Shanghai, with 4 stops in between. There is another train (D5413) starting in Nanjing and terminating in Shanghai, with stops in between, leaving 5 minutes later. My guess is that none of the stops duplicated each other. Our train did not stop in Suzhou; presumably the other one did. Total time of trip: 2:36.

Toward the end of the trip, we began talking with a guy from Shanghai who had been in Nanjing the day before, delivering a brand new offset color printer to a customer.

As we approached Shanghai, it started raining (for a few minutes, quite hard).

We were looking for a taxi on arrival. There were 5 taxis, all beckoning for us to take them - with a fence in between that we couldn't figure out how to cross. So we walked to the correct taxi queue. When it started, there were maybe 20 groups ahead of us.

In 10 minutes or so, the taxis had come up and pulled off, and we were in a taxi. We handed over the card for Hengsheng Peninsula International Hotel, and we were on our way.
We found that it did little good to try to pronounce the words or even show someone the pinyan. What was needed was the Chinese characters themselves. Even the Chinese can't easily figure out what the pinyan stands for without the characters - too much ambiguity.

The taxi crossed over on Hainan Road. We approached the Wusong Road turn, The taxi was in the left lane; I pointed right, and the taxi driver pointed to a sign saying "no right turn." So we waited for a left turn signal, made the left turn onto Wusong, then a right turn, another right turn onto Hainan in the opposite direction, then a left turn onto Wusong, now finally going in the right direction. This screwball set of turns cost us 5 Y in taxi fare, and about 5 minutes of time.

We checked into the hotel a little after 12:30.

Our first piece of business was to get some lunch. Off to Zhapu St a few blocks away - this is the food street right near the hotel. We went to the Shanghai food cafe, and got some sesame noodles and some Shanghai buns. The sesame noodles are called "Chinese-style noodles" on the English menu and "leng mian" (cold noodles) on the Chinese menu. They are wheat noodles, in a sesame oil/tahini paste, with just a touch of chili oil. We had been searching for this dish all through China, since we had last had them at this restaurant 16 days before. The buns were classic Shanghai buns, cooked so that each contains a small burst of soup inside the bun, in addition to the little bit of meat. Just to finish up, we also ordered a dish of "fish-flavored rice" (rice covered with a brown sauce), some tea, and a bottle of beer. All for 21 Y.

Back to the hotel. Chowhound.com had a blog entry for a restaurant called Yang Yang in the French Concession just north of the American Consulate (but no phone number or address). I asked the conceirge for info as to where it was, since the blog stated that most taxi drivers knew where it was. Our conceirge had no inkling. He went off for 15 minutes to try to find some info on the internet. He came back with some info about a Yang Yang restaurant on Guangyuan Road about 5 km away off in the north suburbs - clearly not this Yang Yang.

It was now 2:30 PM: time to retreive the silk jacket that Curtis that had bought the first day. Onto Bus 910 to the silk merchants building, where the beautiful jacket was ready and waiting. Then a bus and a walk (bus stops are never where you want them to be - you stand up to get off at the next stop, and the bus then goes 5 more blocks before it stops) to the book section of Fuzhou Street.

We found the Foreign Language Bookstore, and another bookstore, and then, finally, the huge Shanghai Bookstore. I had been tasked to purchase Chinese language versions of the Dr. Seuss books. The youth section of this huge bookstore was on the 6th floor. We asked the workers about Dr. Suess or "The Cat in the Hat." Asked a couple of kids. Total blanks. Finally, a worker who had somewhat better English went to the computer. "Cat in the Hat" was in the bookstore's computer, but seemingly only as an English book. And it was out of stock. Ditto for "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." The other titles we could think of weren't even in the computer. The only conclusion we could draw was that "Cat in the Hat" had never been translated into Chinese (Later research on the internet suggests that it was translated in 2006 by Rongrong Ren, and published by the Shanghai Translation Co., but if it hadn't been picked up by the Shanghai Bookstore, this huge place, it wasn't much in circulation.). So, as a consolation prize, I bought the Chinese translations of "Peter Pan," "The Wizard of Oz," and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," each for 6 Y (88 Cents).

By now it, was well past 4:30 PM: time to visit the French Concession, the upscale SW part of old Shanghai. Remember that, beginning in the mid-1800s, like Hong Kong, Macao, and many others (Qingdao, Tainjin ??), Shanghai was a foreign-dominated city. The various foreign powers had just divided up the city: this was the French part.

We didn't know where to start, but we were vaguely looking for Yang Yang Restaurant, just north of the American Consulate. So we took subway #1 line to Hengshan station, just south of the American Consulate. After walking a couple of blocks, we got to Guangyuan Road. What a coincidence - that was the road that the concierge found way on the other side of town. Since most taxi drivers were supposed to know of this place, we asked about 5 different people, including a policeman, with no luck. We looked down Guangyuan Road, which was decidedly non-commercial, and then looked at the map. We discovered that we had walked SW from the station, rather than NE. We reversed course, and began walking back toward the station. By now, it was starting to get dark.

We walked along past all sorts of upscale restaurants - a Brazilian churrascaria, an Italian ristorante with $20 dishes, a Turkish restaurant, etc. We turned up a block:lo and behold, the American consulate, with its big walls and policemen guarding the gate. Of all the restaurants, we decided on one that had roasted ducks in the window and crispy pork dishes on the menu. Delicious meal.

It was now 8 PM. If we took the subway and a bus back to the hotel, Curtis would have time to get in a nice swim before the pool closed at 10 PM. We went into the Hengshan station and bought two tickets to the Hailun Rd station. Taking the #1 train north 8 stops to the Shanghai Railway Station stop, we could transfer east (clockwise) on the #4 loop train (2 stops to Hailun Rd station). It was also possible to take the #1 train southwest 2 stops to the Shanghai Indoor Stadium stop, where we could transfer to the #4 train counterclockwise (11 stops to Hailun Rd station). The latter choice seemed silly.

After heading north on the #1 train to the Shanghai Railway Station stop, we discovered that, with a one-trip card, there was no free transfer to the #4 line. If we had a permanent card, we could have transfered. We left the station, and had a heated argument in English with the gate people, and later afterward with the customer service people. Goodness knows how much they understood of what we were saying. They certainly understood that we were foreign visitors. They certainly understood that there was no free transfer from the #1 to the #4 line (didn't everybody?). They probably understood that we were trying to get from the 1 to the 4 line without paying again. It was doubtful whether they understood that we thought we were deceived by the ticket dispenser and all of the maps.

Eventually (maybe after 15 minutes?) we were given double-stamped pieces of paper which we were to present at the #4 line gate to get in. Without knowing whether we were just being mollified with a useless piece of paper, we started the LONG walk (15 min?) between stations. We got to the entrance to the #4, where they accepted the paper and let us in. They even let us out at Hailun St with this piece of paper.

2 lessons: First, taking the #1 SW and then the #4 counterclockwise 11 stops was the right way to go. Second, those 5 Chinese characters on the subway map, which said "Transfer only with a permanent card," were important words to understand.

Anyway, we got to the hotel at 9:15 PM, and Curtis managed to squeeze in a half swim (20 min) instead of the usual 40 min.

Some preliminary packing, and to bed.

Curtis

We arrived in Shanghai early in the afternoon, and after checking in got a quick lunch at a little dive that we remembered having cold sesame noodles. I am beginning to think that this may be a Shanghai dish, because we haven't seen anything remotely like it on our circuit. Then we went down to pick up my new tailored raw silk jacket, which fits great. Nice to have a new all-purpose casual jacket. We then browsed some bookstores for Chinese books Mike was looking for, and made our way over to the "French Concession."

We wandered around the French Concession for a while trying to locate one of the restaurants that Carol found on a blog about food in Shanghai. No luck. Either the information was badly misspelled or downright fictitious, but both the neighborhood and the restaurant name were unknown to locals. We did find an excellent Cantonese restaurant and enjoyed a delicious "half" duck served with homemade duck sauce, mixed vegetables (snap peas, lilly pods and celery, stir fried al dente) and a combination pork: crispy pork rind, pork roast with crispy rind and Chinese ham served with dipping hoisin, sugar and hot mustard. This was probably the best Chinese food for me all trip, with the possible exception of the dinner we had with Mike's friend Tony in Kunming.