Asia Adventure 2012: Shanghai

While Greg visited Fudan University, I went on a mini walking tour in the city. Ben and I walked through a food market located in a longtang (similar to the hutongs in Beijing) neighbourhood where I saw some unusual items for sale such as turtles, pig’s lungs, snake fish, baby eels, and toads. There were also plenty of vegetables, noodles, wine, and such. Steps away was an interesting animal/pet market on Xizang Lu, where fighting crickets, or noisy crickets (used by Chinese people to lull them to sleep with all that buzzing) can be purchased. Other pets such as dogs, cats, birds, turtles, mice and such were also available. Then a few steps away from Xizang Lu was the antique market on Dongtai Lu, where multitudes of stalls packed with Mao memorabilia, clothing, and oodles of interesting knick knacks. In contrast, the next area we strolled through a very trendy area was the XinTianDi with a numerous international restaurants (French, French, American, German, British, Brazilian, Italian, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong… sorry no Canadian cuisine). Aside from eating, there are high-end boutiques, accessory shops, a food court, a movie cinema, a one-stop fitness centre, and an Executive Residence. All in all, we covered a lot in our short 1 ½ hour walk.

Just after 4pm, Shi Zhun, one of Jianmin Chen’s students picked me up at the hotel and we both travelled by cab to the university where Greg and Jianmin were just finishing up. We walked for a bit through the campus past the “White House” which is the mathematics building, countless blooming magnolia trees, lengthy bike stand, pond, stadium, and of course the Mobile Real-Time Haze Monitoring Platform, before flagging cabs to take the whole crew to dinner. The whole crew consisted of Shi Zhun, Jianmin, Roeland from Netherlands (first ever foreign PhD student), and Shi Yang who took us to the Bund later.

We ate at one of the American Academy’s Five Star Diamond Award winning restaurants; the Star Restaurant. Again, we enjoyed our dining experience in a beautifully decorated private room. Several other professors and researchers also joined us for a tasty meal including fish, salad, Peking duck, mushrooms, salad, veggies, and tofu.

After the dinner, Shi Yang and Roeland , escorted us by cab back to the Bund so we could marvel at its evening splendor with all the lights. It really is quite spectacular. And if that was not enough, they took us to the Brown Sugar bar at Xin Tian Di area where we enjoyed an awesome live cover band.