Jason's 笔记本

Weekends are meant to be restful right? Well, I am quite certain I am feeling nothing like a well rested man right now. My legs are sore, I am slipping into a daze as i type this article right now. Well, the torture is due to the prospect of school. According to EVERYONE I know in Shanghai, their default advice is to "Play now! Once school starts, you will be too busy to have fun!" So, I chose to err on the safe side and follow their advice. Today, my household went to Cheng Huang Temple Road.

The name is mis-leading. You may think of an ancient old temple. But there is so much more there. Entire streets around the temple has been built up or restored to resemble temple-like builings, with excessive use of gold, wood and dragons. (No pictures to show for...my camera was left behind.) And this being a tourist trap, we kept our ears closed to the touts who were parading "DVDs? Bags?". Who said old dogs cannot learn new tricks?

As usual, we found hordes of fake goodies at ridiculous prices. But since none of us were in a bargaining mood today, so no haggling was done. But personally, I felt that the quality of the shirts at the streets of Old SHanghai Street is bad, despite some cheap steals of 15RMB. You would be better off at Qi Pu Lu.

Lunch was a mini dilemma. We walked into this place at Cheng Huang City and ordered one 'luo' of crab egg dumpling that cost a king's ransom of 50 RMB for 6 tiny flour lumps. And service was as lousy. Feeling hungry, we joined a queue for xiao long bao since it cost 12 rmb for, get this, 16 baos.

This was my lunch. Piping hot and spurting soup with the first bite, it was delicious. But after the tenth one, we all agreed, 16 baos is TOO MUCH.

Oh, and for your information, walking is an excellent way to speed up digestion and explore new stores. And walk we did, finally stumbling upon the famed 'cheng huan miao' at closing time. It would have cost 10RMB to enter anyway, meaning it is another tourist trap. But we discovered one of the gift shops outside selling things at 5RMb. That, is no trap. =) One for Yiling, one for Cher.

Futher exploration and I bought an outstanding fake. Remember the Clio Coddle brand, the blatant rip off of Singapore's Crocodile brand? I got a belt from there at 29RMB. My four year old Giordano is falling apart. 29 was kind of expensive but I saw the cool buckle and the rather geniune leather.

So that's it, the spoils of the day. 39 on stuff and 12 on lunch. =) I think this is another reason to love this city of Shanghai.