Our Shanghai Vacation Trip

I've just completed my Shanghai vacation trip yesterday. This trip started on 15 November. We stayed in Sofia Hotel at Nanking East Road. Sofia is not a top hotel but it is okay with its facilities such as breakfast. The room is quiet small indeed. But it is at the heart of shopping center in Shanghai, that is Nanking walker street (南京步行街) .

We stayed there for three nights that was starting as usual walking about the Nanking Street. Since we arrived there in the afternoon. We tried some wen tun. I think it is not expensive. At night, we went to my working place in the past, i.e. Xuhui district. Of course, I booked a table for two at the Shanghai old station restaurant (上海老飯店), that is the one you can see a train inside the restaurant. I was there once time before, everything seems no changes. What did we try? I recalled some appetizer such as smoking fishes (I don't know how to describe it in English), drank chicken, and a shrimp dishes, also spicy and sour soup. I should say it is not too bad. The restaurant itself, the interior is much attractive as it displays many antiques, and one of them shows a very interesting Chinese poem that we'd taken many picture of it.

Second day, as usual, we wake up late in the morning and had our breakfast at about 1030. Breakfast is in western style mainly and those serving people didn't hear our Chinese, of course, we were speaking in potungwah already and they liked us to speak English. The view at the restaurant is good as you can see street view of Nanking road, and some historical western style building.

We went out for lunch just after our breakfast. So every time, we went out for food, my feeling was full only. This time we went to another Shanghai restaurant called "王加沙" at Nanking Street West. The famous dishes is siu long bao, it just likes people who says how good a steak is, "the siu long bao is very juicy". There is a kind of very big siu long bao, it is served with a strew to drink the soup.

After the very nice meal, it had a biggest event of this trip. My wife went to shopping and would like to buy some clothes for her uncle's daugther wedding party. Where we go? We went to the infamous "茂名南路" where many boutique are there especially for traditional Chinese lady dress "kei po". We went to there by taxi and just get off at the Cathy Pacific cinema. We went to the most famous shop there called "金枝玉葉". The lady there was not very kind to us. They spoke loudly in Shanghais that we don't understand. The clothes is very beautiful. I think it is a kind of Art and of course the price is high as well. It costs about RMB1,500 in average. We went to another nearest shop "花樣年華". There were three saleswomen there. When you say there are three women, in Chinese, it means there is a market a.k.a very noisy. One of the sales was very aggressive, asking my wife to try almost six clothes. Every time, my wife changed the clothes and came out to have a look. They said something like "Very fit to your body, just like customized made, very nice... blah blah blah." Finally, we brought three clothes for about RMB3,000. One of it needed to be modified and we collected it in the following day.

We went back to hotel first and then came out again to meet our University friend and my ex-colleague and having dinner at yuen yuen restaurant (圓苑). It was a nice meal. I mean the environment was good. However, the food was too salty or too sweet. The old station restaurant at Xuhui is better.

Then, we started our third day in Shanghai. In the morning, we went to meet my ex-colleague for lunch and then went to bank trying to close my bank account. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my bank book so that they didn't allow me to close it but just took out all the money from the account. In the afternoon, we went to buy some souvenirs. We bought some Chinese style candy and a big piece of Chinese style "Kam Wah Ham".

That night, we went to "王寶和" to taste Shanghai Crab (大閘蟹). It was very delicous and really full. I think we shall go to Shanghai every year to taste this.

On last day, we went to "豫園" and tried "寧波湯圓". Then we went to Xin tin di for lunch. We flied back to Hong Kong in the afternoon. And of course, we tried "永和豆漿" first then we took Maglev that take only 7 minutes from Loong Yeung Station to the Airport.

This was our trip. Next station could be Soeul or Japan again.