Trying to get home.

It is difficult to explain the incredible traffic we have here in Shanghai.  While we were heading home and driving on the correct side of the road this mass of cars decided to get across the street.  It was an onslaught of vehicles.

I was trying to make Palacsinta

Saturday morning I found myself bending over and picking up some small bit of thread, dirt, speck of something on the floor just like my Nagymama use to do and this thought of my Nagymama inspired me to make some palacsinta.  I know, what a weird way to get to this thought.

So I looked up the recipe online and whipped up a batch.  Unfortunately they ended up resembling  french crepes instead of my Nagymama's palacsinta. 

 Perhaps my pan was too small? Or the batter to thin? I just don't know.

 I had some canned peaches which I warmed up with silvered almonds and put them inside the palacsina/french crepe.

They tasted good but not like Nagymama's.  Oh well. It was nice to think about her while making this sweet treat.

Hot Pot Restaurant - Hai Di Lao

This great time, described below, occurred in December 2011 when TJ and Kristen came to visit us in Shanghai.

One of TJ's and Kristen's favorite meals in China is hot pot, and on a cold winter day it certainly hits the spot!  I have eaten at a number of different hot pot restaurants but this chain restaurant, originally from the Sichuan Province, is my favorite.  It's consistent, clean and affordable. (Uh, yes, that's TJ in glasses, newly purchased here in Shanghai.)

The process from start to finish is entertaining as well as nourishing and comforting. First you gather around a table that has a well in the center.  This is where the soup will go.  There is a heating element in the bottom of this well and a container is placed inside the well, on top of the heating element. We chose a combination of soups - a clear mushroom broth and a hot and spicy broth.  The soups are brought out and the spicy soup is mixed at the table.

 Here are the soups, the right is the mushroom and the left will be the spicy, right now it's just a clear vegetable broth.

 The chef opens a bag with the hot spicy mixture - chili oil, hot numbing peppercorns from the Sichuan Province, and other spicy red peppers.

 He pours in the mixture to the clear base and voila (!), hot spicy soup.

 As an entertainment treat, as well as to add some yummy noodles to the soup I ordered the "Kung Fu" noodles.  A waiter comes to your table and takes a bit of noodle dough, stretches it and begins twirling it around, using this method to stretch the noodle.  It's a bit tricky, as the noodle gets longer it has more opportunity to  hit the dirty floor.  Our guy had to use three bits of dough to get our order stretched and into the pot.  The first two hit the floor and he had to toss those away.

 On our table you can also see the items we ordered to throw into the soup.

Spinach, cauliflower, mushrooms and sliced beef and mutton. Oh and beer, lots of beer, not for the hot pot, for us!

A very satisfying meal!

Another trip to Monganshan Mountain - the bamboo forest

This post should have been posted in Oct 2011 - sorry for the delay.

We began the trip on a bus! One of the most popular ways to travel in China! Well, ok so our destination was only 31/2 hours away and bus is the most direct way to the Bamboo forest.  Tony's company, MWV, was having a team building trip and since I am the wife of the MD (Managing Director of China),                  I was also invited. (ah the perks!)

We gathered at 8:30am and hopped on the bus, our first stop a nearby lake (3 hour ride) for lunch and a boat ride.

I think this guy was one of the chefs in the kitchen.

All of us settling in for a nice lunch.

A variety of food was served, some seafood and some not. A very nice chicken soup and (seperately) a fish soup were part of the meal and I enjoyed both.  I did have to poke around to find the undesireable breast meat.  The Chinese do not like the tough white meat so there was plently for me!  There were 3 westerners on this trip. Tony, Julie and me. Julie is a young American gal who works at MWV here in Shanghai.

Spicey fish soup.

Chinese escargot......snails in a nice smokey sauce.  The snail is not even worth trying to suck out of it's tiny shell but the sauce over the rice is tasty.

The chicken soup, yes they cook it with the feet and all!  Well actually I did not see the beak and head so maybe no head.   The broth and breast meat were delicious, probably the best chicken soup I have had in a long time in China.  Usually it's so overloaded with MSG that I don't care for the taste.

Our view from the dining room.

The 'house" boat we were going to take to go around the lake, there are two here.

Inside the boat.

Our gang!

Enjoying the view with Julie.  The water was filthy brown. 

This is pretty neat, the lake is man made so this forest got "swamped" but seemed to have survived and thrived.  I think it is quite beautiful sprouting up from the lake.

A temple and small town.  Looks old but was created just for tourists who visit the lake.

This looks like a busy pedestrian street but it's really all of the MWV people strolling along, if we weren't here there would be no one else around.  Most of the shops were closed up.

This was lovely, an artist plying his craft.

Pickled snake for sale, what one does with it once you have gotten it home is beyond me.

Nice.

As usual, working......I like to image that the sign next to him says, no phones or texting allowed in this fine and hallowed temple.  Now THAT would be funny. 

Another way to ride the lake, by bamboo raft.

And finally a Bamboo forest.

There is always someone in attendence 'guarding' or watching out for .....something.  I see the guards' chair but I never did get a glimpse of him.  Maybe they are worried a tourist will take off with a tree?

These ladies were doing a bit of gambling. A nice way to spend the afternoon.

After the lake visit we got on the bus and began heading to the top of the Bamboo Mountain. We were nearly there and encountered this little situation, it was a real local moment.  On the road to the hotel we came to a 20 minute stop for no apparent reason.  Finally some of us got out of the bus to see what was going on.  Two guys were having a shouting match about who should have pulled over first on the narrow road.  For the record, the two cars had already passed each other and there was no obvious problem, they just wanted to yell at each other and get their frustrations out....I guess.  No mind to anyone who was on their way somewhere. The line of cars stopped had to be 15 including our 2 buses.  And it seemed everyone was bored so the neighbors come out to watch the ruckus with no thought to the fact that perhaps they could move it off the street and let the others get on their way.  Oh, I was told that one guy was swinging a hammer at one point but I missed that; I wonder, was the hammer in the trunk of the car or does he keep it next to him on the seat for moments like this?

Up the mountian all covered in bamboo trees.

Our room, which had bugs, and the bed was as hard as it looks in the picture. The Chinese like a good firm board to sleep on.  I was a good sport that night, when one large bug crawled on me I just grabed at it and flung it across the room, heard him "crash" against the wall and went back to sleep. Now you understand the perks I was telling you about!

Overall, it was nice to get out of Shanghai and breath some fresh air and hike around the mountian.  The bus trip takes 4 hours door to door and that long trip makes it hard to want to come back.  I have been twice now, prior to this trip I took a long day trip in 2009 just to hike for a couple of hours. 

Beautiful Pottery

Last week I went to a famous "art street", here in Shanghai, to see what the Chinese artists were up to, overall it was not my cup of tea, a lot of suggestive (sex sells I guess) oil paintings that were meant to be provocative but ended up being uninteresting to me.  After dashing in and out of various galleries to view some art I decided to seek out the pottery "art".  I do love a good ceramic bowl!  While most of the items were out of my price range I did find these two lovely mugs, fired with a natural sand that turns bright colors when fired in intense heat.

The inside is as beautiful as the outside, perhaps even more so.  The inside of the red mug has blue specks, which is difficult to see but you can see the inside of the brown mug with peacock blue and yellow spots! I love the gently curved lip, reminding me of a flower and the thinness of the pottery attests to it's quality, in my opinion.  A set of 8 would be nice, however I have many mugs.  The four mugs from Tuscany that my sister bought me. My first handcrafted mug that I bought for my first apartment(yes it has a chip, but I can't let it go) Four hand thrown mugs from a craft fair in NY bought many years ago that I could not live without. And I am sure the list goes on.  I know I should not buy another mug, but you may be able to agree with me, these two new ones were much too beautiful to leave behind.

They're here!!!

On Saturday Dec. 3rd, 2011 Tonys' sister came to visit us for a week in Shanghai.  Here is a chronicle of their journey.

Mary and Margaret have arrived!

 And looking quite good after 14 hours of flying in a steel tube.
We got them to the apartment and then headed straight to the holiday party in our building.

 Then on to our favorite restaurant, Bella Napoli for a light bite and then to bed.

Although Margaret ended up on the couch it looks like they both did get some shut eye.

 Our first "street food" for breakfast - yummy Jiangbing.  Or as I lovingly call them Chinese Breakfast Burrito!

 I took the ladies to the wet market as I needed some eggs.

 Then a nice long walk around Shanghai.  We stopped at the Peace Hotel and went inside to see the beautifully restored lobby and small museum.

 One day we headed down to an area called Taikang Lu, this is a small neighborhood of renovated lane homes - the bottom floor houses cafes, and small boutique stores.  Residents live on the 2nd and 3rd floors. It's a very unique and charming area.  We had a nice brunch and coffee while sitting outside as it was so pleasant in the sun.

Margaret was excited for her double cup of coffee - she had been slightly disappointed in the size of a double when in Spain just 2 months before and she was skeptical that she would get a nice big cup of coffee in far off China but...........

as you can see she got a jumbo cup filled with her life giving brew!

This is a cute little bakery in the area, I showed the shop keeper my id with my last name on it - Mollica - and then asked for a discount.  No luck.

Here they are on the Bund.

And now Beijing! Left Monday morning returned on a Tuesday evening! It was a misty snowy day as we walked over to the Forbidden City.

Next stop - The Great Wall.  It was so pretty with the snow.

A visit to a traditional Temple in Beijing.

And now back in Shanghai, here we are in Yuyuan Gardens.

We went to the other side of the river to take in the view of the beautiful old buildings of Shanghai.

And our last night together taking in the lights of the famous modern skyline of Shanghai,

..............as well as the old classic buildings built in the early 1900's.  A wonderful trip to have with two wonderful people.