I Heart Consumerism

Shanghai, October 21, 2007 (Sunday)

I slept in after last night’s late outing. In fact, I slept so late, that I missed the breakfast buffet. (They shut down at 9:30am.) So after feeling a little miffed that I’d have to go out and get brekkie (I have been spoiled by the brekkie buffet), I made my way to the Carrefoure shopping complex and went rabid at a trendy bakery called Bread Talk. I finally decided on a curry beef bun (30 cents!) and a custard-filled peanut-pineapple glazed sweet bun (25 cents!). I washed this down with a good, strong espresso (okay, a splurge at $2). Hmmm. This beats the weak house coffee at the brekkie buffet and is worth every penny.

Happily sated, I opt to walk off my breakfast with the 30-minute trek to the Luo Shan Guan Road metro station. I decide to go back to Nanjing East Road and the Bund, even though I knew it would be packed. I drink in the spirit of consumerism and, thusly drunk, make my first frivolous purchase of the trip: a track jacket from Uniqlo, the trendy Japanese clothing chain that just opened a store in NYC. Uniqlo is a bit like Banana Republic, but with a more tongue-in-cheek slant, I think. The track jacket I bought is black with white arm stripes, and a great graphic patch on the chest and the back: “Mighty Soy, LA” with a wacky graphic of a soybean with muscular arms. You have to see it; I’m not doing it justice. These graphics are supposed to be based on American brand signs…I dunno…Can someone from SoCal let me know if there’s such a company, Mighty Soy?! I really liked the wacky irony of the graphic. And the price was right -- $27 US for a real brand name. Never fear, I will load up on cheap, madly-bargained fakes when I hit the open air markets. For now, I need to warm up on actual stores. I also peeked into the Chinese equivalent of Abercrombie and Fitch – this chain called Metrobeene or something like that. I wasn’t very impressed, though it was really popular with the younguns. I also checked out the Wing An Department Store, a huge Macys-Nordstrom-esque store. It was nice to wander the labyrinth of stuff; they do like using mannequins…I think they have the greatest mannequin to customer ratio I’ve seen thus far). I didn’t see anything I really wanted…except a Hello Kitty egg poacher machine. Genius.

I wandered along Nanjing East Road, the pedestrian-dominated, neon-sign teeming shopping road that leads to the Bund, the waterfront promenade west of the Huangpu River. I maneuver around the masses of picture-snapping tourists and marvel anew at the gorgeous buildings east across the water in Pudong, including the new and modern phallic Pearl Tower, and the classic buildings across the Bund on the west, including the architecturally stunning Peace Hotel. At the north end of the Bund is a monument to China’s heroes, a huge stone structure, with carved friezes around the base of the memorial. I wandered around the memorial, and discovered a small park beneath the Bund, complete with an ivy-covered corridor lined with trees and benches. Here, many locals were shooting the breeze, and I joined them, claiming a carved bench and deciding to take advantage of the relative quiet to call home on my Chinese cell using an IP long distance card. My parents were out (social butterflies that they are), but I left a message assuring them that I was alive and well. One note about the IP card. The English option? A joke. The chick who recorded the English message had the worst English ever. It took me three tries before I finally deciphered what she meant. Also, the China Mobile Cellular Service? They like sending you text messages. In Chinese. I got all excited, thinking somehow, someone had found a way to text my Shanghai cell. But alas, it was China Mobile, letting me know my balance, as well as trying to entice me to download new ringtones. I think. I didn’t have my dictionary with me, so they could have been telling me “Bite Me” for all I know.

Scared off from my bench by the stench of Durian (a notoriously yucky-smelling fruit – I think the smell is somewhere between rotting meat and gasoline) that a bench-neighbor had unwrapped, I decide to return to the fray of Nanjing Road in search of food. I find a relatively quiet dumpling joint in the Raffles Center shopping complex, and gorge on wonderfully fresh shrimp dumplings and crab-stuffed “xiao long bao”, or Little Dragon Buns, a signature Shanghai dumpling that is served with a tart vinegar dipping sauce, and that bursts with a sweet broth the second you bite into it. Given that, you really should pop the whole thing in one bite, as you DO NOT want to lose a drop of the yummy broth. As to how the hot broth is magically encased in the delicate dumpling? The dumpling is stuffed with a solid gelatinized broth that melts when the dumpling is gently steamed. (This culinary tidbit brought to you courtesy of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations Shanghai eppie). I can’t wait to try the xiao long bao at Yu Yuan, a picturesque garden in Shanghai that houses a tea pavilion and dumpling restaurant that has served world leaders, including the Queen of England and Bill Clinton. If it’s good enough for them…well, then.

Wishing to avoid the crowds, I decide to make it back to the hotel early, and hop back onto the metro. It is still pretty packed, so I guess others had the same idea. I make it back to my hotel an hour later, and spend the rest of the evening doing homework (damn you Bad Cop teacher!) while enjoying campy made-for-TV movies on HBO Asia.