Shanghai 日记 (diaries) - Part 2 - The one with memories & mala

Been a while, huh? This probably will be the penultimate part, or maybe even the last one.

Tomorrow will be the last working day for us (me & two colleagues - let's call them R & K) in China. After that, we pack bags to go back to the States. (does it feel like going back home? R, who's also from India - & I were discussing the other day about how time changes the way you feel about a place.)

Going back two weeks to after we landed, as part of our work here, we went to visit SJTU the day after - Shanghai Jiao Tang University - apparently one of the best universities in the country - it did look like that - huge campus, nice buildings spread apart in the lush greens in the suburbs of the city. Felt a bit nostalgic looking at the university atmosphere - damn, will be 10 years since I started college - time doesn't fly, it probably takes Musk's hyperloop.

Lunch that day was McD - can't go wrong, no? Well, I got fries. Can't go wrong.
R & K got chicken burgers.
We got our food. and guess what: the bun was BLACK! What?!
Yeah, apparently they add squid ink to the bun to colorize it. (Why would you do that? Why?) Look at this for any further deets.

Anyway, I was still super hungry after dowing a medium fries. (ugh - apparently those suckers count to 700 cals already - ugh) A colleague took me out to hunt some food and we found this:


Its kinda like a sweet grapefruit - very very staple in China.

After such an erratic lunch, we finished up our work, said our byebyes to SJTU and headed out to the countryside outside the university.

It felt very India like - bikes on the roads, chaos everywhere. The only major differences being that most bikes are electric, I think I haven't seen any gas/petrol based bike here. Also, the honking is minimal - need based - unlike in my country where honk represents your presence on the road, quite literally.

Now we get to the best part of the day - probably the whole trip infact. MALA. Damn.
Mala is a type of Chinese sauce used in hotpots/dry pots to grease veggies, meats, etc. It's legendary. Please go try some mala if its available where you are right NOW. You are welcome.

And this is the genius that served us our mala dry pots.

A very tiny but yum place.

We headed over to do the touristy things after. Went to the "Bund" to see the famous Shanghai tower - the second tallest building in the world, next to the Burj.

On one side is the Shangri-la (left), on the other is the Shanghai tower (right). Couldn't entirely guage their enormity because of the bright/distracting lights. We thought we'd go over again during the day and see if we can get a better view.

Did some shopping around for a bit on Nanjing Road - a very chinese international shopping street - not that intriguing.

Well, I knew I was fighting a lost battle when I started writing this post and it turns out I was right. The VPN is getting back at me real hard.
I'll leave it here for now and get back with another post about adventures in Suzhou, tianzefang, and others.

Ni Hao? [This is a Chinese greeting in person - an equivalent of Hello. It literally translates to "you good?" Also, the greeting on phone is different - its "Wei" - do not ask me why]

Xi Xie, Wan Shang Hao! (first post's signature was atrocious, lol - getting better at it yo!) Means "Thank you, Good evening!"

K Bye,
Shamp

Shanghai 日记 (diaries) - Part 1

Thanks to my new job, I've been traveling. First to the east coast, which I'm not sure why I didn't blog about - was a very interesting 5 week trip - for being in the east for the first time.

Now, across Pacific in Shanghai.

Even before I talk about Shanghai, the most intriguing part is the prep before travel. Lot of people talking lots of things - some know it, some heard it, some assume - but anyway, I was warned, especially as a vegetarian. So the most important part of my packing was:

And the other was VPN. Damn, nothing works in China - google, Facebook, or ANY thing else. We had to go around and do some hacks to figure something out - download WeChat, setup family on that, etc.

Coming back to Oct 22nd 4:20 PM, we set out on our big journey and after a dueling 13 hour United flight, finally landed in one of the biggest cities in the world.

Got a taxi from the airport. One striking thing is how the drivers have a thick plastic and transparent shield around them. It probably does make sense if you think about it.

So we reached pretty late, around 12:30 AM and thought we were too tired to let jet lag get to us. 

I woke up to find out that I slept for an hour. Drag. And slept again.

The hotel we were put up at is a pretty international friendly one. We got good breakfast, worked out a bit in the fitness center, and headed out for a first day in Shanghai office.

It was our team lunch day! So my teammates being so nice as they are took us to The Buddha Tree, a vegetarian restaurant! (WTH, yes, these exist in CN)

GREAT food - all the myths busted. 

I loved the fried chicken equivalent. YUM.

The other interesting part of lunch were the drinks - 

I loved the one on the left - its called 'red bayberry' juice. the right is the passion fruit + something else - meh. But the left one was amazing. A teammate told me its an anyday solution to stomach/bowel problems. :D

Went back to work, fighting sleep. Oh, and got boba on the way! Well basically got lemon green tea with coconut and grass jelly. The tea had a pretty strong and intense taste here - goood.

In the evening, we were back out to feed our stomachs. We went to this place called 'cabin in the woods'.

The last photo is about the Chinese baijiu (literally meaning White (clear) alcohol). Its a 52% - YEAH. These guys are pretty strong and can stomach it pretty well.

The 3 sips I had were enough to get me go LA LA.

Oh, and the other interesting thing I saw one of my teammates use is a massage hammer. Damn that thing is sooo gooood for your back. (one souvenir down and I know for who too. ;) )

                                  

Here's the link incase: http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/custom-wooden-massager-natural-wood-massager_60608000970.html

That's probably enough for day1.

Stay tuned for more!

Si Sie, Wine Shang Haoooooo

Shamp

Loss

Your love.
Your strong, secure hug.
Your assurance.
Your love.

My chance to have held you
My chance to have you see me grow
My chance to have you around
My chance to make you proud
My best friend
My soulmate
My strength
My faith
My world

And

You, Dad.
Forever.

Loss can not be described. Its too much to even be felt all at once. It's felt in stages, in moments.