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