Back in Shanghai
May. 23rd, 2010 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ximenThis afternoon I arrived in Shanghai. After finding my hostel and dropping off my bags, I met up with El again to go book shopping. I found the book I was looking for, the Wang Li dictionary, and also splurged on a book I want to give a friend. I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to find the Wang Li, but I was hopeful when El and I spotted the "Shanghai Ancient Bookstore," which had a lot of history and reference books. And indeed, when I asked the somewhat apathetic bookstore employee if they had the Wang Li, she took two steps forward and handed me one off a stack without blinking.
After shopping around for books, El and I went to her aunt's, where we had dried plums and chocolate and soda pushed on us. Then El's dad took us all out to dinner, which was an experience. He ordered 11 dishes, so I'm already having trouble recounting them all. Some of the ones I do remember are the glass noodles with various kinds of seafood; the abalone with ginger, garlic, and green onion shoots; the beef with peppers and sesame and the fried eggplant in a sweet-and-sour sauce. The most memorable of all was the flaming chicken, which came to us already cooked and propped up on some sort of stick. Then the waitress set the alcohol under the chicken ablaze, then poured alcohol on the chicken and blowtorched that, too. As if an entire flaming chicken was not enough, the flames then set off the sparklers placed on either side, sending sparks shooting everywhere and making me scoot away backwards before I could catch fire too. Everything was delicious, and I am now too full to do much more than stagger around and go to bed. So I think I will go to bed.
Tomorrow I leave Shanghai. I'm a little sad-- there's more things I wanted to see and eat and do. But it's time to go home, and I'm okay with that.
After shopping around for books, El and I went to her aunt's, where we had dried plums and chocolate and soda pushed on us. Then El's dad took us all out to dinner, which was an experience. He ordered 11 dishes, so I'm already having trouble recounting them all. Some of the ones I do remember are the glass noodles with various kinds of seafood; the abalone with ginger, garlic, and green onion shoots; the beef with peppers and sesame and the fried eggplant in a sweet-and-sour sauce. The most memorable of all was the flaming chicken, which came to us already cooked and propped up on some sort of stick. Then the waitress set the alcohol under the chicken ablaze, then poured alcohol on the chicken and blowtorched that, too. As if an entire flaming chicken was not enough, the flames then set off the sparklers placed on either side, sending sparks shooting everywhere and making me scoot away backwards before I could catch fire too. Everything was delicious, and I am now too full to do much more than stagger around and go to bed. So I think I will go to bed.
Tomorrow I leave Shanghai. I'm a little sad-- there's more things I wanted to see and eat and do. But it's time to go home, and I'm okay with that.