Hangzhao – Escape from Shanghai

Saturday morning, I joined a colleague from Boston on an impromptu daytrip out to Hangzhao, a pretty city on a lake about 1.5 hours on the high speed train outside Shanghai. Getting down to the hotel lobby 20 minutes after his text, we raced to Shanghai South station. At the station, we faced a ridiculous line that made sure we missed our train. Given the options of the 12:10 PM slow train (standing only) and the 1 PM fast train, we made the somewhat dubious call of taking the earlier train. This ensured that we would spend the next three hours in stolen seats (we found two after being kicked out of multiple pre-reserved ones) watching the countryside go by at various speeds (read: sat in one place for an hour) and snacking on random Chinese junk food – peanuts, dried plum things, and squash seeds.

Finally arriving in Hangzhao, we picked up our guide for the day, a recent college grad teaching English there who my colleague had met on the plane ride over (having gone to the same college as my sister, he said he’d heard of her – Baby B., what HAVE you been up to?). The city is quite large (6M people) and under construction – the ride in from the city was full of half complete skyscrapers. Having had our fill of big buildings in Shanghai, we decided to head straight for the lake and the Buddhist temples surrounding it.

Masses of people and closed roads foiled our easy getaway. Apparently it was festival weekend in Hangzhao. The city had bought a ton of fireworks for the 60^th anniversary, but had been forced to move the display date after the government decreed only Beijing could have a fireworks display on China's birthday. As a result, the normally bucolic lake setting – a truly beautiful, misty expanse with the city on one side stretching out to green, temple-dotted mountains, was thronged with holidaying Chinese. Our attempts to get out to the island in the middle of the lake came to naught, as did our attempts to climb a hill for a great photo-op. Instead, we wandered through back alleys, munching on street corn-on-the-cob and enjoying the feeling of being out of the city and the ex-pat bubble.

After we had our fill of strolling past street meat sellers and secluded stone villas, we hopped on the last bus up to Linyin (sp?) temple, a pretty oasis of paved paths, temple buildings, and souvenoir shops up in the mountain. Of course, like everything else in Hangzhao that day, it closed early, so we only had time to snap the obligatory shot outside the closing gate (literally). Still, it was beautiful and zen (yes, I know, wrong religion) to walk among the quiet trees and laugh at the ridiculous Chinglish of the signs (Reak of the Far Away Place was one highlight).

Given our difficullty in getting around, our host had the foresight to arrange a “guy with a van” to pick us up and drive us to Green Tea House, a rambling, half-outdoors restaurant complex with some of the best food I’ve had here to date. We feasted on barbequed, cumin-dusted mutton and chicken, salted greens and chili potatoes, washed down with lemonade and cold beer, and followed by peanut butter ice cream. Then back into our van to take a super-secret James Bond-esque path through the backroads to get close to the lake for some spectacular fireworks.

Full confession – I am not a huge fireworks fan. It’s all very pretty, but its kinda like Ballet for me – I don’t know enough to appreciate the technicality and I get bored if there are no words in a story. Still, the experience of running through thousands of Chinese, getting tickets to the special viewing area (randomly, for free) and watching millions worth of fireworks blow up into smiley faces, hearts and all sorts of colored sparks, was a pretty serious reminder of how cool unplanned travel can be.

Pretending to be chic in Shanghai

In terms of fun experiences, my week in Brussels was kind of a bust. The first few days we struggled to find decent food that didn’t involve too much time wandering on wet cobblestone. With the exception of one notable meal of moules frites, the city wasn’t living up to its culinary reputation. And then, my weekend of not feeling my best, in which the worse things that I could possibly eat were fried things (frites) sweet things ( waffles and chocolate) and alcohol (beer), effectively prevented me from taking advantage of the city. Although I did bring lots of chocolate with me to live in my hotel mini bar…

Shanghai has been completely different, and way too much fun for work (don’t tell PD). We’ve been working hard and getting a lot done, but have had lots of time to explore. I’m staying in the Westin on the Bund, the very western area on the banks of the river in Puxi, and working in Xintiandi, an even more Western area of the city, filled with office buildings and malls and artificial lakes. Having a quick lunch of paninis from a French bakery on a marble patio at a table we commandeered from the Starbucks…not very Chinese.

Quick sandwiches aside, the food has been very good. I’m loving Din Tai Fung, the upscale Taiwanese dim sum chain that specializes in soup dumplings, as well as all the other random Chinese places where we order by pointing – stand outs have been all the fresh fish and stir-fried veggies, and this cool kumquat tea (the tea in general is super yummy and MUCH better than the coffee).

The city itself has a great feel – it’s like New York but 1.5x the size and scale. The skyscrapers tower over the pristine white stone of the business and tourist districts. The skyline, seen from the bar at the Park Hyatt on the 91^st floor of one of the tallest buildings in the world, or from the roof deck of THE expat bar, Bar Rouge, is one of the most breathtaking I’ve ever seen – overlooking the river, it’s as if New York, Paris, Chicago and Disneyworld had a baby that is now twice the size of it’s parents and stays up past its bedtime (and mine!).

Shanghai is also very easy to navigate, even without any knowledge of Chinese beyond “ni hao” and “xiexie.” The cabs are super cheap, and you just give the cabbies a piece of paper with your desired address in characters, or call the “magic number”, a call center set up to translate between drivers and passengers in advance of Expo 2010. According to some folks we met, the magic number also helps with things as varied as dry cleaning and bar recommendations…

It’s also a great place to be an expat – prices are not as cheap as expected if you go to the more western places (food/cabs on par with Nairobi, and drinks on par with Boston), but being foreign here guarantees you automatic admission to the club. You’re twice as cool here as you would be where you are from, so at least you feel really chic while paying $10 for a cocktail.

This weekend we got a chance to explore the city, going to Chabad Friday night and then out to a jazz club in the French Concession and a dance club on the Bund. Saturday we went wandering through an art district, in and out of little shops selling everything from communist propaganda to eco-friendly home goods. The highlight of this was a three story “Art supermarket” with tons of small artist studios selling work ranging from the faux-impressionist to the genuinely interesting. Saturday night was the expat bar scene…If New York men wear “hunting blazers” and Boston bros party in “stripey shirts,” the Shanghai signature look is the extra unbuttoned button on the shirt…eeek.

Sunday was the fabric market and the dizzying array of custom-made clothes (getting a blazer and a shirt, think I’m going to add 1-2 coats, a suit, and more shirts). More online research will need to be done here – all the cashmere and wool starts to feel the same after awhile. Then massages to round out a tiring weekend and get us ready for the work week ahead…

Blogging from Brussels...

I stopped blogging about two weeks before I left Kenya, somewhat out of laziness and somewhat out of fatigue. I left out the descriptions of “Gucci” camping in the Mara, lazy beach walks and tribal cats in Lamu and field visits to farmers and processing plants (complete with white coats and lunch lady hats). The past month, I’ve found adjusting back to life in the US surprisingly harder than I expected – the big, crowded US with loud masses can be quite jarring after the dirt sidewalks, low buildings and relatively empty malls of Nairobi. Standing under the big board at the LIRR terminal in Penn Station, it was clear I wasn’t in Africa any more.

But I have enjoyed seeing my friends and family, settling back into my apartment and my big new room, and doing all my favorite fall in New England activities. Cheese at Formaggio, walking up and down Newbury street, dancing at Phoenix landing - all things I missed.

So of course, having settled back into a routine, I jumped at the chance to leave again (apparently I like jet lag?). Today finds me in Brussels, already well aware of the perks of working for the Firm versus the NGO (Lufthansa lounge showers in Frankfurt – lifesaving). Hopefully I’ll get to explore beyond the cab and client this weekend – we’re off to a good start on the list of amusing travel stories, since my cab got stuck beyond a parade of tractors protesting something this morning. Disadvantages of being the capital of Europe…