From: Terence
Sent: 06/04/2010 02:17 PM ZE8
To: Colin
Subject: The scene
A japanese restaurant in a shopping mall.

A man with a baseball cap is berating the poor waitress who had the termerity to tell him he couldn’t smoke.

He is wearing an Ed Hardy shirt, versace like shades and carrying a large European carry all.

He sits down, studies the menu, and tries to call a waitress over.

Snapping his fingers loudly) “??Lai! ” he exclaims.

I drink my Coke in the corner and ask for the fa piao.

From: Terence
To: Colin
Date: 06/04/2010 02:23 PM
Subject: Re: The scene

Oh, they’ve ordered sake for lunch.

His companions have arrived, one, a portly middle aged man with a brush cut straight out of the PLA recruiting manual and a toothpick jammed into the corner of his mouth, the other, a female of indeterminate age, slightly pigeon toed, un certain of her walk on plastic clear heels.

She is screaming into a mobile phone.

Attractive in the classical sense, a long legged beauty, she makes you think of the old adage “no matter how good looking, someone, somewhere is tired of dealing with her.”

I recognize this comment as it applies to me right now in this moment.

it’s a phat sh for beijing!

beijing hao chi

because of the largesse of some friends working at the usa pavilion at the shanghai world expo, we were treated to 4th rows seats to see jazz legends dee dee bridgewater and HERBIE HANCOCK play at the expo performing arts stage last friday, not only that, but it was free. FREE!

suffice to say, sharing a small, intimate concert venue with such esteemed -jazz- musical legends is beyond my ability to translate onto a blog post, but it was truly a special evening.

See the rest of my photos here

there’s plenty of hiking companies who will take you out there, but with a little bit of work and some chinese ability, you don’t need to spend the 100 USD that some companies are charging.

how we did it:

1. late night bus to jixi. jixi is the hometown of hu jintao – and a four hour bus ride from shanghai which costs about 120 rmb. the buses left from a private station near the zhongshan north road station on line 1.

2. across the street from the long distance bus station in jixi – there is a village level bus station – just ask around for buses vans headed towards the hui hang gu dao/ancient road. should cost around 6 rmb.

3. from there follow the handpainted signs towards the ancient road. its fairly well signposted with one turn up the valley which we almost missed and lots of food, drinks and a few guesthouses along the way. and some spectacular views – especially for being a short weekend trip from shanghai.

4. by the end of your hike you can head to some county level seats – we just booked a mini bus all the way back to hangzhou and then some of us came directly back to shanghai that night.

here’s the photos:

some ingenious chinese programmers have now come up with youtubecn – which is a shanzai version of youtube. we’ve talked around shanzai around here before – here’s a shanzai website.

the address is youtubecn -dot – com

have fun for the few days its up. it has most of the contest of youtube as far as i can see.

for example here’s a link to “pants on the ground”

(h/t to my co-worker craig for the tip)

with the recent opening of pho 26 on wujiang road, i think there’s a new solution for all of us pho deprived masses in shanghai.

pho 26, opened opposite the yet-to-be-opened krispy kreme is, at least to my taste, the best and most authentic pho place open yet in shanghai.

first we started with some deep fried spring rolls. super flavorful, crispy skin and a little bit of spice even. done very well. in fact, i’m kind of craving another order right now.

then the pho. let’s go over all the ways pho can fail – meat, broth, noodles. well, pho 26 hits all the right notes. the meat is high quality – i ordered the pho 26 special (or in chinese, the “train engine” special) which came with rare beef, cooked beef, beef balls, tripe and tendon. the portions were ample and each piece was quite good. the broth – it was the best part of the bowl. tasty, with enough meaty flavor. the noodles were firm with a pleasant texture and slurped up nicely.

so, it’s not an entirely positive review. for one, although i don’t want to sound like a cheap english teacher, 34 rmb for a bowl of pho is a bit dear – especially when in the us, $5 would get you a bowl twice as big, and in vietnam itself, pho is less than $1 us. also, they were very light on the pho preparation materials – the hot sauce, plum sauce, basil and extra bean sprouts just were not served and the waitresses seemed clueless to what we were referring to.

but the menu looked to have a good variety of vietnamese food, including vermicelli and rice plates. as much as i loved rice plates when i was in saigon last month, com was my favorite dish, so i’ll definitely be back to try out the rest of the menu.

pho 26
wujiang lu number 178, 2nd floor
phone: 021-52286597

price: about 50 rmb per person for lunch/dinner