Simply Thai
It was a long drawn out affair, and all the better for it. We started off the night before with a meal at a Thai restaurant on the “foreigner’s street” off Hong Mei Lu. The visiting people from Richard’s work always seem to end up here when they eat out. Over the coming months we shall be doing our best to take them away from this haunt of western food or western-familiar foods such as Thai, and onto the more interesting asian food that you can get in Shanghai, but given the choice this is where they all seem to gravitate and so where we end up a number of times. We were meeting Anne, a technical director, Norwegian by birth, but who has lived in the UK for many, many years. It was a very enjoyable evening with sate sticks for starters (which arrived after everything else), a Thai red curry, a Thai green curry (this one kept warm over a little burner, but not the other, for some reason), a plate of green vegetables and chicken with Thai Basil together with a couple of individual bowls of rice. The conversation ranged from Norwegian silver dessert spoons from Bergen (which is Richard’s father’s current silversmithing project) to how few words are translated at work to cover a whole argument that goes on in Chinese. The next morning Richard was picked up from home early as he was off to one of their factories for the day and I had the day to myself, which I spent writing for most of the time. In the evening, because we were out for a lot over the weekend we just watched a video whilst sipping some Japanese plum wine and munching on some rather too hot Wasabi peas – so hot that your sinuses object to the pain. I’d had some lovely messages throughout the day from friends over the internet and a couple of presents, one online and one I’d been given to bring out with me to open from Ulrika, so that was nice.
Tibetan Necklace
The following morning we went out to try and find a birthday present for me from Richard, so we headed off to Tianzifang where we had seen some nice things a couple of weeks after we had arrived in China. Needless to say we had to buy some lunch first – chilli bread and a spring onion wrap to share before we dived into the alleyways that make up the area. We were heading for a shop run by a Tibetan lady who brings items from Tibet over to Shanghai, as well as striking amber necklaces from Poland, colourful felt slippers and other delightful things. After much deliberation I settled for a green turquoise Tibetan necklace, which I wore when we went out to dinner that evening. My necklace is modern, but they did have some antique turquoise for sale and we talked to the lady about the Tibetan jewellery. It is worn once a year in August when everyone gathers for the Yushu Horse Festival – every year that is except last year, when it was cancelled by the government because of political issues. She said that we should try and go – we would have to fly to Chengdu (where we went for a weekend with Rozy two years ago and visited the huge Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Centre) and from there we would then get a connecting 45 minute flight into Tibet.
My scarf birthday present
Wedding Dress and Converse boots
After this we came back home via a relaxing cup of tea in our local park – Richard hadn’t visited it before – and a bout of people watching including three wedding parties marching into the park to have their photos taken. One bride was wearing bright red high-heeled Devil Wears Prada shoes under her white wedding dress, the second had on a pair of black and white Converse baseball boots and although I couldn’t see the third bride’s shoes she too was in a white wedding dress and her groom and 3 male friends were in dark suits whilst the rest of the wedding party were in jeans.
Luccio’s Restaurant
That evening we were due to meet a contact of Richard’s through work, Jae and his wife Julie. They have been living in Shanghai for three years, having come over from California. Both have parents who left what became North Korea and they were urging us that we should go and visit North Korea and then go to the South to fully understand the contrast. It was obvious and sad, that neither of them, as Koreans, would be able to do that. Whilst Jae works in the food industry, Julie is heavily involved in Chinese art and lectures at Jingtao University. They gave us a list of organisations which we could join where we could meet other ex-pats and also to understand Shanghai’s and China’s burgeoning art scene. We met them at Luccio’s in the Old French Concession – not a misspelling it is Italian for pike – and had an excellent meal of mixed fish and meat for starters, followed by clam linguine, then a beautiful rare steak and followed by mini cheesecake and hazelnut cake. The red wine, Lara IGT- a blend of Merlot and Syrah from the Montescudaio area in Tuscany was excellent. It is an Italian restaurant in Shanghai owned and run by an Englishman.
Art Deco Chandelier
Because we had all these work related meals going on we decided to celebrate my birthday on Sunday with brunch at M on The Bund – a cheaper way to experience one of the best places in town. The restaurant is on the top floor of an Art Deco building on the Bund, with gorgeous period fittings, and a terrace that looks out over to the Pudong Financial District with its skyscrapers and up the Bund itself with the 1930s equivalent and we were lucky enough to
The view of the Pudong
View up The Bund
have hot enough weather to have a table outside. We purposely hadn’t had breakfast, which was just as well, as by the time we had finished I thought that that should be it for the rest of the day.
Richard and his Champagne Cocktail
Starters octopus and salad
We started with drinks – Richard had a champagne cocktail and I had a Kir and then for the first course he had octopus on polenta whilst I had a salad with heirloom tomatoes. This was followed by fish and chips for his nibs, whilst I had the full English breakfast, consisting of
Fish and Chips
Full English Breakfast
a lump of belly pork, bacon, a thin steak, a sausage, a grilled tomato, mashed potato and a fried egg. When their signature dessert of Pavlova arrived all Richard could manage to say was “Bloody Hell”. I was speechless.
Pavlova
Smiling but Speechless
I’m beginning to feel that on one of these days out in Shanghai I’m going to bump into that nice Mr. Riley, living his extraordinary life.
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