Crowd in Golden Street
I was curious. I looked out of the window of my 17th floor flat and saw that a crowd had gathered in Golden Street (on the right hand side of the main road, Gubei Lu). It hadn’t dispersed for several hours and on closer inspection I could see that tents and canopies had been erected, so I thought I’d better go down and have look. It turned out to be a pet market organised by a local charity whereby you can turn up and adopt a pet. The animals, mainly toy dogs and cats, but there was the odd rabbit, were marked out by orange
Orange bandanas for the bigger animals
Orange coated animal to adopt
coats or bandanas and there seemed to be quite a bit of discussion going on between what were possibly the current owners or volunteers from the charity and the prospective adoptive owners, which was encouraging. I couldn’t but help think about the two Burmese cats we have left behind in the UK which are being looked after by our housesitters. It would be lovely to have had them out here, but although the female cat would probably have been fine cooped up in the apartment, her brother would have been intolerable. He has to be out and about roaming, or taking up his squatters rights in any number of our neighbours’ houses, but especially in Tony and Janet’s house or indeed in her father’s. Our loyal dalmatian, Tessa, died a month after we moved into Fordwich, 18 month’s ago, for which I’m thankful, as it would have been impossible to leave her behind or to bring her out to China. It makes me sad not to have our animals with us, but I resisted the temptation of acquiring a Chinese version and walked on.
Richard at the Chinese Cooking Workshop
Shrimp Dumplings
Xiaolongbao
Whilst all this was going on Richard was at the same cookery school that I had been to, so I hopped on the metro and went to find him. He had been learning to make Shrimp Dumplings which have a difficult-to-make transparent wrapper (it is the potato flour in the flour mix which makes the dough transparent apparently) and Red Bean Paste Sweet Soup. He also managed to make a couple of xiaolongboa whilst gate-crashing the Japanese cooking party on the next door table at the school.
Safe and Green
After devouring what he had made we had a little walk around that area of the Old French Concession and then went for coffee at Green and Safe a couple of doors down from the Cookery School. The place was buzzing with Chinese and Westerners alike and sold piles of salads for eating on the premises as well as groceries, bread and vegetables from their shop. I think I might come back here again sometime for a midweek cup of coffee and do some writing in the coffee shop a la JK Rowling.
Soong Qingling’s Childhood Home
From there we walked past the former childhood home of Soong Qingling (Madam Sun Yat-sen), crossed the road and into The Shanghai Brewery for a pint. They brew the beer on the premises in big vats in the bar and have TV screens showing either rugby or football matches. So you pick your game and then choose your seat, if it’s the games you’ve come to watch. The beer was OK – I had a lager-style beer and Richard a stout (not as good as the beer he makes himself at home, so
The Shanghai Brewery
the master home brewer said), but it was good enough for a late Sunday afternoon in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Brewery’s lager and stout
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