area of Shanghai last night. The Shangra-La hotels are a chain of about 70 hotels throughout Asia and the Middle East. One night’s stay in a standard room is about 1845 rmb/night. (Where I am staying the cost for my room is 258 rmb/night) [One rmb equals 0.138 Canadian, so my hotel room is about $35 cdn]
The Pudong area of Shanghai was quite a ways away from where I am staying in the Hungkou district and it took us at least an hour to get there. This is a similar route to the one I took from the airport, but the first time I’d seen it in the daylight
. When I arrived it was already getting dark. The skyscrapers are quite amazing here and there are hardly any buildings that are simply square. One that we passed by was so tall I was only able to get the top and the bottom of it, not the whole thing.
Someone I was with happened to have photographs of Dubai and I saw a seven star hotel there….the isnide walls are painted with gold and everything glitters. (A standard room
costs about 220,000 rmb/night there...not sure if I got this price right, but will ask again today.)We started off with drinks/refreshments, and I chose hot chocolate, which was served with a wonderful flair. They give you a tall glass with hot milk, then a selection of medium and
dark chocolate wafers that you add until you get the flavour you prefer.
Someone else had a rose flower tea that was very pretty. I think it had something else in it too.
Szechwan food is quite different from other kinds of food and is often quite spicy/hot, which was certainly the case for some foods last night. [Szechwan or sheng province is located in the Upper Yangtze Valley in the southwestern part of China. [Whenever I hear the word "Szechwan", I immediately think of the play I studied in university. The Good Person of Szechwan, also known as The Good Woman of Setzuan, was written by the German playwright, poet, theatre critic, and theorist Bertolt Brecht. The play was produced throughout Europe in the 1940s.]
Traditionally in China one starts a meal with the cold foods, so we had (left to right) cold pork (small slivers of ham), a cold vegetable dish (strips of Chinese root vegetables), cold sliced goose, rolled cucumber skins (quite delicious) and (shown in the second photo at the top) a black fungus and vegetable dish (not quite the same as mushrooms).
Then we were served snails with what we think was macadamia type nuts, chicken with red peppers (very hot, especially the seeds), cooked pea shoots, vegetarian biscuits, river fish, and a tofu dish. There were also Shanghai dumplings (not shown). The presentations of the dishes were quite impressive.
The finale for a Chinese meal is a platter of fruit: watermelon, another kind of melon kind of like a cross between a cantaloupe and honeydew
, and dragon fruit. It has seeds in it that look like a kiwi, but there the similarity ends. The flesh is white and the texture kind of like watermelon.
Otherwise known as pitaya (huǒ lóng guǒ (火龍果/火龙), the dragonfruit sets on the cactus-like tree 30-50 days after flowering.
The Dragon Fruit or Pitaya is a
stunningly 
beautiful fruit with an intense colour and shape, magnificent flowers and a delicious taste.
The skin of the dragon fruit is a thin rind. The skin is usually covered in scales, and the center of the fruit is made up of a red or white, sweet tasting pulp. The flowers of the dragon fruit plant only bloom at night and usually only live for one night. Pollination happens at this time to allow the fruit to emerge. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-dragon-fruit.htm and www.wikipedia.org/wiki/PitayaI am learning more all the time about the different foods here. I've discovered that the crackled eggs in the brown liquid are called Tea Eggs, and that the green plant with little red root tips is clover. Preserved or 1,000 eggs are done in formaldehyde and other weird things, so that I won't ever eat another one again! And it's true they do serve dog meat, especially in Guangzhou (also cats).
I've been advised as to where to buy food and where not to buy it, so I will be avoiding open market places unless I'm buying fruit that can be peeled (bananas and oranges), though I'm still going to be leery of them as well. I'll be sticking to one of three major outlets, like Carrefour (A French international company that sells almost anything you could ever want) and a couple of others, and buying only packaged food (such as lettuce in plastic bags).
The worst part about most places is that they use MSG on their food. I've had a few reactions to it (flushing and headaches) and there definitely was some on the food last night. I still have a headache! Apparently drinking coke somewhat counteracts the effects. Obviously I didn't drink enough of it last night, or not quick enough.
It will be good when I can cook for myself. I've learned that "mei yu weijing" (may you way jing) means no MSG, so I will also be saying that a lot.
On to another day of adventures....
