Shanghai Quiet
Some friends and I gathered for teppanyaki last night. Teppanyaki is a Japanese style of grilling your food right in front of you while you watch the chef's cooking style. This was a charming restaurant scarily devoid of people, not because it wasn't good, but because most of the local population had returned to work from the long vacation yesterday. This place had the air conditioning just right, an exhaust fan that was not loud but did the job of removing the oil-smoke, and "old" Chinese brick walls. Teppanyaki is not something I eat very often because it is like a gastronomical exercise. You order whatever you like and you can eat as long as you like. It sounds kind of sick but over a couple of hours and matching meat with vegetables is actually very delicious. I'm partial to mushrooms. We had beef, lamb, ox tongue and some kind of clam; green pepper, two kinds of mushrooms, asparagus and eggplant. We kept reordering the green pepper and mushrooms. This was at Uminosache at 123 Nanyang Lu near Xikang Lu in Jing An area of Shanghai. I give this place a thumbs up. Now, 8 hours later, I don't feel sick; my stomach just feels, hmmm, busy. We did sit there and eat and talk for more than 2 hours.
What I loved though, later, were a couple of things. I loved the colored balls in the trees along Nanjing Lu. So playful! By the way it struck me as funny how Beijing Lu, the parallel street to the north of Nanjing Lu, is somewhat devoid of thriving business. That strikes me as odd how 'Nanjing' lu is flourishing here yet 'Beijing' lu is floundering.
I took the subway to my neighborhood where I had parked my bike. At a little past 10:00 p.m. my bike was fine, along with a thousand others' bikes, where I always park it. I rode home through the cool, comfortable air, to my building's complex 4 minutes away. I passed the guardsman who was dozing but he did prop up his head to see me pass by. What I noticed as I entered the complex where I live, where thousands of people live in mostly 6 story buildings, was the sound of the breeze and the crickets. Not any other sound. It's like 90% of the lights in apartments were already out. My own little country neck of the woods in Shanghai. I love it!
What I loved though, later, were a couple of things. I loved the colored balls in the trees along Nanjing Lu. So playful! By the way it struck me as funny how Beijing Lu, the parallel street to the north of Nanjing Lu, is somewhat devoid of thriving business. That strikes me as odd how 'Nanjing' lu is flourishing here yet 'Beijing' lu is floundering.
I took the subway to my neighborhood where I had parked my bike. At a little past 10:00 p.m. my bike was fine, along with a thousand others' bikes, where I always park it. I rode home through the cool, comfortable air, to my building's complex 4 minutes away. I passed the guardsman who was dozing but he did prop up his head to see me pass by. What I noticed as I entered the complex where I live, where thousands of people live in mostly 6 story buildings, was the sound of the breeze and the crickets. Not any other sound. It's like 90% of the lights in apartments were already out. My own little country neck of the woods in Shanghai. I love it!
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