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Biking in Shanghai - last dayOct 5, 2009
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Sitting down on green grass for a picnic.
Nathan and Joani went straight to the lake shore to play.
A father and daughter moment of playing freesbie.
PICNIC AT CENTURY PARK
Last full day in Shanghai. We lived next to Century Park. We saw firework over Century Park during the mid-autumn moon festival. We been to the Century Park subway station. So it only makes sense that we go and see the park for ourselves -- on bikes, of course.
We prepared yummy tuna sandwiches and sushi rolls. And riding on our bikes, we headed to one of its park entrance. The park entrance fee was reasonable, about RMB 15 per person, but to our dismay, one can't ride bike inside the park! There are lots of bikes inside the park. But you have to rent them. You can't bring your own bike in.
So we parked our bikes outside and walked in like normal people in Shanghai. Quickly, we came upon a small lake with sandy shoreline surrounded by trees. My kids immediate went into the lake to wade in the water (it goes to show their adventurous upbringing) and looked at the small fish in there, so we found a place and first had lunch. The food was delicious, especially the Sushi roll. We all finished the rolls immediately, but saved some for Karen who was still waiting for the baby to wake up before joining us.
ULTIMATE FREESBIE
The park also has a rule that one can't fly a kite. So the next logical choice would be to play Ultimate Freesbie, which happens to be my friend's favorite sport at the moment. One thing we like about Century Park is that people are allowed to step in the grass area. For westerners that seems obvious. But having lived so long in China, we know that usually pedestrians are not allow on grass as they are something to be "admired" and not to be "used".
So we formed into two teams and started to have fun going back and forth, dropping the freesbie most of the time. Then a group men in their twenties keep watching us. Annie went up to them and started to chat with them. Apparently they are all roommates who recently graduated from university and they are having a roommate get together! That's quite a coincident because my friend in Shanghai, Chris, was also my roommate for four years.
We invited them to play with us and it was quite fun to have more people other than our young kids. We were running all over, sweating and just having fun with these local men. When the fun was over, we exchanged emails and promising them that we'll send them some pictures. One of the graduate gave me a telephone card with the map of the subway station on the back as a gift. I thought that was quite creative.
STROLLING AROUND
The Century Park is very big. It reminds me of the Central Park in New York. I believe it is roughly the same size, also with tall apartment buildings and skyscrapers surrounding the perimeter. There is a huge lake near the middle, which is also where the firework show was. There is also an amusement park area with rides.
I tried to stroll a circle around the park, but it was too big and I didn't have enough time. A bicycle is definitely the way to see this place. At the end, we all ended up just sitting on the grass and enjoying the ambiance of the place. We took some fun pictures and just had a relaxing time on our last day here.
STREET FOOD
For our last meal in Shanghai, our friend recommended that we should try the "bun" at Nanjing Xi Lu. We rode to the subway station and took the #2 subway line and exited at Nanjing Xi Lu Station. At first we saw in front of us a luxurious mall with lots of good Chinese and Western Restruants. But as we continue to walk across the middle of the mall and crossing a small street we saw hoards of people lining up in these "hole in the wall" types of restruant. I couldn't believe how long the line is.
Then we came upon the famous "water pan-fried bun" food stall, also a very long line. But we are amazed at the efficiency at how fast the workers are making the bun and frying them, serving them hot (very hot) straight out of the huge frying wok. The crust was thin and the filling juice, and meaty. It was very, very tasty, unlike what I had tasted before. It was very inexpensive at RMB4 for 6 small buns. Inside the food stall, it was very crowded but one can order soup and few other types of dishes to eat together with the buns.
While our friends hung out at Starbuck, we continued to go on more street food rampage. We waited in long lines for different juices, shakes, stinky tofu, and went to a resturant to have some dishes and crockpot rice bowls. Then the kids still can't forget the wonderful hurricane ice cream at Dairy Queen, so we had another bowl of it at the mall, too. After riding the subway back, we got our parked bike and rode back to where we were staying.
It was definitely a great way to end this Shanghai trip, as we left early next morning to catch the early plane at 8:45AM (from Century Park to Honeqiao Airport was about 30min w/o traffic and RMB45). Today there was a little of everything that we had experienced: biking, eating, nature, crowds, east Shanghai, west Shanghai, modern mall, and hole in the wall food stall.
thank the Lord for the good friends and the fun time as a family.
