Hello Friday… so good to see you.

I have been in Shanghai for one week now.  Overall, the week has been great.  My Chinese is coming along (I actually used it today on the phone at work) and I am getting around the city- albeit on foot and tourist tunnels.  I have yet to brave the metro.

Took a different route to work today- was walking along and I started to see people with little baggies of food and what looked like to be my favorite Shanghai street food – scallion pancakes!  I had been craving one since I got back and now I was hoping to find the source of those tasty little fried yumminess.  I learned my last time in Shanghai in order to get the good stuff, look for the lines.  People lined up usually means the best grub.  I cross a street and there was a decent line in front of a stall.  I looked.  There they were!  The woman serving them up was slicing them up with a big arse cleaver and weighing the pieces (odd, last time I remember just buying one) but I got in line and waited.. she got to me and kinda made a motion to cut a slice for me… I said “Da yi dian”  ‘a bit bigger’ and she cut it, weighed it, bagged it and off I went. Happy as a lark.  Fridays used to be ‘yummy bagel’ day in SD, a bagel with cream cheese, tomatoes, cukes and onions topped with salt and pepper,  before out favorite deli closed down….. and now Fridays will be ‘cong you bing’- or pan-fried scallion cake day.   I also was tempted by another crowded stall that had a ton of yummy looking treats and I snagged a sesame coated fried rice flour balls with some red bean paste inside along with a stuffed cake with pork and scallions… I ate that bad boy as I walked the rest of the way to work. Yum. Once I got home I consulted my new fav book “Not Just Good Food Guide – Shanghai” for what other tasty treats I might be able to grab at the street vendors… I may have dog-eared a page or two.

Tomorrow, after a longish early AM run along the Bund (gotta run off all the fried yumminess I have been scarfing down) I am going to venture over to the Old Town area, YuYuan Gardens, and attempt to find the steamed pork dumplings, or xiao long bao vendor. ….. where the wait can be over an hour to get these tasty little buggers.  Then, if I am feeling up for it, I will meet up with some co workers for the Drunken Dragon pub crawl….. yeah.   A bar crawl in Shanghai with a ton of other expats.  I also emailed the hash house harrier (HHH) groups here in Shanghai to get some more information.  If you don’t know who they are- they are a drinking club with a running problem.  My running buddy Jessica is a hasher and man, it sounds like a blast.  A trail run set by a fellow hasher (called a hare) with beer stops along the route, followed by more beer at the finish… hmmm.. sounds like a good way to get to know other runners here in Shanghai, no?

I will bring my camera on Monday to take some pics of the street vendors and the goodies, along with what I see on my way to work…..