Shanghai Bests (According to Us)

So if you’re ever in Shanghai…

Best Neighborhood: The Former French Concession, hands down. Tree-lined streets; cafes, bars, and restaurants; home to the Avocado Lady and the U.S. Consulate. I admit, I’ve gone days (maybe weeks) without leaving the ‘hood.

Best Museum for Guests: Urban Planning. It provides a great overview of this ever-expanding, ever-changing metropolis.

Best Restaurant for Guests: Lost Heaven. It features dishes from the Yunnan Province of China, a melding of flavors from Thailand, Laos, Burma, and China. I never managed to cover this for Fatty Tuesday (you’ll have to forgive me; I was entertaining, after all), but the food is consistently good and the decor, exquisite.

Best Fine Dining: Madison’s, my favorite, probably because it brings me back home to SF with high quality ingredients, creative dishes, and an elegant rustic interior.

Best Local Spot for Spicy Chinese: Spicy Moment. Get the ribs, the cabbage, and the eggplant with green beans. You won’t be disappointed.

Best Soup Dumplings: Din Tai Fung, if you’re going fancy; Jia Jia Tang Boa, if you’re going local.

Best Mexican: El Coyota, currently a pop-up next door to the Avocado Lady. As good as Mexican gets in Shanghai.

Best BBQ: Stubb’s. As good as BBQ gets in Shanghai.

Best Crepurrito Lady: The one on Wulumuqi; though to be fair, I haven’t gone to any others.

Best Boba (aka bubble tea): These aren’t just for Asian-American teenagers. My go-to spot is outside the Jingan Temple subway station, across the street from the temple.

Best Expensive Grocer: Fields, although I recently tried Kate & Kimmi and would recommend it.

Best Cheap Grocer: The Avocado Lady (of course!) who supplies much more than avocadoes (other foreign necessities like cereal and spices; pasta and Pelligrino).

Best Bars: Senator Saloon (an authentic speakeasy, complete with a friendly American cop-turned-bartender) and El Coctel (if you're more the lounge type).

Best Shopping (other than faking it at the Fake Market or making it at the Fabric Market): Spin for ceramics. Our place is outfitted in it.

Best Massage: Skip the chains like Congen and Dragon Fly; go to Zen Massage on Wuyuan.

Best Bike Shop: Factory Five. Those guys are quickly becoming legends. We’ll be able to say, “we knew them when…”.

Best Yoga Studio: Yoga Garden, my little sanctuary, my home away from home. I will miss this community like crazy.

Japan Part III: Tokyo

We spent most of our time in Tokyo eating (as covered) and shopping (as planned).

I didn't buy any clothes, but it wasn't for lack of trying; I just wasn't interested in buying from an American designer or from a store that's found elsewhere in the world. A hard feat in today's globalized society. 

After passing by the H&Ms and the Zaras, and usually on the top floors of ginormous shopping malls, we found shops with all kinds of Japanese curiosities. These were my favorite. I could have spent hours browsing shelves filled with stationary and crafts, innovative trinkets and clever little products. All of a sudden, you find yourself in need of an old-fashioned fountain pen and inkwell, a leather-bound diary, and erasers the shape of sushi.

Here's what we did score:

From left to right:

• A "sold only in Japan" Casio g-shock mini, a fun, casual watch to wear around town 
• A traditional, hand-forged Japanese knife purchased at the Tsukiji Fish Market (with my new initials engraved, I might add!) 
• A canvas pen holder for my late dad's collection

...all resting on a blue-and-white-striped sushi platter.   

I loved all that Tokyo had to offer and quickly realized that if I were to live there, I'd probably have to be put on a budget (and a diet, for that matter).  

Some of my Favorite Things

I was very spoiled this Christmas and received some awesome gifts, several of which came from some of my Shanghai favorites.

The small/medium/large cubes are vases from Spin, a ceramics store located in an adjacent neighborhood whose creations are marvelously simple with a playful undertone (like: an arrangement of bowls that resemble a lotus flower; a series of tall, narrow vases that look as if they've just escaped from Alice's Wonderland; a pen holder that could be mistaken for a block of tofu). Every time I set foot in the store, I find something else to add to my wish list.

The soup dumplings t-shirt is Pinyin Press'. She's a graphic designer whose side project is creating cards, pillows, tote bags and t-shirts with words and images linked to everyday expat life here in China. There's the "C is for chuzuche" card ("chuzuche" is "taxi" in pinyin, a phonetic version of Chinese) and the "Z is for zixingche"("bicycle") tote. Cute idea, no?

Then there are my glittens from Muji. Have you heard of Muji? I discovered it a number of years ago while living in London and have sought it out ever since. It's a Japanese chain of retail stores chalk full of items that are super clean and simple, functional and innovative. I love it, and am thankful there's one that recently opened in SF for when I return to the States.

And private yoga classes at Yoga Garden, what has become my sanctuary in this crazy city of mine.

I guess I was on the good list last year.

Taobao-ing

If you read recent entries on Singles' Day, you know that most of the online shopping frenzy took place  on Alibaba's websites, namely Taobao, a C2C platform. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't until living in China; come to find it out, the term is just as commonplace as "Googleing," and it's a likely bookmark or "page most visited" on a majority of computers here.

It's eBay and Amazon and Etsy combined but bigger, offering a marketplace for small businesses and entrepreneurs to sell new and used goods at a fixed priced (auctions do exist, but they're few and far between). And believe me when I tell you that you can find anything on there -- or believe City Weekend (giant penis costume, anyone?).  I've also heard you can get loans through Taobao, or hire someone to redesign to your signature in case you don't like what you've done with yours.

It's a bit of challenge for non-Chinese readers to navigate the site, but don't worry, this too has turned into a profit. Tao-how acts as a middleman, but Mike and I prefer a combination of Google Translate, guessing, and help from his mom.