Seafood Paradise - Tongchuan Road

Seafood, all the seafood in every type and variety that you can imagine, all fresh, swimming, located here in a seafood market in Shanghai. Scallops, razor clams, crabs, oysters, clams, little abalones, fish - whatever kind. In little glass tanks located down the market.

There are rows and rows of shops displaying various types of seafood along Tongchuan road, in the day, it is a seafood market. In the night, there are various restaurants serving up yummy seafood. Customers can go down to the streets to shop for seafood, bring it up for the restaurant to cook and serve, at their own discretion.




There was seafood, there was baijiu. Happy Days !





For another fellow Singaporean, I would recommend the following seafood in Shanghai such as the pissing prawns (椒盐赖尿虾), scallops (扇贝), little abalone (小鲍鱼), the fish such as (多宝鱼). And of course, good seafood should go with good baijiu. I note the disgust on your face right now but baijiu is for the bold. When I say bold, baijiu tastes like industrial alcohol in tiny sips and in larger mouthfuls, the full aroma and fragrance of the baijiu can only be truly experienced. The hype over its high alcohol content is just hype, put baijiu next to a normal bottle of whiskey and it is comparatively the same.

Yes, you're looking at a converted Baijiu fan.

新九龙塘(兰溪路店)
地址: 普陀区兰溪路419号(近铜川路)
电话: 021-52668868 52668878

Eating at Southern Barbarian

There is a eatery that I wanted to try, serving up Yunnan food here in Shanghai. It was always highly publicized in one of the lifestyle magazines here. So I just had to try it !


Ordered a Belgian raspberry beer and fried goat cheese as a starter


Over the Bridge Noodles.

The food was .................... SO DISAPPOINTING after all the hype. Expectations and reality are on two different planes. Food was decent, not fantastic, what I appreciated was the fantastic array of beers available. Belgium beer in particular. Kudos to them, they should have opened a bar instead.

Southern Barbarian
Area E, 2/F Ju'Roshine Life Arts Space
56 Maoming Nan Lu
茂名南路56号/ 进贤路169号

Bowled Over

Decided to go for a game of bowling spontaneously after dinner with my friends. We were bored, we were stuffed and we wanted to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING.

So off we went to play bowling, after playing 4 games, I couldn't feel my arm or thighs anymore. One of my friends played a truly mindblowing game during the last round. Mind you, he doesn't bowl regularly, he didn't use his own ball or gear. HE JUST DID IT.

Presenting to you..

Charles, 6 strikes in a row, 1 spare, in the same game.



Beer, Ciggies, good friends just hanging out. It was a good farewell to Charles in his last night in Shanghai before leaving tomorrow.

Don't Trust the Lonely Planet

After using my faithful Lonely Planet for Italy and China for the past year, you kind of understand that the terms "must-see" is all encompassing and vague, kind of like the concept of God. Uh-huh

In my last couple of days in Shanghai, I decided to make the trip that I have put off for so long which was to visit one of the "must-see" of Shanghai from my Lonely Planet, the Shanghai Museum.


Fantastic looking building, no entrance fees. Free !


Really boring exhibit categories.. ( where are all the gems and jewelery? )

I didn't manage to stay long in the museum. The ones that I visited in Nanjing and Xian were much more superior, though the Shanghai Museum had clearly labeled exhibits and much appreciated English descriptions.

Some key items that I did like was

The Stone Lions Outside


The Statues ..


The ceramics & pottery

The Shanghai Museum isn't that terrible, a bit boring for me, but it is well-managed and unlike some of the other museums that I have been to, they bothered offering audio guides in various languages. Since the museum is free, do drop by if you are ever in the Nanjing road area for a quick trip. You might find something that you like.

Shanghai Museum
Address: Shanghai, Peoples Great Road, #201
Telephone: 86-21-63723500
Official Website: http://www.shanghaimuseum.net

Where is the Real China ?

"Shanghai ? People would tell me 'No..no..no.. Shanghai is not the real China.' Beijing ? 'No..no..no.. Beijing is not the real China.' Neither is Hangzhou, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Xian. After being in China for 10 years, I still don't know where the real China is" - Professor in Marketing Class

Coming to Shanghai for my MBA program, of course, I was one of those people here in search of the elusive "real China". After traveling to Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Xian, Hohhot, Nanjing, I was just being a tourist and did not manage to see the "real China".

I remembered when I first arrived, one of my classmates told me that only a true Chinese could understand Feng Xiaogang's works fully. Almost immediately, I started to hunt high and low for his movies. I appreciate the dry humor in his movies and in fact, he is one of my favorite directors now. Yet, there is always a nagging thought at the back of my mind when I watch one of his movies, "Was I supposed to have laughed at that last line? Am I not Chinese enough to understand him?"

Other attempts to understand the real China included watching the CCTV - 1990 version of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It was long, painful, and I had to use English subtitles. Haiz.. Jinyong? Is Jinyong Chinese enough? Going to visit my ancestral village in Guangzhou in end Feb, contemplating learning Chinese art history. Considering that here I was a native Chinese speaker with grandparents from Guangzhou and Fujian, I would think that I was as Chinese as they go. But here lies the irony, I was only Chinese in Singapore and only Singaporean in China.

If I could just make a humble suggestion, there is no Real China. There is a Real China like there is a unicorn, Santa Claus or a real Singaporean. For many people, their version of real china are girls in cheongsams working in the fields, rugged farmers smiling up at them and toilets that are only pits with no doors. A real Singaporean would be Mr Kiasu? Phua Chu Kang ?

In fact, I am sharing to you the most valuable lesson that I have received here. There is no Real China. This is a country so big and varying, filled with people and various extremes. This is something to be experienced on a day to day basis, to see for yourself how diverse all these people are. China, a country that is still evolving and defining itself, and I am glad to have spent the last year being here.