Moganshan Art District

China's art scene has been red hot in recent years. Not only attracting domestic, but also many international collectors. Beijing transformed an old industrial park full of decommissioned factories and warehouses into an art community called Factory 798. The other major cities started to follow suit. Moganshan (莫干山) is Shanghai's answer to 798.

Moganshan is actually located at 50 Moganshan Road. Sometimes it is also referred to as M50. Although much smaller than 798, Moganshan still holds its own. The community houses about 20 independent painting, photography, sculpture and other media galleries, workshops and studios. There are also trendy cafes.




The building exterior is kept pretty much the same. Inside I was surprised at how good the Chinese contemporary art scene has advanced. The different styles and innovative subjects made me wish I could take many of the pieces home. My father is an artist and I have always loved his ceramic work, so I tend prefer ceramic pieces like this one.







There is not a lot of graffiti around Shanghai, except for Moganshan. When we pulled away there were a couple of graffiti artists busy working on the outside walls of one of the buildings.

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Location:Shanghai, China

Street food and seafood of Shanghai

I have been in Shanghai for a few days now. I have been eating non stop. Good thing I have been walking a lot too. My favourite types of food are street food and seafood.

For breakfast instead of cereal, I would get a couple of steaming hot vegetable and meat buns with a cup of freshly squeezed soy milk.

For lunch I would have the one and only Nanxiang (南翔) steamed dumpling. Their flagship resturant is located within Chenghuang (城隍) Temple. There is always a long lineup for these delicious bit size of heaven. The buns are sold in 16 per serving and I ate them all!







For dessert I would get my favorite childhood treat: candied hawthorn. So much better than candied apple.




For afternoon snack, I would get a savory or sweet pastry baked in one of these clay ovens. When biting into the pastry, the ultra crispy shell is first thing that hits my lips. The flavour are locked tight inside, so what hits the taste buds on my tongue is the completeness of what went into that little pastry. It doesn't get any better than this. I also highly recommend clay oven baked sweet potato. The bits that gets caramelized are the best.



The perfect dinner to me is a seafood feast. There are a few streets in Shanghai full of nothing but seafood restaurants with fresh seafood on display outside.















Winter is best time for hairy legged crabs. I have eaten so much crabs since I got here that my tongue is all cut up. People believe hairy crab has a lot of "cold" element or chi. Hence, tons of ginger and garlic are put into the dipping sauce to balance out the cold and make sure you don't catch a cold.





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Location:Shanghai, China

Leyao Garden

My grandparents passed away a couple of years ago and I haven't had the chance to pay my respect yet. Since this is a family trip, I had to make the two hour trip outside of Shanghai to visit them.

Their resting place is called Leyao (乐遥) Garden. It is a peaceful place far from the big city chaos. The tombs are very close to each other, each barely occuping an 10 square feet space.








Chinese normally visit their ancestors on Qingming Or Tomb Sweeping Day in April. This time of the year, the garden is deserted and abnormally quiet for China. There was no one around other than a couple of village kids and elderly.




Mom and I took our time paying respect. I was really grateful for all the happy childhood memories my grandparents gave me.








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Location:Shanghai, China

A Very Karaoke New Year

Today is New Year eve. My day started out with a trip down memory lane. I grew up in the neighbourhood called Jiangxi North Road where my grandparents had a tiny corner unit of maybe 250 square feet. Down the street was an intersection road nicknamed “little triangle” where grandpa taught me how to ride a bike. In the southern corner of the “little triangle” was a very popular restaurant where grandma use to buy me treats and wonton soup.





Little triangle is still there today. The restaurant had disappeared and replaced with little shops of street food. The tiny corner unit was torn down years ago and converted into a mall. One thing that hasn’t changed is that it is still hassling, bustling and full of life.












I didn’t want to brave the crazy crowd down on the Bund where all the big New Year light shows and fireworks were held. A few years ago I fought the crowd and had a great time, but for hours I couldn’t get a cab to get back to my hotel.

I met up with some old friends who decided singing Karaoke, China’s favourite pastime, was a great way to ringing in the New Year. I am no Celine Dion, not even William Hung, but I tagged along. The karaoke bar is located in a large mall in the Hongkou district. Our private room was big enough to house a small concert equipped with big screens, disco balls, flashing lights and auto applause. I snacked and spectated mostly. I really wish I was more musically inclined. Everyone who sang was loving it.

Unfortunately, I was feeling my age and didn't even make it pass midnight. I slept through my last few hours of 2011. Hopefully that will give me a lot of energy in 2012!

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Location:Shanghai, China

Delays and Jetleg

I have been looking forward to my New Year trip to China for awhile now. After checking in, security and duty free shopping I got to the airport just in time for boarding. Everyone even all settled in on time. The captain then informed us the plane had an excessive amount of luggage which was taking awhile to load. I was a bit puzzled since Air Canada announced in the fall reducing economy class to one piece of check-in luggage. Half an hour later I felt the plane pull out of the gate and it stopped. The captain announced there was a fuel leak and mechanics were on their way. I feared the worst. Half way through “Cowboy and Aliens” we were told we had to change planes. Everyone simultaneously grunted at the announcement.

Not sure why they had to pick another gate that was all the way on the other side of the airport. Murphy’s law! By the time we all settled in again, we were delayed for more than 3 hours. Good thing I had no connection flight. I only hoped my poor mother who was picking me up was checking her email and voice mail.

The flight lasted 12 hours. I watched about 3 movies and took random naps in between. When I finally arrived I discovered that mom had in fact not checked her email or voicemail. We grabbed some late dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant before I crashed hard into dreamland.

By 4AM I was bright eyed and brushy tailed. Car horns were already going off. Good morning Shanghai! I took my time getting ready for the day which also included getting breakfast take out from down the street. After lunch we headed out to People’s Park, Shanghai’s city centre. Shanghai is known for its shopping. For middle of the road goods, Raffles has many of the familiar brands such as Columbia and Nike. But I was looking more at the shops with local designs and branding. I found some really unique pieces that I don’t see very often in North America. For higher end goods, it is an easy 15 minute walk to Huihai Zhong Road. They have the standard Louis Vitton, Coach, Apple Store and etc. The bargains can be found underground of the park. Little tiny shops all jam packed with cloth, shoes, phone accessories and sparkly jewelry.

Shopping can be a very tiring sport. After a few hours, I was done and headed back to the hotel for another early night.


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Location:Shanghai, China

10 Things I Love About China

Photos from my personal collection.

10. Fishing for your own lunch in rural Beijing

9. KFC the Chinese Version.

8. Outdoor Dancing (by the Bund in Shanghai)



7. Star Rated Public Toilets (this one in the Forbidden Palace is rated 4 stars)



6. Not Obeying Funny Chingrish Signs
(`Stop Climbing the Cliff`from Yellow Mountain and `Relic Protected, No Scratch`in the Forbidden Palace)



5. Roadside Fine Dining
(Best meal I ever had! Seafood District in Pudong, Shanghai)



4. Food, Food, Food and Food. All the yummy food!
(on the left are Hairy Legged Crabs and on the right is a Peking Duck Feast)



3. and food you didn`t think is edible.
(Star Fish on the left and scorpion on the right. All deliciously presented in stick format)



2. Tobogganing down the Great Wall



1. China, you are simply beautiful.

Canada Pavilion - Shanghai Expo 2010

The Shanghai World Expo is fast approaching! Only less than two months away. Canada is in the midst of finishing up the construction of its "C" shaped pavilion (stands for Canada, communities and creativity).

(Photo credits: Patrick Alleyn/SNC-Lavalin)

Here are some information on the Canada Pavilion:

Mark Rowswell will serve as the Commissioner General for Canada. Mark aka Dashan (大山) is virtually unknown to the rest of the world, but he is an A-lister celebrity and comedian in China. I grew up watching him on television in the 80s.

Shanghai is sister city with Montreal, so it is fitting that Cirque du Soleil has been hired to perform the culture portion for the pavilion.

There is also an Invest in Canada week held from May 31 to June 4. This event is aimed at attracting businesses from life science, automotive, sustainable energy and digital gaming industries to invest in Canada.

Click here for Canada Pavilion official website.
Click here for Shanghai Expo 2010 official website.
Click here for ticket information.
Click here for my previous post on the expo.

If you are interested in visiting Shanghai or China during the expo, contact us to help you design a customised itinerary!

Largest Container Port in World

When Port of Shanghai can no longer handle the ever growing size of the container ships, this man made structure was built. Just south of Shanghai, the Yangshan Deep Water Container Port (洋山深水港) now can accommodate a world class container port. When the Yangshan island was first considered, over 60% of the port didn't exist. It was just a collection of tiny islands with fishing villages 32 km out from the mainland. The engineers thought about flatting the hills to create flat land. But they decided to build around the islands by filling the East China Sea. Area equivalent of 20,000 basket ball courts had to be built from scratch for phase 1 which started building in 2002.

Currently, the port can unload 3,000 and load 3,000 containers in under 20 hours (12 seconds per container!) with their state of art computer tracking and crane system. The port has 13 Ship to Shore cranes working around the clock to maintain schedule. Those beasts are 50 meters high. After the containers are unloaded, they are trucked off the port via Donghai Bridge. The bridge is 32 km long, six lanes wide and built on the open sea in 42 months. It is 12 times longer than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransico.

When Yangshen completes its construction in 2020, it will be the world's biggest container port.

Here are some more Yangshan Port stats when its completed:

• 50 ships can dock at one time
• The port quay will be 20 km long
• 25 million containers will be processed in 1 year or 70,000 containers in 1 day
  
• will cost approximately $18 billion USD

World Expo 2010 Shanghai China

The third largest international event right behind World Cup and Olympics, the 2010 World Expo is going to be held in my hometown Shanghai. I just came back from Shanghai not long ago, I can already feel the excitement of the host city for this international event. Themed merchandise and construction are everywhere.

Canada will be one of the Expo participants (left: Canada Pavilion). The 6000 meter future pavilion will have the theme of "The Living City: Inclusive, Sustainable, Creative." Sustainable urban living will be a very hot topic for this Expo and most participants will showcase their related innovative technology. China and its government is becoming more and more invested in this issue as well while the country projects 70% of its population will live in urban areas by 2035.

After the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, China has proved she is very capable of pulling off a great international gathering. The world got a first in depth look at what China can offer as a nation. People! I hope you are thinking the same thing. 1.33 billion people which is almost 20% of the world's population. That is a massive customer base (aka spending power house) that many companies have their eyes on.

The duration of the Expo is May 1 to Oct 31, 2010. Over 70 million visitors are expected to attend with 200 countries participating in the event. Visitors will get a chance to visit the world in a few days within a few hundred kilometers in Shanghai. Of course, it is not only going to be just a culture exchange. It is a great opportunity for businesses looking to expand into China and other markets to interact with each other face to face.

Mickey is going to Shanghai

Disney Shanghai has been approved. Mickey and the gang are coming into town! This is especially exciting news for that kid in me. I still remember when I was a little girl growing up in Shanghai, every Sunday at 7PM, CCTV 1 broadcasted 30 mintues of Disney cartoon. My favourite was Donald Duck.

CBC.ca reports Disney has been pursuing this project for the past decade. Currrently, a strawberry farm, the new Magic Kingdom will be located in the PuDong District of Shanghai, not far from the city's international airport.

Disney Hong Kong opened in 2005. Many found it strange that Disney wants two amusement parks so close to (1200km) each other. Disney Anaheim and Disney Orland is over 4000 km apart. However, for a country over 1.3 billion people and over 100 billion USD in domenstic tourism spending power, this is probably a worth while project for Disney to pursue for 10 years.

It was also reported that Universal Studios is working hard to take a chunk of this gaint tourism pie in Shanghai.

ShangHai Knights

A few days back at dinner, we talked about how we are glad there is only one more train ride left on our trip. We ate our words hard when we hopped on the train from Beijing to Shanghai. It was like we had stepped into a space ship. Everything was white and really clean! Our bedding didn't smell musky and didn't itch to the touch. Every bunk had a TV with remote panel and headsets. We even had a hot water jug and garbage can. The washroom not only was open all the time, but also not the size of a tiny closet and didn't smell like pee. We didn't want to leave our 5 star train when we arrived in Shanghai in the morning.

My cousin Sophia picked us up and took us to the hotel. After a short rest, we hopped on the metro and headed to the famous Shanghai Bund.

We walked through Nanjing Road to get to the Bund. Nanjing Road is like Robson St in Vancouver, but 20 times bigger with 50 times more people. As soon as we stepped onto the road, we were bombarded with "bag? t-shirt? belt? Gucci? LV?". Much like some shops in certain malls in Vancouver, these street hustlers have "secret" backrooms (or more like another world!) to showcase their wide variety of very well made designer fakes that bedazzles any tourist looking for a deal.

To our disappointment, when we reached the Bund, the area was all blocked off due to World Expo 2010 construction. We couldn't see anything other than the top of the Pearl Tower through the dust. The Bund stretches one mile along the bank of the Huangpu River. Back in the day, this area was an international settlement which explained the various very European or Westernized architectural styles. Across the river is the PuDong Business District which provides the best skylines at night. After a very Shanghai dinner, we checked out the night scene from the PuDong and HuangPu River.

The next day was more shopping and food. We went to where we can do both: ChengHuang or City God Temple. It not only refers to the large temple complex, but also the traditional district of commerce in the city, surrounding the temple. There are over a hundred stores and shops in this area, and most of these store buildings are nearly a century old. The shops had every imaginable souvenir you can think of there from magnets, chopsticks, combs to personalized dough figurine. But no shot glasses to the disappointment of one of our travel mates. Lunch consisted of very yummy Dim Sum dishes. My cousin suggested we give a seafood a try for dinner.

After a quick drink at XinTianDi, a very trendy bar district, we arrived at the seafood street called TongBei Street (PuDong District). The whole street was nothing but seafood restaurants. Everything about this place was an instant sensory overload. The smell, sound and bright neon lights was China at its best. Buckets of live seafood are on display outside of the restaurants which you can just point and order your dinner. You can even get snakes! The restaurant we picked was called MangLingGe (满灵阁大宝海鲜排档). But due to overcrowding, we were seated almost right on the street next to our future dinner. When cars drove by us, couple of us had to get up to let it through. We ordered drunken shrimp (yes, the shrimps were uncooked, but soaked in cooking wine and spice), clams, raw clams, snails, oysters, sea mushrooms, fish and so much more. All of us agreed that was the best meal we had in China. But that wasn't just a meal, it was an experience, the quintessential China experience.

Tomorrow we wake up early for our trip to Yellow Mountain!