The WOO family page

After heading home for a nap at our hotel we bounced back out to spy on Paxton. He had a free hour or so to walk around Nanjing walk street with just himself and a friend. Nanjing Lu is a well known area that is usually bustling with shoppers.

White Rabbit candy is heavily marketed. Lots of signage for this brand. On Nanjing Lu there are several places that have them. You can buy all kinds of flavors like banana, green tea and durian.

Oh there’s Paxton. Got him while buying a tanghulu. Hard candy covered sticks of fruit, some places even have tomato on their sticks. Not Shanghai though.

Christmas day

As is customary, June went to a Christmas Mass. We walked to Old Town which was on the way to June’s church. I don’t know why but everyone stops here to take pics of this building. The walk over was millennial city with people taking pics along the streets.

After church we met up with June and caught a roughly one hour Didi ride to Zhujiajiao Watertown where Paxton was doing a field trip. Zhujiajiao is an ancient town with Venice-like canals and stone bridges that’s been preserved for visitors.

One of the specialties here is a braised meat with sticky rice. Pax and his group were making them when we found him.

Back in town we did Christmas market at Paulaner brewery on the Bund. It was pretty quaint and small, located on the rooftop of the restaurant. 

We got hot cider, hot chocolate with Baileys and a plain chocolate for Hudson.

Cooking Class

June spent the day at Disney Shanghai while me and Hud did a cooking class. We made shenjianbao or SJB which are pan fried soup filled dumplings. This class was located in an apartment building kind of near old town.

The filling for this one was actually pretty complicated with many steps mixing in ingredients one at a time. The filling was a curry flavored beef. For example the added liquid we used consisted of Sichuan peppercorn soaked water and the water extracted from salted cabbage.  We mixed the peppercorn water into the meat in three doses. Usually I’d throw the filling materials all into a bowl and mix it one time. For this we mixed after each ingredient to layer on the flavors.  We handmade the dough which was flour, yeast and baking powder or soda. I forget, I always mix up the two. 

All in all it was a pretty fun class. Here’s the recipe:

On The Quest for a Jacket

You know how if you cant have something you end up wanting it more? I saw a cool looking Tang style Adidas jacket that one of Paxton’s classmates was wearing and went looking for it. Apparently it’s a China only release for New Year’s. Also it was not available in the first store I looked in, or the second or the third. Ugh. I’m normally not one to chase limited edition whatever items but this time I was. What a cool souvenir this would be!

Not wanting to give up, I eventually asked the hotel concierge for help. I heard they do unusual requests like wake up calls and hookers and illicit drug arrangements. Not positive about the last two items, they just sounded cool to say.

As June did work stuff and organized our day I went to the concierge and asked them in broken Chinese to help me buy my jacket on Taobao. Problem was finding a legit version and delivery before we leave for Tokyo. The concierge dude bought it for me after I WeChat paid him some money. Hopefully it’ll arrive tomorrow. 

…and it did. 

Chee! Bought and delivered using TianMao, a fancier version of Taobao which is like Chinas Amazon with next day delivery. I was waiting all day for this!

Friday-wake up and go to the hotel gym to stretch out my body. June wanted these Hu Die Su pastries made downstairs of our hotel at Park Bakery. Every time we passed by it leaving in the morning up until closing at 8pm there was a line so I thought I might as well jump in. Today it was around 2/3 of the way down the block. Originally I was going to buy three for us to eat for breakfast but an unusual phenomenon happens where the longer I wait the more I want to buy to make it worthwhile. We ended up with three bags of five each, breakfast and night time snack for the next few days until we leave. 

Shanghai Maodau (cat island)

This was pretty neat. We’re off to the Shanghai Maodao or cat island north of us. It’s a state run refuge which looks like it could have been a school at one time. There is no fee to enter.

So many friendly cats that jump onto your lap and want to be pet. Kinda gross at the same time because a few were sick and would sneeze boogers all over every so often. Maybe something was going around at the time.

They also had a donkey. Random.

They are planning on making what I guess is a literal island? across a canal from this location. Look at the tiny houses!

After Maodao cat island we looked for a late hot pot lunch and ended up at a place called Haidilao. Big lunch. $50 us got us a full meal including drinks for the three of us! I also got to order pig brain.

I must say this place is a step above. While waiting before your meal (because the wait can be very long) you can have a seat in the waiting area and do crafts and games. They provide water and juice. They also have a complimentary mini nail salon outside as well as a soft serve ice cream machine in front. Also free! 

Then we headed back toward the Bund to see if we could get tickets to go to a second Christmas market on Nanjing Road East. Last day today for this one.  When we got there the online tickets were sold out. Then someone took down the old QR code posted in the entry and stuck a new one up which we jumped on. June was so happy. 

I want to say that Christmas Market is usually celebrated in Germany, but it probably became a thing here during Shanghai’s international past. Inside are vendors selling Christmas food, gifts and snacks. It even snowed soap bubbles on us!

This dude sang Country Road so I wailed along. 

Next day-last day in Shanghai.

Breakfast at Lailai dumping. June chose this place because it is Michelin rated or mentioned or some thing. We got 1 crab and 2 xiaolongbao to go. 104 yuan or around 15 bucks for Michelin breakfast. 

A Michelin breakfast to go for our little prince who was sleeping when we left. 

An online search for cricket stuff sent us to a place called Yu Garden.

I bought a huge bag of crack seed/ preserved plums from a lady and she verified that there are no crickets there but to try the flower and bird markets. I knew that. I just don’t know which ones to go to. 

Here’s a giant xiaolongbao and some other foods we ate.

Anyway Yu garden bazaar is indeed an old town with that ancient architectural feeling, neat to walk around in and buy snacks but ultimately sucked because they didn’t have cricket stuff. OK, that may be a little unfair to say. 

June headed off to church again and I took Hud back to the first now closed down cricket place we went to in case the market had relocated to the back side which is what another online search told me. 

No luck walking around the block. Even the old dude on a chair outside the building told me it’s gone. I asked the lady next to him to be sure and he yelled at me that he’d been living there for sixty years and it’s gone!   Fine. So we went to the next closest place, Yuntai flower and bird arts market.

This was my kind of place, outside the market were people lined along the sidewalk selling used junk on laid out blankets. Inside I found one place that had cricket stuff. Check it out. 

I bought a clear container house to add to my little collection of cricket related things since we’re not allowed to bring back live animals to hawaii.

Now we’re off to meet up with June at TianziFang. Quaint alleyways with small shops.  Kind of like the old town wet just visited.

…Except they had a place with knock off Adidas jackets like the one I sought after so hard.  We even almost got into a fight with another lady whose kid wanted the same light blue knockoff adidas jacket. He tried it on earlier and said he wanted it as I said “I’ll take it!” The vendor handed it to us already at that point and we forked over the dough quickly and watched over our backs as we walked away. 

As quickly as we bought the last light blue Tang jacket the store keeper whisked a different colored one off of the shelf and proudly displayed it by the entry to lure the next willing customer. 

Now we’re off to Xintiandi. Xintiandi is mostly just upscale shops. We saw an alleyway entry which was made of dark stone. I think that’s it. Not interesting. Just shops. 

The last stop of our trip to Shanghai was to the M50 creative space. Unfortunately it was dark and closed. Probably because it is a Sunday. Creativity needs a break too. We walked around the backside and checked out the lighted bridges and pathways. 1000 trees looked neat from the outside, too bad we couldn’t check it out.

Tokyo

Next stop, Japan! We took the airport limousine/bus to a station nearby Shinjuku. It ran us around 75 bucks us and we still had to huff it from Shinjuku station around fifteen minutes to our place. Some limo. 

Got our metro cards in order and went to Shibuya. Just double checked that the Adidas CNY jackets weren’t available here. Yesss. Only China.  Waded across the famous Shibuya crossing and as we passed an Ichiran ramen we got a time voucher that came with a roughly 1.5 hour wait checkable online. Perfect since we pretty much just ate and we want to wander around first.  June was so excited to see the Duomart. They were all out of tickets for today. Duolongo+mart=Duomart

I bought knick knacks at Hands (formerly known as Tokyu Hands) and now we’re back in Ichiran enjoying some hot noodles. 

I think our 3 ramen (one with extra pork and an egg) came out to 24 bucks or so total. 

Ramen presented with a deep bow. 

Hakone-Day 2 of Tokyo

Hakone is a 1.5 hour train ride out of Shinjuku station. June picked it because we are staying nearby the station. This time ChatGPT came in handy with research and navigating. 

What’s known as the Hakone free pass isn’t actually free. It’s 7100 yen base rate for adults per person plus 2400 round trip on the reserved seating romancecar. I felt a bit tricked but we did it anyway.  If not for the meager savings it was convenient getting on and off the different modes of transportation with just a QR code.

We woke up and walked to Shinjuku station. Hot Donki sweet potato in hand we went to the ticket center which was closed. Bought online instead. 

The first leg at Hakone took us from Shinjuku to Hakone via Romancecar to the Gora train, a winding mountain ride of six stops to Gora town on an older train full of character. 

The seats on the train were heated and each train looked to be two to three carriages long.  Look at the controls of the train.  

The train does several switchbacks to make its way up the hill. It’s pretty neat to be able to see out the front/back of the train and watch the conductor! 

This was quite the change from Shibuya crossing yesterday!

As it turns out you do an entire loop of Hakone one stop right after another, each a different mode of transportation. You can jump off and back on as you like with the pass which is a QR code. 

We took a nice break at one of the stops with a foot bath overlooking the valley, a few meat buns, egg sandwich and a beer. 

Then to the peak where we saw sulfur coming out of the old volcano and had enjoyed black eggs in the freezing wind with Mount Fuji as the back drop. 

Then we cable car-ed back down to Lake Ashinoko, grabbed omurice at the concessions and boarded what the pass calls a pirate ship. It was pretty ornate! I was expecting the type of metal tanker ferry you’d take from Manhattan to Staten island. 

After a bus ride back to the main train station we jumped on a shuttle to the Hakone Yuryo for the day spa onsen.  I was done after an hour and a half. Literally cooked.  We all were, so we headed back to Hakone main street to burn some time until our Romancecar ride back to town at 645 pm.

Day 3 Tokyo

It’s New Year’s Eve in Tokyo. We planned to spend the day at a cat town slash cemetery.  Off to Yanaka town. 

This town feels like a throwback to a Japan lacking the overabundance of bright flashy signs and towering buildings chocked top to bottom with businesses and dwellings. 

At Yanaka ginza Main Street we purchased some oranges from a grocer for New Years. The first ones we picked looked nice and had leaves on them but the vendor said they were for juicing and would be sour. She recommended these instead.

The Japanese Soup Nazi

June set her eyes on a yakitori place. As we stood in line I slowly realized this place was not friendly to tourists. “No translate”, ” no picture “, “cannot buy tempura if no live (here)” and “no hands” signs dotted the already crowded stall frontage which was mostly obscured by a snaking line of customers. 

I get it. Looking through with a business lens I see where the guy is coming from.  And I mean one guy. Running the stand.  With a long line. Why should he need to learn another language to sell his karaage? Translate to slow down waiting customers? Nah. 

I noticed two European-ish guys ahead of us with their phone out and in translate mode greeting ready to order.  At first I thought they could be our guinea pigs as everyone else in line looked to be Japanese.  Then I thought, maybe they will order in perfect Japanese and we’ll end up looking like babbling dummies. As they got to the front of the line I pretended not to pay attention to the interaction.  

The first thing they do is take out their phone to show their order in Japanese. The owner says in a gruff impatient Japanese tone “please order” while gesturing with his hands to the food. These dudes point to the one thing the sign said not to buy. Shrimp tempura. Doh! The anticipation was palpable. I pretended not to notice.  The owner ignored them and walked sideways two steps and asked the next person in line what they wanted to order. Ouch. They weren’t even being rude. Just not mindful. 

Then it was our turn. With nervous sweat building I ordered as quickly as I could, pointing and using childish Japanese gibberish of one of these and two of those.  I ended up with two garlic meat sticks, one regular meat stick and a croquette.

My croquette was ok. The sticks were cold. It was a bit of a letdown but the experience was a reflection of an understandable sentiment that Japan currently faces with the current influx of too many foreigners. 

The cemetery ended up having no cats. None.  It was (just) a Shinto(?) cemetery with granite stonework underground graves with the main distinguishing characteristic being these long (4′?) flat wooden sticks in stick holders. 

We asked a lady walking nearby about the cats and she suggested we go back to the main stairs above Hanaka Ginza main area in the evening at feeding time. When we went back we saw more dogs than cats. Sorry Hudson. 

Every one who isn’t into cemeteries was disappointed so we went looking for the closest Kura sushi for a snack. 

Tonight we celebrated New Year’s Eve at the Tokyo Metropolitan government building. It was a wholesome show with dancing by the neo geisha, mplusplus dancers and a breakdancer as well as Hello Kitty and friends. Oh also the mayor of Tokyo said a few words. Very tame. Fairly organized.  The only people clapping and cheering were the tourists. Cultural difference. Overall it was a clean way to celebrate. They even gave us hand and shoe warmers before going in which was great because it got pretty cold standing there. 

New Year’s Day is our last full day. We day tripped an hour and some away from Tokyo to Kanagawa for a change of scenery. 

Kanagawa is a beach town around an hour away from Tokyo. 

Everything is easy to find on New Year’s Day-just follow the massive lines of people going from place to place like a line of ants. 

The problem is finding seats on public transportation. Man the trains were packed. Everywhere. 

Tsurugaoka temple is where most of the visitors are coming here to visit as it’s New Year’s Day and people want to get blessed for the upcoming year. Halfway in we stopped at a mass of people waiting to enter the shrine and decided to opt out of charms and grab snacks at the many food booths lining the pathways. 

From Kanagawa we took a different train a few stops to find the Kotokuin temple for a look at the great Buddha. Here’s his insides. 

We ended up buying our charms for the year from this place. 

Along the streets I found a hat place that had something that matched my new jacket.

Now we’ll head to Enoshima  island a few stops away to see the Enoshima sea candle.  The ride there was reminiscent of Ka’awa coast line and the Makapu’u pull outs were have at home. This was the first time I saw surf boards in random places this trip. 

I was ok seeing the island from the mainland but June was determined to go to the top. We paid for admission and to use the mountain escalators (up only) to see the temple and the lights. So glad we paid. 

At the top we spent a lot of time walking around the lighted gardens surrounding the Sea Candle.

Afterwards we went back to Tokyo on an unsuccessful search for omurice as it was New Year’s Day and most places had closed early. Boo. 

We found a stameneshi (hearty rice bowl) place at Shinjuku and were happy to throw down some dense food.  

On our Japan exit we stumbled over and over with late timing and poor navigation while carrying our now significantly heavier load burdened with miscellaneous purchases of tchotchkes and memories along the way. We didn’t anticipate the airport train line being fully booked so we waited, then we accidentally got on an earlier train and were happy to stand to get to the airport just a little earlier than we thought we would.

Paxton met up with us en route from Chengdu to Hawaii at Narita station. He and Kevin made it on their own! 

As luck would have it, Tokyo snowed as we were leaving and flights after ours got delayed. Not ours though. For once our timing worked for us!