Traveling to China - Taking the Little Spuds To Their Motherland

For the last few years, The Wife and I have enjoyed abandoning the kids for 2 weeks while we traveled to some exotic international locales.  However, as The Boy and The Girl got older, we could come up with fewer and fewer excuses to leave them behind.  Since we haven’t been to China in the last five years, The Wife figured it was time to revisit her family.  While we were there, we would have a chance to take The Boy and The Girl to see the history and culture of their Motherland.

The Wife decided to start playing the credit card miles game.  After signing up for a dozen new AMEX’s and VISA’s, we had enough frequent flyer miles accumulated to save us over $2,000 on airfare.  Unfortunately, this amount of money only covered ONE round-trip economy fare to China.  Air travel is so expensive these days!

We narrowly chose United over Delta based upon some of the travel times.  (We would sorely regret that decision.)  This forced us to fly through Chicago O’Hare Airport.  As annoying as Atlanta Hartsfield can be because it is the busiest airport in the world, Chicago’s is worse because it is just old and outdated.   In order to connect from the domestic to the international  terminal, we had to walk down a flight of stairs, board a shuttle bus outside for a short drive, and then walk back up another flight of stairs.  The whole process took about twenty minutes (mainly from waiting), whereas a tram system used by newer airports would have done it in under 10 minutes.  Additionally, the gate for our departure had enough seating for less than half of the passengers.  By the time we got there, most people were sitting on the floor in front of the gate.

We must have been spoiled by the Delta airplanes which have individual movie screens on the chair in front of each passenger.  From a database of ~ 100 motion pictures and television shows, we could choose which programs we wanted to see and when we wanted to see them.   Conversely, our United flight had one main screen which showed the same four movies (and some filler TV crap) to the entire cabin.  We had counted on The Boy and The Girl having plenty of movies to pass the time on the flight.  None of the ones being shown were either new or appropriate for them on this journey.  It was a long, painful flight being stuck with 2 bored kids.

The Father-In-Law and The Mother-In-Law were in China for his annual series of mathematical lectures in China.  I think that they do this so that they can get free travel to interesting cities in this country.  They just happened to be in Shanghai for this one day while we were there too, so they met up with us at the airport.  The Wife was really excited about trying out the Maglev.

Shanghai's Maglev is one of only two currently operational trains
in the world that use magnetic levitation to transport passengers.

With the decrease in friction, the train can run faster with an added bonus of needing less maintenance.  The ride from the Pudong airport to the Maglev station (still on the outskirts of Shanghai) took only 8 minutes.  We were zooming by cars driving along the highway.  However, it never really felt that fast because the ride was very smooth.  There was minimal shaking and no G-forces from the small banking of the train along its essentially straight course.  The train was more akin to a Japanese luxury sedan rather than an Italian sports coupe.

The top speed the Maglev achieved 
was 431 km/hr (~ 268 miles/hr).  

Most of the cars on the train contained rows of empty seats.

The big glaring problem with the train is that it is underutilized.  The few seats that were taken were filled by foreigners like us.  At 50 RMB for a one way ride, it’s too expensive for the locals to use.  There have been plans to extend the Maglev further into the heart of the city, but that addition has been put on hold for now.

At the end of the Maglev ride, we were transported to our hotel by a driver whom The Father-In-Law's friend had hired.  When planning our trip, The Wife and I had really debated hard but decided against staying at one of the pricey hotels on the Bund.  Instead, we stayed at the Yangtze Boutique Hotel located closer to the main shopping areas.  We weren't disappointed.  At about $150 per night, the room was large and luxurious.  It didn't have the amenities of a Four Seasons Hotel, but it was much more affordable.

The Yangtze Boutique Hotel opened in 1934
during the height of Shanghai's prominence.  

Designed in the Art Deco style, the hotel was once labelled the "third largest hotel in the Far East"

There was plenty of comfort and room for our family of four.

The frosted glass doors really didn't offer much privacy.

Not far from the hotel were some notable dumpling shops.  Shanghai is known for their crab cuisine (specifically hairy crabs) and their soup dumplings--xiao long bao (XLB).  Although it wasn't hairy crab season (autumn), XLB’s are popular all year long.  XLB’s can contain filling mixtures like pork and shrimp that are similar to ordinary (but delicious) Chinese dumplings.  They differ in that there is also a rich-flavored broth that literally bursts from the dumpling when you bite into it.  To make XLB’s, Shanghai cooks create a collagenous stock that is solid when chilled, but soupy when hot.  The best dumplings also use extremely thin wrappers to achieve the desired filling-to-dough ratios.  As simple as this recipe may seem, it is, in my opinion, very difficult.  A few months previously, I tried making XLB’s with just a simple pork filling recipe.  After several hours of labor-intensive cooking and cheating (I used agar powder instead of a long, slow-cooked stock), I was left with >90% broken wrappers and soup draining into the steamer.  I essentially had spent hours making won-ton soup.  I wanted to see the finished product from the pros.

After reading extensive reviews by other travelers, we decided to forgo Nanxiang Mantou, the oldest and most reputed XLB restaurant, because too many internet reviewers think that it had jumped the shark.  We also wanted to avoid the successful Din Tai Fung as it is actually a Taiwanese-based chain restaurant.  We wanted something local.  Too many people raved about Jia Jia Tang Bao that I couldn't pass up the chance.  We spent 15 minutes walking there from our hotel.  We passed several luxury-brand stores like Cartier, Hugo Boss, etc.

It's ironic that there was such a huge line at the Nike store.  The locals were willing to pay more than
$100 for a shoe while some of their countrymen make as little as $1.67/hour to manufacture them.

Jia Jia Tang Bao looks like a hole in the wall.  The sign is purely in Chinese, the tables are cheap with plastic chairs, the décor is minimal to none, and there is only seating for about twenty people.

Without the few “Top Restaurant” stickers from sites like TripAdvisor posted
on the window, I would have thought that this place was a Cholera factory.

While their menu lists about a dozen types of dumplings, they had run out of most of them by the time we had arrived.  We placed our orders for the two remaining options left—pork and crab XLB’s and ones with just crab alone.  

We could watch the four workers do the tedious job of constructing the dumplings.
They do this to order so it took about 15 minutes to get our order.

We were not disappointed in the food.  The pork and crab ones were good, but the crab-only XLB’s were fantastic.  The crab roe flavors were intense.  While none leaked in the bamboo steamers, they splattered everywhere whenever we took a bite.  Our table was a mess.  It took a few dumplings before I got the hang of it.  Instead of biting straight into it, I learned to nibble off part of the top and then slurp out some of the piping-hot soup.  That would lessen the explosion.  The six of us polished off 3 dozen dumplings (I personally downed one dozen myself).

The soup dumplings with the pork and crab filling were good...

...but the crab-only ones were literally the bomb!

Unless carefully eaten, the crab roe-flavored soup would
explode onto the table whenever we would take a bite.

We had to pay 1 RMB for the ginger/vinegar dipping 
sauce.  It used to be free, but times are tough.  

After getting our fill of the crab soup dumplings, we walked directly across the street to Yang’s Fry Dumpling, another famous Shanghai dumpling establishment.  They specialize in sheng jian bao, or pan-fried steamed buns.  Although they have a few tables inside, most people get take-out.  Some people would just eat it standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  

While we sat in Jia Jia Tang Bao, we noticed there was always a decent takeout line in front of Yang’s.

Yang's serves only one type of filling.  Similar to the XLB's, there is a broth on the inside.  However, it is thinner and pork-flavored.  We ordered 16 to take back with us to the hotel.

With the high demand for their dumplings, the workers continuously roll dumplings.

After being fried and steamed in huge skillets, the dumplings are served up at the take-out window.

On the way back, we saw that the nearby Nanjing Road was still busy with shoppers.

Back at the hotel we dug into the dumplings from Yang's.  Once again, they were also messy.

It’s going to be hard to explain the pork broth stains on the hotel walls.

A nice long bath and movie were perfect after a long day of travelling.