Shanghai Day 2: Of High Views, Shredded Ducks & Shanghai Museum

I always love to plan for a high rise attraction on the last day being in the city, because I'd be more familiar with what's on the ground and it gives a more in depth perspective on the geography of the place. Depending on how I feel towards the city, paying a good twenty/thirty bucks for a high rise view of the cityscape can be worth it for the emotional rush.

Before we reached the Financial Tower Observation Deck, we had to cross over a few bridges, that meant seeing the Oriental Pearl Tower in its morning glory! I wouldn't say it's definitely worth it for see it in Shanghai in terms of the wow factor, but I do like the place enough. The morning of Shanghai is very sleepy and foggy. We chose to ascend the Shanghai Financial Tower. At the point of our visit, the tallest building in the city, the Sha was only days away from its opening. We missed it, unfortunately. Anyway, if you just want a view (would not deviate much from neighbouring towers), this is the cheapest option. Unless you managed to sneak in/ have an insider to bring you up the office buildings (lucky you)

Here we are.

Before getting the tickets we grabbed some breakfast from the takeaway store. It was most likely popular with the local office goers. We tried to use wechat pay to enjoy the discount from Da Zhong Dian Ping to no avail (we didn't have Wechat Pay and credit card doesn't work). Ha, failed attempt to masquerade as locals. We then eavesdropped on some intense office political drama talk on the neighbouring table. :o Looks like office stress is very high around here.

Financial Tower Observation Deck
Entry fee: 120RMB (94F), 180RMB (100F, 97F, 94F)

At 94F, we saw a proportional cityscape model of Shanghai, where they showed how it looks like from day to night. At night, there are 'fireworks'.

It's pretty cool to see the Huangpu River from above and another view of the Bund. And also we managed to see some residential areas which we would not have the chance to visit this time.

After descending from the tower building, we walked around the area and past a small alley full of locals huddling in low tables and chairs, and heard the clanging of kitchen utensils. Mhmm sounds like food? So by a stroke of random luck, I got home some really cheap and cute stickers in this stationery store and... some hand shredded duck 手撕鸭! It just had this irresistible delicious fragrance that we could not say no (or we were starving!)

But there was a catch: there were no seats at all in the vicinity and so we had to find our own shelter. Shredded duck is amazingly messy to eat, even though attempts were made to eat on the go, they were miserable :D

Best. Thing. Ever.

The duck is succulent and kept juicy with the sauce, and the seasoning made it really delicious, spicy with chilli flakes and pepper. The way that it is shredded also made it really bite-sized and appetizing.

So, we decided to borrow Gloria Jeans's tables and pretended shredded duck was on the menu. There was no utensils except for plastic gloves, it was one of the most satisfying yet unglamorous things ever. The thing is, it was so delicious we could hardly stop and the whole situation was just pretty ridiculous. Ultimate weirdo tourists, yes. Then we got spotted and shoo-ed away and we found ourselves heading for 7-11 instead. Apparently 7-11 staff were more accommodating (or blind) that we managed to finish it (kinda. It was a reallyy huge portion) =D 

After this hilarious lunch, it was time to go onto our next destination, the Fabric Mall, the place where many people recommended to do tailored shirts. Apparently they weren't that good so not really going to recommend it.

Thereafter, we took the train to go to the Shanghai Museum to finish off the last item on our itinerary. The Shanghai Museum was really huge and difficult to appreciate even as someone with a Chinese background. The artifacts are not immediately impressive, nothing fancy or overly exquisite but rich in history and provenance. The laughter bug hit us again as we tried to decipher the words on scrolls, ending up with "慧something something something 大 something some thing". Moral of the story: our Chinese cmi even though we both come from Chinese schools. :p

That's obviously not everything there is in Shanghai, but we were in a hurry to get to the train stations to catch a train to Suzhou so guess Shanghai is left half-explored. Coming right up: Suzhou! I'm psyched to share about Suzhou which is my favourite city in China, the beautiful hotel we stayed at and everything. I just love Suzhou more than any other Chinese city and you'll soon know why. Stay tuned! xx