Yuyuan Commercial City

Another trip into Shanghai took us to a famous tourist spot called Yuyuan Garden and Commericial City.  Our friend Yuki has lived in Shanghai all his life, so he has become our main tour guide while we are here and he knows all the best spots. This area has a famous garden along with statues and a pond with a ridiculous amount of koi fish in it. Amongst the historic elements is an elaborate maze of shopping. Small stores showcase there arts and crafts along with many eateries, clothing stores, and jewelry shops.

All of the buildings in the area are traditional Chinese style.

There is a bridge here that you can cross over where everyone is taking photo's and feeding the best fed fish in China!! :P The fish above was super fat!!

One of several little places to buy snacks in the shopping area. They have many different things from BBQ, tofu, and squid on a stick!

The top photo is a small tempura stall. The bottom: buns, buns, and more buns!!!

After Yuyuan, we were all very hot and needed somewhere to relax and cool off. Yuki and Andi decided to go to karaoke. Here in China, karaoke is very popular! It's a place where friends can meet, drink, smoke, eat, etc. There are dozens of hallways like the one above that lead off to karaoke rooms.

Yuki and Andi did most of the singing. I tried to do Kenny Rogers "The Gambler" and realized it was the same sound as a small animal dying.

They offer many different dishes that you can snack on while singing karaoke. Two of the more interesting ones where duck chins(top photo) and duck heads(bottom photo).

After karaoke, we met up with Yuki's girlfriend and went out to eat. The restaurant was called Spice Spirit and had Sichuan food which is predominately spicy. The restaurant design was quite impressive with round booths that had very comfy cushions. Around each booth were different sized clear tubes with champagne glasses stacked onto top of each other inside each tube. The tubes were topped off with large crystal like spheres, kinda like the thing David Bowie tossed around in Labyrinth.

Frog legs with bamboo shoots, Chinese cucumber(very earthy in flavor),

and spicy chili's.

Thick rice noodles. They are made from lotus root powder.

Chicken with peppers and mushrooms.

They had a couple of American looking desserts on the menu and I thought I would take a stab at one. Andi and I chose the chestnut cheesecake and it was a disappointment. The bottom cookie part was hard as a rock and I had to stab it with all my force, almost breaking the plate! The "chestnut strings" were like something out of a Play-doh machine but Play-doh has more taste. In China, they don't eat desserts after there meal. Instead, they usually order noodles or rice.

As we exited the restaurant, all the trees on the street were lit up with tiny little Chinese lantern's. We asked a kid in front of the restaurant to take our picture. However, I don't think he had ever used a camera in his life as he had to take the picture 3 times and he still was able to make it blurry and cut off Yuki's head!