Art School Restaurant: Fine (in both senses of the word) Dining in Liverpool
Related Posts
Bukhara, Uzbekistan: Ancient City Hasn’t Upgraded in Millennia
Despite being called a hotel, the guest house we were staying in was more like someone’s house, with an extra room or two upstairs. It was fine, the couple running things/living there was nice, but alas, we arrived at 7am and check in wasn’t until noon. We sat in the front room for a while, while the guy watched his stories on his TV, as we just tried to decompress from the horrible night and horrible cab ride. Luckily, a tiny little baby cat lived there, and despite being allergic, I played with him because omg, tiny little baby cat. He was sooo cute and he just wanted to sleep on us.
After we finally checked in and showered, I want to say we napped, but I don’t remember (probably because I was sleeping whaaat) and it doesn’t really matter what we did on which day (we were there for several, and too many) so let’s just get to the sights. We started (or not! who cares!) with the Ark of Bukhara, or the Bukhara Fortress, mostly because it’s the most important site to actually go into, but also because it was closest to the guest house by being situated kind of halfway to the old town center and not in it like everything else was. Side note, probably best to stay in the actual old town so you don’t have to walk the creepy streets at night. And so you’re near stuff. We were not near stuff.
After we saw everything in the Ark, we made our way fully into the old town, to see all the mosques and stuff because Mohammed knows we haven’t seen enough mosques lately. The most important, I want to say so I’m saying it, is the Kalan Mosque, from 1500s. It can hold 12,000 PEOPLE. That is a lot. Not even a drop in the bucket compared to the Penn State football stadium, but still, a lot for a mosque built so long ago. Unfortunately, we were not two of those 12,000 because when we went to enter, a rando sauntered up and said the entrance fee was 6 (SIX) times what it said in our guidebook and on the internet, clearly a scammy sammy, so we skipped it. Fortunately, this was one where the outside was impressive so we weren’t upset. We went in so many mosques lately and the rest of our time in Uzbekistan would be mainly seeing more mosques so no tears. The mosque sits across the main square from the Mir-i Arab Madrassah, so it makes for a really impressive, historically important square, though hard to remember which witch is which. At the risk of being even more disrespectful to the Uzbek people, I’m going to admit that I’m not hundo p about these pictures actually being what I’m saying they are, but I’ma do my best.
One I was excited about was the Kalyan Minaret, or the Grand Minaret, or the Tower of Death. No I didn’t know that last name when I was excited about visiting it; I just wanted to climb a tower. We like climbing things. The Tower of Death apparently got its name because criminals would be executed by being thrown from the top. So economical? Minarets’ usual function is for the muezzin to climb up in order to call err’one to prayer, so it had to big a bit taller than the mosque everyone’s going to. But the Kalyan Minaret passed the mosque and then was like you know what, I’m gonna keep on trucking, and it kept going up and up so now it’s the second tallest in all of Central Asia. We read quite a few things about how the architects of this or that monument were killed (never be an architect) because the rulers who commissioned the buildings didn’t want the architect to ever make anything more impressive. People cray. Anyway I have a vague memory of the minaret’s architect being thrown off because the wife of something important got him in trouble.
We made our way to the base of the minaret to climb it but alas, the door was padlocked shut. On to the next!
My second favorite place in Bukhara was the old synagogue! It’s a tiny little place, not only smaller than all the synagogues I’ve seen in my life but smaller than all my past studio apartments too. But apparently one of the Torahs it holds is 1000 years old! Mostly it’s nice just to know that there are still jews trying to maintain a presence here and because there are so few they are sooo happy to have guests. Naturally being old religious men, the guys there were more excited for my husband’s arrival than mine because men > women in 99% of the world, even though he’s not jewish, but alas, it was still very nice. It’s free to visit but they ask for donations and you should donate. The best part was the picture they had framed on the wall of their most important visitor before us – Hillary Clinton. Oh man I actually started to cry right there, thinking about a) how I was standing in spot where Hillary and like NOBODY else in the world had stood, this tiny little hole in the wall synagogue in a tiny old town in Uzbekistan I mean come on we’re basically bff Hillz, and b) I was just so sad that she wasn’t president.
There was a lack of gas too! Like, the entire town, old and ‘new’ parts, had a gas outage while we were there so the restaurants could only grill food for us! And there was little hot water because of it. Such a weird sad thing to add on top of all the other weirdness. Luckily some of the places could make me salads, which I always liked. And Bukhara seemed to have beans on hand, which is nice. I can recommend finding salads at Minzifa – which was playing the X-FILES THEME SONG when we were there, and Saroy, both right along the Lobby House. Most of the other central restaurants will happily offer you grilled eggplant and red peppers, which you KNOW I LOVE. eye roll. I also got a heap of white rice with a happy face, see below.
Shanghai, China: Why is Chinese London So Crowded…AND SO HOT?
Shanghai was ready for this heat though, well, thanks to Pepsi, because as we started our walk down The Bund from our hotel, we passed the first item on the Stefon list:
Our first order of business was indeed walking down The Bund, the famous river-adjacent street that was once the city’s Wall Street, where all the banks had grand historic buildings and is now filled with luxury brand stores. The water in the few convenience stores on the Bund is COSTLY, which says a great deal at least to me. One side of the Bund houses all the historic buildings, most of which have plaques sharing when in the grand old times this or that bank set up shop in what is now a fancy hotel or a Gucci. The other side is the Huangpu river and the view shared above, the famous skyline of Pudong, which has now taken over as the Wall Street-y section.
We decided after enough heatstroke-walking to get on the ferry to cross the river and go check out Pudong. A ferry ride seems like an appropriate early activity to see more of a city! There are of course expensive tourist boats that will take you cruising along the river, but, here’s a tip, if you just want to hop over to the other side of the city, there’s a regular commuter ferry that takes like 15 minutes and costs only 2 RMB! That’s like a quarter! Cheapest transportation I’ve ever encountered. I love loved the warning sign outside the non-tourist (but still fine for tourists to take) ferry.
Not only does the Shanghai Tower have the highest occupied floor in the world, but it also has the fastest elevator in the world, designed by Mitsubishi, and the world’s tallest single-lift elevator. I don’t know how they are different, but they are. ALSO, most importantly for tourists, it has the world’s highest skydeck, or observation deck! Amazingggg.
We were also super hungry – we hadn’t eaten all day because HEAT but now it was like 4pm. Luckily, because this is Shanghai, the bottom floors of the Tower composed a retail space with lots of food court spaces. They even had a Bassett’s ice cream cart, straight out of the Northeast USA! I found a ready-made salad place that I didn’t realize wouldn’t make new ones, so when I asked for the vegetarian one with no egg, they just took the egg out of the container. Lol. Oh well, roll with the things like this that happen while traveling, and give the parts that were touching the egg to the husband.
Oh, side note, that train, from Beijing to Shanghai! I didn’t write a diary entry because it was just midnight to 8am. It was the fanciest train since St. Petersburg, very nice and clean, not smoky, and completely different from the other Chinese trains. They had slippers for everyone in plastic wrap! Each bed had a TV on the wall! If you book Chinese trains, try to get the G trains! (I think this is our only G, so sad.) So nice! BUT. But. We had the beds that were very first in our carriage, along the wall next to the door of the car. And for some reason, that means that the bones of the train, whatever fills the walls on those things, continued under our beds. So we didn’t have storage! There was nothing under my bottom bunk but like metal! So infuriating, we were the people with the most luggage on board! Luckily, the other people in our cabin didn’t have much so we stored under their beds. Not so luckily, one of those people had a child. See, in China, there are no laws, and so people do not buy seats or beds on trains for their children. (Oh is there a doozy of a story in this fashion coming soon.) So instead of sharing with two other people, we were sharing with three. (We also heard horror stories about how Chinese couples often don’t buy two beds but will share one tiny bed, which is much worse and super inconsiderate to force a whole nother adult into a train compartment.) But the young man who was in the other bed was NOT excited to be forced to sleep with a baby, so when he realized that, he peaced out! I guess he got the conductor to find him a new spot because we didn’t see him again. The baby was fine though. Cute! He made some noise in the night but like, so do I. That’s all I have to say about that.
Hilariously, my favorite section of this museum covering so much of Chinese culture and history was…the special exhibit sent from Hungary on Princess Sissy. Sorrynotsorry.
But the location was good, because it led us through the Bund all the time. One night on our walk home, we stopped at the other historic old hotel, the Fairmount Peace Hotel, which really has that 1930s Shanghai feel, that film noirishness, complete with a hallway of movie posters with all the movies about that era, including a family favorite:
But those two actual acrobatic acts were indeed amazing. One was two men doing a partner routine full of handstands on top of each other that were mind-blowing enough but that culminated with one holding the other just by the head, just with his hand. I mean. HOW. The other impressive one was a woman and man doing a very sexually charged routine on a pole, which was hilarious because 90% of the audience was children, but it was like a ballet, clearly telling a story and powerfully so. They did a lot of that ahhh-I’m-slipping-down-the-pole-I’m-gonna-crash-into-the-ground-JUST-KIDDING-I-STOPPED-MYSELF-WITH-MY-QUADS-AN-INCH-ABOVE-GROUND stuff. So I’m really glad I got to see those two amazing bits. I just wish the whole show was that and not stupid touristy drivel.
Speaking of stupid touristy drivel, we were seated next to an older New Zealand man and we chatted for a little before the show started. He asked us how we ended up here, and I proceeded to share every last detail about our trip – ‘we live in London and we flew to Helsinki and we took the Trans Mongolian train route through Russia and saw a lot of Russia and Siberia then we toured Mongolia and then we ended that train route in Beijing and we saw Beijing and now we’re in Shanghai also I had a UTI and diarrhea in Mongolia and my favorite thing is Broadway and puppies and I really love puppies and I really need to wash my hair tonight.’ Okay I didn’t say all of that stuff but it sure felt like it when I finished talking about our route, and his response was, “I meant how did you choose to see this show.”
I died, I am dead now.
The best part about the show was not even those two good bits though. It was the theatre’s location in the fancy pants Centre that we lovingly referred to as Expat Centre. It had EVERYTHING you could possibly want as an expat living in Shanghai, and I think that’s where lots of them do indeed live. First of all, the main part of the Centre is not the theatre, but is the giant Ritz Carlton Hotel – a beautiful fancy hotel (I used their bathroom of course) but it also has two residence blocks attached! Can you imagine being an expat in Shanghai and living in the Ritz residence building? Dayummm son! Okay, so not only is there that, but in the basement of the whole place is a fancy pants supermarket with all kinds of imported recognizable goods, and a Godiva ice cream stand. In the market. And a lot of fresh fruit and even green juice! Then, on one side of the Centre, is a Starbucks, several legit tea shops and juice stands, many fancy Chinese restaurants, many casual and good-looking Chinese and non-Chinese restaurants, a paella cafe, A VEGAN RESTAURANT (next post), an HSBC (our bank), a Parkway Health Clinic – the expat-focused medical practice I went to in Beijing!, a Parkway Health DENTAL Clinic, a massage parlor, a gym, literally everything you could want. If I lived there I would never leave the complex. I’d never have to! It was hilarious. Every corner we turned we’d find something else that would make us thing we were in London.
So, we really enjoyed our time in Shanghai overall, despite the heat, though we didn’t do that much in our limited time. We both agreed that we would happily (and relatively easily) return here from London in the future, if for no other reason than the food. The food was amaaazing. That’s the next post! You’ll have to read that one to find out what toon bags are!