Piping-hot, fried, soup dumplings were the afternoon reward for a meandering, coffee-fueled morning spent walking all over Shanghai to conclude our week spent in China. As is our tradition, we had spent the previous 30 minutes or so searching around, indecisively evaluating various food options in the area, steadily increasing our hunger levels, which somehow makes the indecision grow accordingly. By luck, miracle, or both, we found our way into Yang’s Dumplings, this glorious house of fried delicacies, ordered at the counter, and eagerly awaited the arrival of the golden-brown, sesame covered, drool-inducing dumplings. 

Now, perhaps I am unique in this skill, but judging by the steam coming off of these golden dumplings, my expert senses indicated to my perhaps not-so-expert brain that these dumplings were, indeed, very hot. Putting this information to excellent use in the same way that I do when drinking coffee, I immediately bit into one of the dumplings as 400 degrees of soup shot like a squirt gun straight into my mouth from the hole I had punctured into the dumpling. As it turns out, my senses were on point: the dumplings were still very hot, as confirmed by my burned mouth. Totally worth it.

After pointing out my folly, Mandi waited more patiently for these tasty treats to cool down a bit before we both began to dig in with more fervor, every bite setting off an Old Faithful-like geyser of soup across the table. We tried poking holes in them with our chopsticks to drink out some of the soup so it didn’t shoot at us, strategically placing our bites, and eating them whole, but the soup still got everywhere. They were delicious though, so we devoured them, used a million napkins, and ordered a second round. Just as we were finishing up round two, a teenage girl sat behind us, surveyed the glorious dumplings in front of her, and then deftly peeled back their tops, drank the soup, then mowed down 6 dumplings without a single drop of soup touching the table. Apparently, we had been doing it wrong, but it didn’t make those dumplings any less delicious, and that was kind of a theme in Shanghai and our trip to China in general.

After filling our bellies, we were ready to explore a bit more, so we walked along the (extremely) crowded Nanjing street as we made our way toward the Bund and views of the Shanghai skyline across the Huangpu river. At the water, we edged our way in to the railing to snap a few pics before making our way over to the Hyatt on the Bund to enjoy a few drinks and take in the views from the rooftop bar (Vue). We happened to snag one of the last spots with a panoramic view of the skyline and hung out as the sky got darker and darker and, one by one, buildings began to light up the city. The view was killer, and we were able to strike the perfect balance between nursing our drinks to spend as little as possible without clearly overstaying our welcome. Flawlessly executed. Feeling satisfied with our time at the top, we took the elevator down, stepped outside, and immediately realized that the iconic, space-ship looking Oriental Pearl TV Tower had lit up during the time we were in the elevator. Gah! Seriously? While we were in the elevator?!  I was admittedly very bummed that we had just been at the top, and had we stayed literally one minute longer, we would have had seen the full skyline lit up, which seems like a silly thing to get bummed about, but it felt kind of like all of the many times when Gonzaga has broken my heart with a last-second turnover that seals the game for the other team and you can’t help but think “WHY DIDN’T WE JUST NOT TURN THE BALL OVER?!” Maybe it wasn’t quite that intense, but you get the idea, especially if you’re a Zag fan. Fortunately, despite my mopey mood, we walked around the Bund a bit more, which was, somehow, more crowded than earlier, and Mandi found her way into another rooftop bar where she took a bunch of photos that were dope without us ever paying for a drink. 

There were plenty of other things that we might have done differently if we were going to Shanghai again, like, I don’t know, not eating breakfast or having coffee before venturing into the super-crowded Yuyuan Gardens & Bazaar. Not sure why we felt like that was a strong idea, but if you’re wondering how I deal with crowds of people when it’s hot and I haven’t eaten anything, imagine me as a grizzly bear just waking up from hibernation, and that probably captures it. Or ask Mandi to describe my state, and I’m sure she’ll paint a nice, vivid picture of my grouchy behavior. But still (!) the bazaar and gardens were totally worth going (although, I’d recommend maybe mentally preparing for the crowds and having a coffee at least), and we enjoyed wandering around, popping into shops, and seeing the gardens. 

I should also mention that I got us lost (probably more than once) in search of our last round of dumplings before heading to the airport to return to Seoul. We wandered and wandered and wandered, not finding the place we were looking for nor any other obvious restaurants in the area that could fill the deep need in our souls for more dumplings. Disappointed, running low on time, and (again) hungry, we popped into a small cafe on the corner and sat down. They didn’t have dumplings, but, as it turns out, the food was fantastic, and our meal of omrice (rice covered with an egg/omelet and some sauce) and a kimchi grilled cheese sandwich was a pretty perfect last meal in Shanghai, despite the glaring lack of dumplings.

Of course, we didn’t fumble through every aspect of our time in Shanghai; some things went quite smoothly. First of all, our hotel was awesome and easy to find, which was super great considering our experience upon arrival in Beijing. Having settled into our hotel, we set out that evening to explore a bit and started by wandering through the French Concession, grabbing a beer at Boxing Cat Brewery, and eventually making our way to Tianzifang, a compact complex of tight alleyways, brimming with people, shops, and restaurants. After meandering through the dizzying maze of bustling alleys, we tucked into a bar down at the end of one alley (Bell Bar) and wandered around the several levels and rooms hiding in what, at first glance, had looked to be a small bar. Eventually we had a balcony all to ourselves where we enjoyed a couple of drinks as the evening marched along. When we decided to leave, most of the shops in Tianzifang had closed, but we were still in need of something to snack on, and we wandered around until we found a little dumpling shop that was still open. Obviously, we devoured the dumplings, capping off a particularly perfect night void of any major missteps, and full of delicious food, drink, and atmosphere.

I suppose the point of all of this is to say that Shanghai was probably our favorite stop of our three in China, although each was super different in terms of what we did and our experiences. The distinct neighborhoods, impressive museums, towering skyline, delicious restaurants and bars, and buzz of an incredibly busy city (seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been around more people in my life), made for a fantastic way to wind down our week in China. Most of all though, I think Shanghai and China in general highlighted a really important aspect of travel, adventures, or just life: a lot of times, things don’t go as planned. Sometimes, when you’re eating a proverbial dumpling in life, scalding hot soup rockets into your mouth to burn you. Sometimes you look behind you and see that you’ve been doing everything wrong. But that doesn’t, or shouldn’t, stop you from getting round two of those travel/adventure/life dumplings, because, dang it, they’re delicious, and there’s way too many of them out there to worry about whether or not you’re doing things just right. From my experience, it’s just fine getting a little soup on the table.

(Check out other pics from our time in Shanghai below).

• Shanghai Shenanigans
• Huangshan Mountains
• Little Things 2: Coming Back
• Beijing-ing
• Bali and The Legend of Chuck the Gecko