Shanghai water delivery

I found this in my drafts folder.  Have I already posted a version?  Beats me, but between my cold and my desire to go to bed.. I'm going to assume I haven't and just post it.

---

If you're drinking water in Shanghai, you have several options. You can boil the tap water to kill the germs and drink that, but then you still have the heavy metals. You can buy bottles from the supermarket, but then you're killing the environment with all that discarded plastic and it gets old carrying the bottles home. And you can also obtain or buy a water dispenser and have 5 gallon bottles delivered to your home.

I'm at the point where I am buying a water dispenser. The word on Shanghai Expat was that you can get one for around 100 RMB at a store like Gome. So I located my nearest Gome store on Changshou road and went there.

The process of buying something at a store like these, let alone a water dispenser, is long and complicated. You start off buy going to find the good you want on the shelf, then you negotiate in limited Mandarin with all the old ladies standing around. Then one of them goes off and fills in a form, and gives it to you. Then you head up stairs to the payment counter, and pay the girls there. Then they give you two slips, one of which (the white one) is to give to the collections counter and the other (the pink one) is your fa piao / receipt.

So you head over to the collections counter, where someone takes the white slip and goes to fetch whatever you bought.

Then you grab it and leave.

The next step is to get the water bottles to accompany it. On Shanghai Expat people seem to talk about preferring three brands mostly. Nongfu Springs, Watsons and Nestle. Nongfu Springs is a local cheaper brand, but no-one seems to talk about getting it delivered. I normally drink Nestle, so I decided to stick with it and order that. After a bit of Googling, I managed to find a Chinese language Nestle web page. Life must have been so much harder for people living in China before tools like Google Translate were around.

There are three types of water offered. Distilled at 28 RMB, mineral water for 19 RMB and purified water at 17 RMB. It is kind of confusing which to choose, but Shanghai Expat comes to the rescue again. People advise against the distilled water because it lacks the minerals and salts of normal water, which causes problems in the long run. The word is to buy mineral water.

So I called the listed number, pressed 2 for English. Then gave my address, named how many bottles I wanted, agreed to pay a 40 RMB deposit for each, chose which type of water I wanted and they will be delivered tomorrow between 12 PM and 5 PM. It is not exactly ideal to have to stick around home for five hours!

I've since left Shanghai, and didn't bother getting the ~40 RMB refund per bottle.  The Nestle delivery service was consistently helpful, and went out of their way to get me the water.  If they came at the wrong time, or when I popped out, they'd ring and sort out a new time.  I'd recommend anyone living in Shangai use them.  Many of the locals simply boiled the water, maybe that's good enough for you.. but maybe you should think twice.

French Cafe bottled coffee

The FamilyMart convenience store across from my apartment complex used to sell Starbucks bottled coffee, but after selling out their first lot of stock never acquired any more. Most Chinese convenience stores sell a variety of mostly identical uncompelling bottled coffees.

These appeared on the shelf where the Starbucks bottles used to be and looked interesting enough to give a shot. Like the Starbucks bottles which are around 22 RMB, these are also expensive at around 18 RMB apiece.

Bottles from the front.

Bottles from the back. Made in Korea, maybe that means the product quality is more trustworthy and one doesn't need to worry about things like malamine.

I need to stop drinking these bottled coffees. I could make instant coffee with milk, cool it in the fridge and it would likely taste as good. It would cost a fraction of the price, and would more than likely be nowhere near as fattening.

A face you can trust

The walls of my apartment building elevators are lined with advertisements. This isn't the first time I've seen this guy in them. I feel strangely compelled to buy whatever it is he is selling..

Balcony construction view

Shanghai is a pretty noisy city, but most of the banging and clanging comes from the construction of new apartment buildings nearby. Here's a shot from my balcony of one of the many buildings I can see in the mid-stage of development.

I own you

Another photo from across the road showing some amusing Google translation-esque English. An inspirational poster like this is just what we need to make us pull over and go shopping at a mall.

"I feel I own the whole world here just like I own you."

I love delicious food

Across the road from my apartment building. There's about four large split posters like this, each one sounding like it was run through the Google translation web page.

"I love delicious food just as actually as I love you."

More jian bing

Had an hour to do chores before I had to be somewhere, so I grabbed some jian bing for lunch. Started with spicy pancake, this is like the normal pancake I get.. but erm, spicier.

They also had some spring roll like jian bing there.

The texture was like something with grated potato filling, that had been parcooked and left to sit in a glass cabinet for several hours.

I think I will stick with the spicy vegetable turnover and the spicy pancake from now on.

Your doors on back to front!

Now I do not know much about that building jiggery-pokery, but don't the hinges go on the inside because someone could just knock them out and pull your door off? That's what I've been wondering at least, since my neighbours (who have thankfully lessened their construction efforts) removed their door and put it back like this.

The gu zheng

Someone who has gone away on holiday kindly leant me their gǔ zhēng (古筝) while they are away. Initially, when I first saw it, I wanted to try playing it but.. before doing so reflected on it and realised that I was more interested in learning a western instrument. That the gǔ zhēng was too Chinese for me, and something I couldn't identify with. Anyway, here it is in my apartment. It's a pretty big instrument, you need the table leg props for it because you wouldn't want it on your knees.

And this is a picture of a book I bought on playing it. The girl in the book store told me that it was supposed to be a book for beginners, but I can't even read a word! :-) For that matter, she wasn't speaking English so who knows what she actually told me..

Health food snacks

I eat a pretty healthy breakfast I make out of various nutrients, and in order to source them I need to go to a health store for at least some of them. The store I went to in this case was called Helekang I think, although I may be remembering it wrong. While I was there, I bought some of their "healthy"-esque snacks.

There's not really much to say about these, besides documenting that I bought and tried them. Let's face it, fruit is just sugar, water and a bit of vitamin C. And dried fruit eventually tastes pretty generic after you get over the initial flavour detection.

Blueberries are supposed to be healthy, antioxidants and all that. These were okay, but not really substantial enough to be satisfying.

Freeze dried peach. Peach is reasonably popular in China as a flavour, but usually it is accompanied by extra sugar and maybe some sour tangy nastiness coating it. So these were a better peach experience than your average Chinese peach experience.

Freeze dried apple. Not as much flavour as a dehydrated apple, but okay.

I'm almost out of flaxseed so I'll be going in again soon, I'll have to see what other snacks they have available.

Freshmark snacks

Conveniently, there's a convenience store called Freshmart just outside my metro stop. So I'll stop in there and see what snacks are left on the shelves on the way home. Here are two of their snacks that I bought a month or so ago.

I've posted before about yóu tiáo (油条). In this case, they've been made into a burrito. I seem to recall this tasting savoury, but nothing special.

And they also have salads which are more or less reasonably priced. This one actually looks quite appetising in the photo, not that it wasn't edible.

I can also pay my bills are Freshmart, so whenever the gas, water, power or whatever company pushes a bill into my mailbox I can just pop across the road and pay it with little effort. Speaking of which, there are two on my shelf at the moment I need to take over there.

Jingan coming to Putuo

Near the dumpling place, was this under construction store. Two buxom attractive western women advertising bread to the Chinese - hope it's a western bakery, not one of those weird Chinese ones. In them, most of the goods are sugar-laden and the rest are fluffy shaved pork covered.

Queueing for dumplings

Normally I go to the place across the road and get my dumplings to go, but I've grown a bit tired of them. They're pretty tasteless, or at least I've come to believe they are. So I decided to go wandering down Langao road to see what I could find. It's a public holiday here at the moment, as it is the Tomb Sweeping holiday. But shops were open..

I came across this place, and got in line. Then I saw they were handing over not money, but tickets. So I asked the last lady in the queue where she got hers and she told me inside at the counter (asked and told being generous descriptions of a series of gestures). So I headed inside and bought two tickets at 3.5 yuan each.

They sold out just as I neared the front of the line. Then they refilled the pan with fresh ones, and covered it with this lid.

Eventually, they were cooked. It took several minutes, if not five to ten of them. I lost track of time because spit while he talks dude in the line in front of me decided to speak lots of Mandarin at me. Apparently he works at some sort of processing plant and he liked my cellphone, which was an ipod touch.

The serving lady sprinkled spring onion across the dumplings.

Scooped up two tickets worth.

Prepared to put the pottle in the bag. When I first arrived, someone wanted a second pottle over their served pottle full of dumplings to keep them warm and fresh or something. The serving lady wasn't going to be having any of that sort of frippery going on.

And handed over to me. The thing about dumplings is that they are filled full of scorching hot broth. I have to spend five to ten minutes walking home and even then they're just cool enough to eat.

Good stuff.

How many burning buildings do you need?

After standing and watching a burning apartment building in the distance, the last thing I want to know is that I live in a building of my own with a bunch of dumb-arse smokers.

Let's throw our cigarette down in the wooden lift floor!

And again!

And again!

And again!

And for variety, just outside the lift!

Saw this as the hotel I was staying in as well, on their carpet lift floor.

Street vendor disappearances

Last week, I was talking to a coworker who lives in the same complex as me how the street vendors had all disappeared. Today I came off the metro to see no street vendors, but lots of people standing around. One of the street vendors had her cooked goods and cooking paraphernalia on the ground, but no cart. Then suddenly a horde of policemen descended on her and took some of her paraphernalia.

In the picture above, you can see steam rising off the "sweet potato and corn cart" which all the policemen are gathered around (waiting for it to cool?). And on the back of the truck, you can see the "unremarkable omelette cart" waiting to be taken away. I wonder why the police do this.. street food is one of the many enjoyable things that make Shanghai and I imagine China in general a great place to live.

Vegetable pancake street food

The number of street vendors at my subway stop almost doubled, both in the morning and evening. They included this vegetable pancake type deal. Quite tasty. Cost 2.5 RMB for one.

Jian bing with breadstick

Not sure if I have posted a photo of this yet.

Making a jiān bing

As I witter on about often on this blog, I love Chinese street food. One of the things I would like to do, is get as much information about it as possible so that should one day it no longer be available to me, I can try and make it myself. Or at least approximate it in some way, with a feeling of authenticity :-)

I originally took a video of someone making one of these jiān bing (煎饼), but each vendor does it a little bit differently, and thinking about it pictures are less bandwidth and more instructive.

The first step is to spread the batter layer (probably just flour and water). I don't have enough chinese to ask about ingredients, although since I know the words for flour and water, I could probably ask if that was all it was. Anyway, the next step when it is no longer wet is to break an egg over it and spread that as another layer over the first.

Then when that is spread, the first herb which I believe is coriander is sprinkled over.

And after that, the second herb which I believe is green onion is sprinkled over.

Next, the third herb (?) which is definitely pre-cooked garlic is sprinkled.

Then the "pancake" is scraped off the hot plate.

Until it can be folded over, and then the last half is scraped off the hot plate.

A small amount of chilli paste is dropped on top, and then brown paste is smeared with the chilli paste and the result is smeared over the surface of the folded pancake.

The crispy wafer is snapped in half, and placed in the "inner" part of the half-circle folded pancake.

The package is then wrapped up around the wafer, making a closed package out of itself.

Cut in half, to make two open sandwich-like sections.

Folded against each other, and placed in a bag open ends facing out ready to eat.

The price with my jiān bing guy has gone up. At 2 kuai 5 mao, he was pretty much as cheap as it gets and with one of the better products around. Now that he is back from Spring Festival, like as for other goods in China, his prices have gone up. So, 3 kuai it is now.