We head back to the hostel after another round of shopping, I’m sure she was satisfied with what she bought, it was cheap and yet it was decent, don’t ask me how long it will last though. She probably would have bought more if there was still space in her bag. Anyway, they brought out their stuff out of the hostel, I immediately noticed how one of them was carrying much more than the other. The luggage was massive for one a one week trip. In fact, she has more stuff than I brought with me, and I’m travelling for three weeks! Well, I always believed in travelling light. There were no tearful farewells since we will be meeting up again when I get back from China.
I decided to rest after that tiring day, after all were have been moving from store to store that day. I seems like she was storing her energy for the shopping and was only along for the sights. That night, I wanted to eat again and I was trying to locate a place which was nice and affordable. Nanjing Road East isn’t really the best place to find such places so I walked along a parallel road to see what they have to offer for locals, and I mean Shanghai residents. I came across this shop called Suzhou Noodle King, my translation of 苏州面大王.
My eye immediately caught sight of a dish I loved in Suzhou, it was that noodle dish with that melt in your mouth meat. They had several variations of the dish and I ordered one with fried fish. The friendly owner flashed the thumbs up sign saying that that was their specialty. The fish was salty, almost like it was salted fish, the portion was also generous. The soup, very hearty. The meat was that kind which I need to “melt” in the hot soup. When done, it gives a very nice melt in your mouth feeling, you probably would forget that it was meat.
It was also at that point that I realized that I was all alone again in China. I won’t be able to order large meals anymore since I won’t have help to finish it, not that I needed any. More significantly, I would have to start speaking Chinese again, I had the luxury of two Chinese speaking companions who would just let deal with the locals. From this time on, I’m on my own.
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