中国，远比想象中的精彩-在上海的首日冒险

I'm taking the beauty of Shanghai's iconic skyline. I think we have been away from Canada for too long because it's only 10 degrees outside, but it feels so cold. Yeah, we have high body temperatures. Yeah. This is cold. I have so many layers on, like I have a long-sleeved shirt, a hoodie, a vest, and I have heat tech pants, and another pair of pants, and a jacket in the bag. But it's kind of nice coming from 36 degrees in Thailand. It was so sticky and hot. Yeah, this is really nice, and it's not even the coolest time in Shanghai. It's already almost springtime. Now we're shopping for tubes to keep us warm. That looks good, but I don't think it will keep you warm. No. Looks nice. It protects my ears. Hey, this one's nice. It's like someone wrapped their hand around your head. You want to try it on? Yeah. That's such a good deal. The hat was 239 yuan, but after I added a pair of socks, it became 188 yuan only. It's such a good deal. And it's very good quality though. Mm-hmm. And even my socks are cute. Look, they're little lamb socks with clouds. Oh my god, that looks so cute. It's so comfy too. So that's the reason I brought you to this street here. This whole street is called Yuen Lu, and it's kind of a trendy spot in Shanghai at the moment, but it's not like a new place because this is a historical street. It's almost protected because there's historical buildings here, but you'll also see there's very modern cafes and small shops like this one. So it's, yeah, it's a new trendy spot for people to come and browse and enjoy. It's very chic. It almost looks like those old streets in Montreal because up here is like residential buildings and then shops and then historical buildings all match together. What he was trying to tell us is how this street, he's like, how did you find this street? This is such a good street to come and visit. And if we walk all the way to the end, there is like a park. And near the park underneath, he said there is an underground street food area that we must go and visit. I'm proud of you. You understood all that? Most of it. When he got into like the history and those things, then I don't understand those words. He talked about food and I was like, okay. It's pretty amazing that you didn't go to school to learn Mandarin or Cantonese and you just pick it up from watching TV. Watching TV, talking to my family, singing karaoke. That's amazing. One thing about Shanghai so far that I noticed is that there are electric vehicles everywhere. That's why you have to be careful crossing the road because you don't dare to come in. Not yet, they're coming. So quiet. Should we grab some coffee first? Yeah. Look at this cafe. It looks so cute. Should we get one of these? That looks really good. Holy baguette with honey and cheese. She's gonna chop it for us. Oh, that's so funny. You see this? At the top of the cake, there's a little mahjong on top. A fusion pastry. Thank you. This is such a vibe. Wow, this is so nice. I love this neighborhood. And the coffee, it's like a nice big cup of coffee, but it's not cheap. It was 28 yuan. That is expensive. Four dollars. Yeah, four dollars. Sorry, I was changing it in baht, which is like almost 140 baht for a coffee, which is a bit expensive. But Shanghai is the most expensive city in China. And it's the most modern. It's like very progressive. And the prices are going to be a big city price for sure. You know what? In comparison, it's not that far off from Bangkok. Yeah. This is like Starbucks prices. But it's so cute. I love this area. It's so nice. Cheers. Oh, that's good coffee though. Yeah, that's really good. So far, Shanghai has exceeded my expectation. It's so clean. It's so modern. People are so friendly. So convenient. Yeah. It's busy. There's a lot of people everywhere. But it's quiet. It's like organized chaos. It's not even chaos, I feel like. Like today is a weekend. I find it already very chill. You know what I mean? Maybe because in my mind, I was expecting the busyness of Hong Kong. But I find there's a lot more space in Shanghai. So it's quite enjoyable. This is so good. So delicious. Look at the amount of public bikes they have here. Isn't that insane? Yeah. And people actually use it. We used it once yesterday. It's so cheap. Which is like 50 cents for 15 minutes. And you just scan, unlock it, and you can use it. So convenient. And there are bike paths on many of the streets. So I think in general, Shanghai is a very bike-friendly place. I'm not that great on the bike on a big street. But if we go by the creek, then I'm very comfortable biking there. So we walked towards the end of Yuyuan Road already. And this is now Zhongshan Park. And I'm surprised to see that it's packed with people. Old people, young people, you know, kids. They're just enjoying all the facility and all the green space. Playing frisbees, playing badminton. Yeah, it's actually a very, very active park. And you have like coffee shops, you have shaded areas. You even have clean public washrooms. I'm amazed that Shanghai is such a big city. But they have a lot of green space and parks for people to enjoy. And I think people enjoy being outside with their family. So it's actually really nice to see. They're just practicing dancing behind you. TikTok. Or they call it Douyin. I have to show you something. I found something over that side. Oh, you can take a paddle boat. That's so neat. That's so cute. Let's go check it out. Oh, that's beautiful. There's even live music on the other side too. Wow. And these are like nice looking paddle boats too for a whole family. Do you hear the song with the trumpet? That's the famous... I know that. That's the mafia movie, isn't it? Yeah, you know it. Grew up watching that movie. So if you were interested in doing this electric boat, it is 80 yuan for half an hour and you can fit up to five people. So that's actually a really, really good deal. But we are getting a little bit hungry. So we're gonna move on from here to go find some snacks. It seems like this spot of the park is where the musicians come and show off their skills. She's practicing her saxophone over there. And they're practicing clarinet over there. And the guy behind us. So interesting though is they obviously are not professionals. And that's what's cool about it. They probably pick this up as a hobby after, you know, they got older or they're retired or something. So it's never going to be too late for you to learn to play saxophone. Because that is one of your dreams, isn't it? Yeah, I find saxophone is so sexy. I would love to come here. I play saxophone in the park. It's never too late one day. This is such a happy park. I feel happy being here. Everyone's just enjoying themselves and expressing their interests freely. Yeah, and it doesn't matter if you're good or bad. It's also good exercise, you know? I think when we get old, this is what I want to do. Do you want to go dancing in the park? Yeah, have a community, have friends, come to a park and hang out. Look at this hallway. They have electric cars. We've only seen BYD cars. Yeah. I've never seen this one. I've never seen this before. Wow. How does it look inside? It's so futuristic. Look at that. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. I have never driven an electric car before. Would love to try. Oh, look at this. This one is nice. Wow, that's so clean. The interior. I think it looks better than the Tesla. How much do you think it would be? I would assume it's not too expensive because they are built here in China. You asked the guy how much it is? Yeah. So the SUV version is 250,000 yuan, which is around 35,000 US dollars. But that's a fancy one. Because my roommate from university, we had dinner with her and her parents yesterday. And her dad was saying that if you get one of the BYD electric cars, it's only 80,000, which is how much? Which is 11,000 US dollars. Yeah. So he's like, it's so affordable. And that's why lots of people are starting to buy electric vehicles. Wow, that is so inexpensive. It's like getting a secondhand car in Thailand, basically. I think this is it. This is like an underground city market. It smells like food, so it must be in there. The old man is so trendy, knowing this place. It looks so fancy. Wow. Not sure where he went, but this is really, really yummy. This place is too big. There's too many little alleys you can go to, and it's just full of different types of food. It's pretty awesome. There you are. Is this what you want to eat? Yeah, everything looks so good. I want a whole chicken, but I think it might be too much food. But I saw this guy eating pork chop, and underneath has like tofu slices. Oh. I'm not sure what they are. Let me find out for you. This is it. Is that what you wanted? So the deep-fried pork chop, and underneath is actually sticky rice cake, which is very typical Shanghainese. And I remember eating that stir-fried when I was young as well, because my dad's actually Shanghainese, but born in Hong Kong. Yeah, sticky rice. I was like, oh, what do you mean little sheets of white? That's exactly what it is. And how is that? It's good. It's a little bit oily, but it's very, very tasty. And look, there's so much green onion. Let me try this rice sheet. Do you like it? The sauce is so good. It's like a tongue. You're right. Yeah, don't bite it. Just leave it hanging. You can taste there's like a little bit of sweet vinegar taste in the sauce. A lot of Shanghainese food has vinegar in there because it's one of their most staple ingredients. And look at this good-looking pork chop. Is there like a Shanghainese dish that when you come to Shanghai, you have to eat? What is it? What's that? Like juicy and soft, but the bottom is very crispy. And then when you bite into it, it oozes out its juice. Have you seen any here? There's one over here, actually. Oh, I saw. Should we try it after this? I think so. This is it. This is the Sanxingbao, which is a typical breakfast food, I think, for Shanghainese. And they're pretty big, each one of them. The best way to eat this so you don't burn yourself is bite a little hole so then the juices don't come flowing out. The inside's really good. So the filling I got is pork, but you can also get it with prawns. You can also have any crab inside, but this is the original one. And I quite like the one with just pork. I told you, you have to be perfect with your chopsticks to be able to eat these. At the metro station, which is conveniently just underneath the mall where we were just eating. And we are heading towards kind of the busier part of town called the Bund, the famous Bund. We wanted to share a little tip about the metro here in Shanghai. So you can actually get the metro card directly on your phone through one of the payment apps, but somehow it didn't work for us. We found out afterwards that you could add this T-Union Shanghai metro card. You can add this card directly into your Apple wallet and use it as payment. So you can just scan to go in. But we couldn't figure it out initially. So we physically got these cards, which were 20 yuan as a deposit. And you just add money to use it. And they're machine footage card. Yeah, you can just buy it really easily. We find it very convenient, but people who see us using it probably think we're really old-fashioned that we're using these cards. Because everyone is just scanning. But yeah, the metro in Shanghai is so convenient. And it's actually one of the largest metros in the world. There's over 450 stations. Even bigger than Japan. Bigger than Japan. But it's fairly easy to navigate because everything is in Chinese and English. It's actually pretty cheap to take the metro too. We found that most times it's been either two dollars or three... Not dollars. Two yuan or three yuan to get around. Which is like a dollar maybe? Yeah, yeah. And the trains come super regularly. That's neat. Is it free? No, you have to pay. Here, it says 10 yuan per person. Oh, that's not bad. No. That's not bad. A dollar fifty? That's pretty good. Like you can go as far as you want? No, it turns around right here. We are now at the very popular Nanjing Pedestrian Street. It is, as you can see, it's closed. You cannot have any vehicles or I think electric bikes sometimes cross in between. But then they cannot go on the main road here. It's so lively. I like it. It is the perfect place if you're looking to kind of shop and have dinner. You basically have everything here. Or just people watch. Yeah, people watch. It's pretty entertaining. But we're not going to do much shopping. We are planning to walk towards the Bund, which is just at the end of the street. But instead of just walking through this busy street, I thought maybe we could go towards the creek, the Suzhou Creek, and rent a bicycle and explore the quieter side of this area. Oh, it's getting cold. I feel like the temperature dropped so quickly. I guess the sun is gone now. Oh, I got mine. Oh my goodness, it's so cold. We have to wear a jacket. This is so convenient. I love it. I'm curious how much it cost though. It's 1.5. That's pretty good. I'm not sure if it's mine or yours. I think this one is yours. It's so insane. It got so cold all of a sudden. I'm so glad I have a toque. Your head must be so cold. Is that good? Good. You're ready? I'm ready. Much better. I mean, you can't feel my face, but at least my body feels warm. Look over there. Oh, wow. That is the famous... What is it called? I can't even think right now. The tower? The Oriental Pearl or something. I have to find out the name of that tower. It's crazy that now that we're here, seeing it in front of us, I have only seen it in photos. It's iconic for Shanghai, but that is not the tallest building in Shanghai though. The tallest building is actually the Shanghai Tower. It's the third tallest building in the world. So I think we got to go a bit more on the bridge to see it. That's insane. You have the live music on that side and then you have the beautiful church here. And you see that tall, tall building there? That is the Shanghai Tower. That's the one you mentioned. I feel like we are super weak. She is wearing a halter top wedding dress in the cold, taking photos. I'm shivering from my core now. You can tell her face is dying. But it must be a beautiful shot. I mean, today seems a bit kind of like foggy. Yeah, not as clear. There's like four couples here taking wedding photos. It's the spot to go to. This bridge is called Jiapuluqiao, I think. I don't know what it is in English, but I'll pin it also in the description box if you want to come here to see the view that we're seeing over here, which is very, very epic. But we're not at the Bund yet, right? No, we have to keep going straight and turn right, I think. And the Bund has an even more epic view? Or same view but closer, I guess? I think it's same view but closer. Because the Bund is on this side. Once you cross the river, then that side is another name. I'm not sure what it's called. But that's like the financial hub side. It'll look really different, I think, when it's nighttime and all the lights come on. So this is the Bund, huh? This is the Bund. This is freaking, freaking incredible. Amazing, right? So the beautiful towers that we saw on the opposite side, like the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, all of that is not the Bund. The Bund is this side, which has 50 or more historic buildings. Mostly are banks and hotels, basically a financial area. This is a great start to our China adventure. I'm glad we came here to Chiang Rai. I could live here. It's so convenient. You say that about so many places. It is already one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive city in China. So I'm interested to see how the prices are going to differ as we move kind of from here onwards to the south for a little bit and then to the west. I think for sure before coming here, you really need to set up your payment methods, your Alipay, your WeChat pay, because that is so essential to enjoying the city. And another thing is I found it quite difficult to find hotels using booking.com, which is what we usually use to book our hotels. But once I started using trip.com, then so many choices like five-star hotels to homestays, everything is on there. So I'll also link our hotel in the description because I think it's a really nice place. Our hotel is right by the Suzhou Creek, kind of where we were cycling earlier. It's like a comfortable room, nice facilities, and it's only about $50 a night, which is a really good price in Shanghai. And three minutes walk to the metro. So from here, we're going to make our way to another city in the next video. We are going to Hangzhou, which is one of the most beautiful cities in China and less than an hour away from Shanghai by high-speed train. We hope you enjoyed exploring Shanghai with us today. As always, thank you for watching and have a wonderful day. See you in the next one. Bye-bye. Perfect meal for a cold day. I'm excited.