SHANGHAI + GUANGZHOU
We flew into Guangzhou after Tokyo to see Sherman (Wilson’s dad). We stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Guangzhou. Staying at this hotel has a certain level of nostalgia for Wilson. He used to come here for meals with his parents when they visited China, and the buffet here is next level. It is a multi-room and culturally diverse dining experience with heaps of options for everyone. The rooms were interesting; on the surface, they looked nice, but being in the renovation and design industry, we are harsh critics and often notice more than most. The hotel facilities, pool and gym were all fantastic. The hotel is central to the Guangzhou area, malls and restaurants are close by, and most places speak English as well, making communication easier. We spent a lot of our time at the Redtory Art District. This district is where Sherman’s company is based. Redtory means red brick, and that is precisely what you can expect. Lots of old warehouses converted into modern shops, galleries and restaurants. We took a lot of pictures there and hung out at his studio and the galleries.
We had a delicious dinner at Mortons Steakhouse in Guangzhou. The food was good, and the service was great as well.
We didn’t spend too long in Guangzhou (since we’d been before) before we flew to Shanghai for a few nights.
In Shanghai, we stayed in Xin Tian Di District, which is a lively district of bars and restaurants. We stayed at The Langham Hotel, which was extraordinary. They had great rooms and a nice pool, hot tub, and breakfast buffet. We met up with our friend Jared who used to live in Canada but moved to Shanghai. He took us to a Sichuan restaurant and ate the spiciest food we ever had; it was so delicious. We met a bunch of his friends who were from different parts of the world but spoke perfect mandarin, which was embarrassing for W because he’s Chinese and cannot speak Mandarin. Marika was feeling pretty tired after dinner, so headed back to the hotel and Jared and W explored. They went to the Bund, the waterfront district, where there’s tons of shops and beautiful hotels on the water. It’s a cool walk to do. When Marika was feeling better, and we did the Old Shanghai area. It had cool restaurants and shops; they turned old heritage Chinese buildings into new shops and kept the gardens. It’s a busy area, but it’s a great spot if you don’t mind crowds.
One great advantage of coming to Shanghai was that there is another Disneyland there. We went right at opening, hoping to avoid the crowds. With it being a rainy winter Wednesday, we kind of had the park to ourselves which was amazing! We didn’t wait more than 10 minutes for any ride. The rides were wild in Shanghai, they did not have Space Mountain or some of our other favourites, but they have a Tron ride, which was insane. It feels like you are in the movie Tron, and the seats were the Tron bikes which were terrifying, but so fun; we rode it 15 times in total, 12 back to back. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride was unbelievable (much different from LA), along with a Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride. The downtown Disney area outside Disneyland was also a great spot to explore, but we kept finding ourselves back at the Tron ride.
We went to China to check out a couple of tile and textile suppliers for CxD, so we didn’t end up having a lot of time to roam and explore. A fair amount of our meals were provided via private dining rooms through our suppliers, so we don’t have many restaurant recommendations, yet. We will inevitably be back in China soon, and we will do another post with more explorations and food recommendations. The two things we do recommend is Sichuan and Xiao Long Bao’s soup dumplings, SO YUMMY.
