Shopping Trip in Shanghai

On Saturday, visited several shopping destinations in Shanghai. Check out my journey here.

Started with a cab ride to the FoxTown factory outlet mall, who's advertisement boosted brands like Prada, Gucci and Versace. You can get the address from their website and when in China, it's always good to carry the print out of the location map with address in English and Chinese as the typical cab driver will only be able to read the chinese address. I forgot to do that so we were circling around the Shanghai Stadium and he called his pal on the cell phone for instructions. However, this cab driver was so good that he even gave me a discount on my taxi fare since he couldn't find the location. This was the first time i was actually given a discount!

However, this so-called shopping mall was such a big disappointment and had very limited range, so i was out of there in 10 minutes. Next i headed to Nanjing Xi Lu (Nanjing Road West), Plaza 66. The chinese name for this grand shopping mall, doesn't even have the word 66 in it (which i learnt on my very first china trip in early 2005). You will get Louis Vuitton (LV), Prade, Gucci, Chanel, and all the big international brands here. One great thing is that, there's hardly any other shoppers around so you have big space and quiet relaxing shopping even on a weekend. You should check out the chinese restaurant upstairs that serves pretty nice dim sum, which i especially liked the crab meat / roe pork dumpling.

You can either shop at the huge shopping mals on the same row of Plaza 66, or cross the street for small little stores across it. I had a Japanese set lunch of salmon sashimi, and then went to a dessert shop for a nice steamed egg white with milk dessert. I absolutely love this dessert and always make it a point to have at least 1 serving each trip i'm in China or Hong Kong.

The weather in early September is less hotter compared to the mid summer months like July so walking along the streets were still alright.

Then after about 2 hours, hopped into a cab to Nanjin Road East. If you continued to walk on foot, you can probably reach here too but it'll be a very long walk (at least 45 minutes of non-stop walking). Here is the place where you will get lost even shopping on 1 floor at some of these big shopping malls. For instance, the New World Shopping Center and Shanghai No.1 Shopping Mall. One word of caution, you will be approached by many people to try out their cafes or restaurants upstairs, and you will probably end up with an unhappy experience where you might pay higher rates than usual for food that aren't even that delicious.

You will see many KFCs, McDonalds, Yoshinoya japanese bowl rice and Ajisen Ramen. If you have not tasted Ajisen Ramen before, you really need to try it out. Lots of variety for noodles and snacks like Chicken Wings, Grilled Eel, and more. Shopping in Shanghai is not just limited to women apparels, even bed & furnishings, and lots of choices for mens apparels are available. Suits / jackets are aplenty and can range from RMB200 to RMB500 for the jacket and pants.

I ended back at my apartment by 6pm, and headed to the hair saloon for my hair colouring. Since it was gonna take some time, i also tried out the manicure with nail arts. Looks like a busy shopping day and look forward to Sunday!