[My Weekender] with Plui

When the party stops with Plui - Sep 12, 08

Plui is one of the handful of people that make Bonbon the happiest place on earth. He's also a "newlywed, full-time father-to-be, rookie family man, veteran of multiple tours into the heart of darkness and a full-time father-to-be."

It's a milestone weekend as I hit the big Four-Oh.

Over the past year I got married and have started a family here in Shanghai with my new wife Rebecca. Weekends once filled with sleepless nights carousing the town have mostly been replaced with sleepless nights pondering La Maze classes, titanium baby strollers, and progressively more daytime activities.

It's about time for a break from all the babythinking though, and we resolve for to get away, not from the actual responsibilities of parenthood, but from the non-stop thinking about it.

It's that feeling of getting away that led us to Fay, owner of the Quintet Bed & Breakfast. She's just renovated an old three-storey house bringing its amenities and appearance up to an international standard of contemporary B&B while retaining some character and nostalgia of Old Shanghai, and in doing so has created a getaway of sorts right in the French Concession.

After a brief discussion, Fay was able to create a plan and schedule and provide options for a birthday party "getaway" tonight at her B&B for us and a handful of our close friends. Some brief discussions with management at the "Closed Door" private restaurant downstairs at 808 Changle Lu and voila, dinner is also arranged.

Fay also recommended a very relaxing afternoon for expecting moms might include a prenatal spa and facial at Shui Spa on Ferguson Lane. They use premium, imported oils that have been tested safe for use during pregnancy.

Saturday! After breakfast we'll go shopping at the huge kids' section of the 4th floor of Grand Gateway by the theaters, or closer to home on the 3rd floor of Amanda Plaza at Changshou Lu near Wuning Lu. Prices are comparable for strollers (1,000rmb), formula(500rmb), diapers(750rmb), clothes(1,000rmb), cribs (2,000rmb), college (???), etc.

As the evening rolls by, I have some responsibilities at Bonbon regardless of the temporary closure and should really stop by to feed the gerbils that power the soundsystem before heading out to see/pay respects to Attica, before its closing. Club closures are a damn shame for all, regardless of where your allegiances may lie, in my opinion.

Sunday. Our 5 month old puppy Oscar is genetically related to Chewbacca The Walking Carpet, and I spend an awful lot of time washing him. With that news of tainted dog food originating from China, we've been ordering bulk Science Diet from gray market importers on the Chinese website. But more on that tomorrow, because Sundays are for cooking -- and if its September in Shanghai, cooking means Hairy Crabs.

Ad-hoc hairy crab stores like at Da-an Garden began popping up earlier this week all around the city, selling those strange looking crabs with the furry elbows. There are countless stories of counterfeit crabs being hawked by vendors, but I generally plea ignorance and aim for the lower price crabs *in quantity* ie, 6 x 10rmb critters instead of 1 x 60rmb critter. These aren't "Deadliest Catch" type of crabs, and aren't really eaten for their claw meat, but for the orangey-yellow roe that sits right under the female's crab thing or whatever marine biologists call that, umm part. The roe tastes a bit like a soft boiled egg yolk, but with hints of China's waterways -- Essence of Huangpu, perhaps? It took awhile, but I do love 'em, especially with an icey cold Tsingdao.

And this extra special bonus extended-play My Weekender includes a Moon Cake Monday entry. Ponder mooncakes. Basically these are the equivalent of the Christmas or Thanksgiving "fruitcake" that we see in the west. I've been told on a few occasions that "nobody really eats them" and I suspect they are passed around, year after year, just as the fruitcakes are back home. We won't be perpetuating the tradition, instead this Monday, we're taking a ROADTRIP, marking the first truly Plui family outing!

It is possible to rent/hire a car and driver for 8 hours, so we are taking Oscar to an www.aigou.com organized Dog Day Afternoon somewhere in Songjiang. Taxis are mostly reluctant to take pets the size of Oscar, so we stuff him in a suitcase and throw him in the back trunk for a few hours without telling.

Well, not really, we've rented a car and driver from www.risingsh.com/en where they go for as little as 500 rmb. We will spend the day outdoors, letting Oscar stretch his legs by running on real grass for more than the few turd-covered metres available at Da-An Gardens. Renting the car and driver did not require a drivers license, but does require a credit card, local or international.
With any luck I'll sleep all the way home and through the next morning, perhaps dreaming of Recreational Vehicles (RV/Winnebago).

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