Our Green Fingers, Back To Back Lunches

19/3/2013

As the climate in Shanghai is still deciding on whether to bring us spring or stay a little longer in winter, we decided to gamble by rolling up our sleeves and getting some dirt under our finger nails. I told Lezil that I have this idealistic dream of having a vegetable patch and some farm animals for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Negotiating the best price for our veg-growing goodies!

The livestock is still a long way off (Winnie our cat doesn’t count!) and the communal garden we share with three other floors in our old lane house is in a sorry state. Therefore starting simply is always the best. A few stops due east from our home on line 10 was Laoximen metro station and from there it was a 10 minute walk to the pet and flower market. I had cooked up a plan to grow our own veggies using the fairly large window ledges we have outside both our sitting room and bedroom windows.

It was frantic business that Saturday afternoon as I haggled for the best deals on two troughs, some quality fertilised soil, a spade and the all-essential seeds for growing the vegetables themselves. The pet outlets outnumbered the plant ones with every imaginable animal sound ringing in our ears. For a rock-bottom final price of RMB 100 (£10) I had all the items we needed to start our journey on harvesting a healthy batch of tomatoes, spring onions and chillies. We use these practically every day in our cooking, so it made sense to then try and produce our own supply.

Just before leaving we picked up an already growing herb plant, rosemary, to add to our mint plant we had purchased the week before. Both are now innovatively hanging from our outdoor clothes rail.

Wrapping up the deal as our items are packed for us.

Ready to start planting our veg garden.

Back at home, we used our lane’s driveway to start preparing the troughs with soil and watering them sufficiently ready for seed planting. Our downstairs neighbour came out to watch us tenderly prepare everything as he amused himself over the two foreigners working their green fingers with enthusiasm. He was asking us where we planned to grow the veggies to which I told him our harebrained idea of window ledge planting. He seemed pretty impressed with our home project.

It seemed like our prolonged presence out front was attracting not only our neighbours but our fruit lady’s cat. She runs her stall right next door to our apartment and we had spotted her cat playing with Winnie a few times before. Unofficially christening her ‘Amarula’, after the famed South African cream liqueur, she was a right little inquisitive feline. She didn’t hesitate on jumping up on our laps. Then she took a liking to our watering can, feverishly lapping up the water before startling herself by tipping it over. We had brought some fish treats for cats courtesy of Lezil’s mum in Australia which, strangely enough, Amarula wasn’t sure to make of.

Amarula the cat drinking from our watering can!

Seeds for spring onions.

She was more interested in sniffing the titbit than actually eating it. Under Amarula’s playful gaze we completed the final stages of our mini veg garden by planting the seeds. The packet instructions were all in Chinese characters which made it tough going. So a quick spin on the internet and we had some good tips on how best to nurture our plants-to-be. A quick pat down of the soil and a final light-watering and we took our two heavy troughs back into our apartment to their new window ledge homes.

Thankfully both our rooms are south-facing and receive sun practically all day long which is perfect to kick start the seedlings growth. This was our very first attempt at home-grown produce. Already the following morning I longing looked over the tops of the troughs naively hoping to see some green shoots coming through. I can’t wait to see the first signs of a sprouting plant and trust me, there will be periodic blog updates on how our little babies are doing.

Scrubbing ourselves clean back to city dwellers standards Lezil and I went to a screening of a new documentary. This was a collaboratively produced project by The British Council, a Shanghai-based entertainment company Split Works and a locally-based film company Daedelum Films. The 55 minutes fly-on-the-wall movie entitled “From Wrexham to Wuhan” followed the experiences of four British bands performing at various cities across China.

A good turnout for the screening.

As part of the Jue Arts Festival, the documentary "From Wrexham To Wuhan" is screened.

For all-but-one of the performers, it was their first experience being in the Far East and the differences in the music scene, culture and modes of travel all gave the viewers a chance to see how each person adapted.

It was an excellent way to promote cross-culture creativity and the snappy edits of both the performances and the more behind-the-scenes footage gave you a good enough insight into how the bands were actually received in China. That night at the venue, a good turnout of both Chinese and expats supported what was touted as a ‘world premiere’.

After a few hellos and goodbyes with some familiar faces after the screening, we made our way to The Room. A fairly new clubbing venue, our Chinese Swedish friend Sunni was celebrating his birthday with another mate of his, Daniel. Both the birthday boys had booked out the entire place for their private get-together. Each table had its regular flow of soft drinks, vodka and champagne. And the crowd that night was very mixed from Americans and Scandinavians to the Chinese Diaspora including: USA, Malaysia, Singapore and, of course, mainland China.

The music was decidedly more underground with a lot of electro, break beats and the fast-becoming-annoying-tune ‘Harlem Shake’ being played three times that night.

At 'The Room' celebrating Sunni's (left) birthday.

By midnight I was decidedly on the edge of ‘too happy’ and decided it was time to get home. (Their vodka and orange mix worked slowly but potently.) Once my head hit the pillow, I was out for the count.

The ladies deciding on what to eat at the Penta Hotel's brunch.

Sunday started with our weekly visit to our nearby vegetable market. Stocking up on all our green goodies for the week we went to the Penta Hotel Shanghai for their popular Sunday brunch. So popular is their brunch that when we arrived at the opening time of 11am, the whole restaurant was already booked out. The reason behind the high demand is their tantalising price of just RMB 128 (£12) per person which basically gives you a main dish and an eat-as-much-as-you-want buffet.

We rendevouzed with our friends Alex and Kwandi and managed to get the hotel staff to sit us in the entrance’s lounge area complete with a real-life looking fake log fire. The dining experience did not disappoint. We sat there for over two hours while we had a much overdue catch up from our Chinese New Year holidays. I went for a three cheese omelette which was cooked just right while the ladies opted for scrambled eggs on salmon and toast with tomatoes. This was accompanied with an endless flow of tea, coffee and super delicious pastries and cheese from the buffet.

I felt a like a bit of a glutton just thinking about our next appointment which was afternoon tea with our Shanghai mama, Miranda.

Ready to eat! (left to right) Kwandi, Alex, Lezil and I.

Eating our second (!!) lunch of the day at Sunflour with (left to right) Miranda, Phoebe, Lezil and I.

Departing the Penta Hotel we taxied it down to the SunFlour, one of our favourite bakeries-cum-restaurants in our area. This time, Lezil and I decided to share a dish as we were still busy digesting our banquet from earlier. We were also joined by Phoebe, an apprentice of Miranda’s who has been learning cooking skills and English under her careful watch.

Phoebe recently bagged a job at Sun Flour itself now working on the cake section in the kitchen and from what she was telling us, she’s thoroughly enjoying her new position. Again we spent a couple of hours packing in stories from our time in Australia and Miranda’s time in Canada.

How we managed to fit in two back to back lunches – was a mystery to me. (I’d like you to know that we skipped dinner that night from being so full!) Food aside, these precious people we call friends make up our family here in Shanghai. You share, you encourage, you debate, you sometimes disagree but all the time there’s that sense of ‘having each other’s back’. It’s what keeps you grounded on a journey with plenty of ups and downs, especially in a city like Shanghai.