(And why are you not?)

Some mornings, in the early seconds before wakefulness, I see in my mind a hot bowl of hei mee — prawn noodles. The bright yellow noodles in a pastel blue plastic bowl, swimming with shelled prawns, fried onions, and deep fried pork lard in steaming hot brown soup. And then I can almost smell it — the onions, the prawns and the lard in hei mee. But then I awake to find myself miles away from anything like it. In those moments, I really miss being in Singapore. It’s so cliche for an overseas Singaporean to talk about missing Singaporean food. I don’t even know why I think of hei mee, since it’s not anywhere on my list of favourite foods. But when I was still a kid with dorky glasses and a bowl-like haircut, my mother would wake me on Sunday mornings and take me to Whampoa to slurp up my Sundays’ hei mee. I guess that explains it. But why am I still here in Shanghai?

Opportunities

They’re here. They’re growing, and they’re here to stay. Eyes are on China, most are set on Shanghai.

Costs/Choices

Cost of living in Shanghai is not low, but choices are available to stretch your dollar, or your RMB, so to speak.

Clothes

Why buy clothes, shoes and accessories from the boutiques or department stores when you can get imported/to-be-exported clothes at the Qipu Lu Wholesale Market? Or get your shirt/pants/dress/suit tailor-made out of your own designs at Lujiabang Fabric Market?

Entertainment

Pirated DVDs: 5－9RMB depending on quality.

Pirated Wii Games: 5RMB

Pirated Software: 10 - ? RMB

Pirated Books: 10 - ? RMB depending on size, thickness, hardcover/paperback

Movies: Varies for different cinemas and titles. But generally, cheap in the mornings, half price on Tuesdays and after 10pm everyday

Bank

The minimum amount to have in your savings account before the bank starts to charge a fee is 500RMB. If you don’t have at least 500RMB, the bank will deduct 2RMB from your account every month you don’t hit the minimum.

In Singapore? It’s S$500 and S$2.

Transportation

Buses: 2-4RMB depending on distance

Metro: 3-6RMB depending on distance

Taxi: Starting fare at 12RMB, therafter 2.40RMB per km or equivalent waiting time. Midnight surcharge starts at 11pm, with the meter starting at 16RMB and the fare hikes by 30%. No surcharge for booking a taxi other than from dazhong company (charges 4RMB).

Very useful tip: You can haggle with taxi drivers after 11pm for a 20% discount if your journey is fairly long, and if taxis are in abundance where you are.

Everything

Accessories, clothes, shoes, books, software, computers, cameras, photo printing services, snacks, dog food, cat food, dog clothes, cat clothes, anything can be purchased on TAOBAO.COM and delivered to your doorstep! It is also currently my new past time.

Convenience

The months of winter are the hardest to leave the house. To gear myself for the almost unbearable Shanghai winter, I apply moisturizer to my face, slather it all over my body (it’s necessary for it to really be ALL over). I wear leggings, pants, a shirt, a woolen shirt, a jacket, a scarf, a beanie, earmuffs, gloves, and then strap on my pair of winter boots. What usually takes 15 minutes — getting dressed to go out — takes 30-45 minutes during winter. So of course being the bum that I am I’d much rather stay in, and the conveniences in Shanghai allow me to do so!

Food

Almost every eating establishment provides the service of waimai, which is to deliver your ordered food to where you are. In Singapore I’m only aware of food delivery restaurants like KFC, Macs, Pizza Hut, Sakae Sushi. In Shanghai, food delivery for any eating establishment is a given! To me, that’s a god-send! I realize I’ve become very attached to this convenience. When I lived in the wintry months in Vancouver, I had to get my ass out of the house if I wanted to eat decently, and I even had to tip them! I don’t know if I can ever get used to living without the convenience of waimai anymore.

Tickets

Other than the relatively lower costs of concert tickets, I can order tickets online and have them delivered to me at no charge!

There are several avenues of getting concert tickets:

1) Buy from the authorized dealer either at the ticketing office or online,

2) Buy from sellers on Taobao who are selling them at a cheaper price,

3) Haggle with scalpers lingering around the concert venue just before the concert.

To give you an example of how you can cut costs by buying concert tickets on Taobao, I just attended Zhang Hui Mei’s concert in the middle of last month. The listed prices for her concert tickets started from 280RMB (Jacky Cheung’s started from 180RMB). We bought tickets at 300RMB for 580RMB seats!

Airplane tickets can also be ordered through the phone or Internet and delivered to you at no charge.

Best thing is, you only need to pay after you receive the tickets!

The Heart

What else can I say, the heart is getting very comfortable in this adopted city.

Even though I’d still have to wait till I return to Singapore to have the hei mee I’ve been strangely fantasizing about, living with someone who can whip up a bowl of Laksa at will definitely helps a great deal. *big wide grin*

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 11:36 am and is filed under Food, Singapore, Taking in; on; and to Shanghai (or China in general). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.