Spontaneous itinerary could be better than planned travel tours. Our trip to Shanghai didn’t have a single plan on where to go while we were in the city. The wind took us to places making our hotel as the epicenter.

Shortly after riding the elevator down from the 263rd floor of Oriental Pearl Tower, my eyes gazed around the food stalls at the ground floor and found an interesting store. Photos of green-colored filling inside brown buns caught my attention. I didn’t have any idea what those bread buns were, I was just assuming those were green tea. Just a little scoop, O teases me each time he sees any edible thing colored green. Words coming from his mouth goes like this, “Green Tea oh!”. I’d buy that phrase all the time, even if most of the time, he’s joking. That moment, we were both looking at the same stall and I knew he saw those green-colored buns too. As expected, he excitingly shouted, “Green tea oh!”. To verify if those buns were really green tea, we walked towards the store and checked their menu. True enough, I found some green tea buns in China! 🙂

Other flavors didn’t matter at that time as I focus on that green tea filling alone.

We had to try Cocoa Cookie Puffs with Green Tea Filling. The expression on my face showed how much the simple Green Tea cookie puff made my day.

A taxi ride brought us to East Nanjing Road in Shanghai near our hotel, Grand Central Hotel Shanghai. First stop, a mandatory stop to Bee Cheng Hiang to check their beef jerky since my dad is addicted to this snack.

We didn’t follow the straight path of East Nanjing Road and took ourselves to a different direction as we turned right to a random street.

Luckily, this is what we found!!!

Amused face when I saw various kinds of steamed buns. Shanghai is known for their Xiao Long Bao and I am not surprised to see vendors in every street selling their own versions of this famous soupy bun.

I couldn’t resist trying these steamed buns or baozi. Its alluring smell was calling me out from a short distance. One of the highlights of my Shanghai trip was taking a turn to this street for amusing street food finds. 🙂

While walking, we also stopped by the vendor selling fresh Sugar Cane juice. It was served with shaved ice, a refreshing sweet juice partnered with steamed buns we bought. I’d say Philippines’ sugar cane juice has a sweeter and better blend than the one I tried in China.

In less than 2 minutes, our sugar cane juice slid straight to our bellies leaving us with thirsty throats. As we walked straightforward, we found a small kiosk selling fruit beverages.

Choo-choo train along East Nanjing Road. The long East Nanjing Road is a long shopping alley with all the famous brands you know of – Forever 21, Apple Store, Bershka, and more.,

Outside our hotel, we saw this attractive fruit standing by. We didn’t know what that was but we bothered to get a taste of it. If you let me evaluate, it tasted like what Filipinos call Aratilis or Muntingia in english.

It was difficult to communicate with the vendor since she didn’t understand English or even Hokkien. We didn’t get the real name of this fruit, unfortunately. 🙁

The Citibanker in me needed to have a photo with a familiar brand. 🙂

My feet are always itchy for adventures. The photos are making me dream while awake, pondering where to go next. I wonder where my shoes will take me soon.

Anyway. Have a blessed weekend, Foodies! 🙂

Cheers,