Dumplings, Hot Chocolate and the Wrong Exit

My first small adventure in Shanghai was also one of the first times I realised I was beginning to like it.

The company had given us metro cards loaded with fifty yuan. I was grateful, although I still had very little sense of what that would buy. Unlike most of the group, I was moving on to another city, so I assumed I wouldn’t use much of it.

One evening, Jason invited me to explore. We met downstairs at the hotel and found Yang’s Dumplings nearby.

Worried about money, I chose something inexpensive: pork dumplings for eight yuan. They turned out to be among the most delicious things I had eaten since arriving.

Using chopsticks was another matter. Impatience eventually got the better of technique. I just wanted to eat them.

Later, we joined others from our group outside an imposing stone building. It looked official to me—possibly an embassy, possibly something else entirely. I had no idea, which was enough to make me reluctant to enter.

One of the British men, a former bouncer, had a simpler approach.

‘Let’s walk in and just look like we belong.’

I wasn’t convinced we could manage that, but I followed, expecting someone to stop us at any moment.

We reached the lift, pressed a button for the top and discovered a bar overlooking the Shanghai skyline.

So much for my imagined government building.

I didn’t drink then and wouldn’t have known what to order anyway. My strongest associations with alcohol were my grandfather’s whisky and my dad’s beer. Neither particularly appealed.

I ordered hot chocolate, which cost the equivalent of about five pounds. After my eight-yuan dinner, it felt extravagant.

But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the view, and I enjoyed Jason’s company. For a while, I wasn’t worrying about what I didn’t understand. I was simply pleased to be there.

At around ten, we decided to head back. That was when the real challenge began.

We took the metro to the station one of us remembered as being near the hotel. Unfortunately, remembering the station was only part of the task. There were several exits, and we had no idea which one we needed.

We picked one.

What followed involved walking in circles and, somehow, a muddy underpass. I remember following Jason, still in my work clothes, wondering how a simple journey had become quite so complicated.

Eventually, we recognised our surroundings and found the hotel.

It was only a small adventure: dumplings, hot chocolate, a view and the wrong exit. But I had enjoyed myself in an unfamiliar place, with people I had only just met.

China was beginning to feel like somewhere I wanted to explore.