Rose Family Adventures: December 3, 2017

We’ve discovered that some things end up on our bucket list that we never saw coming. Take freshwater Shanghai hairy crabs, (also called Chinese mitten crabs) for instance. We’ve seen bins and aquariums full of these flat crabs, usually sold with their furry legs tied up so they won’t crawl away, we assume, and we’ve wondered how people cook them.

There are small stores that sell only Mitten Crabs - three walls of this
shop are lined with tanks full of live crabs. Not sure what they do the other
months of the year when crabs are not in season.

Then we found a restaurant that seems to specialize in them. So we became very curious…and Shanghai hairy crabs appeared on our bucket list. One day we read in alarm that crab season is about over! So we went to the restaurant, pulled out our Google translate so we could attempt to read what the choices on the menu were, and ordered four: two males and two females. At least we’re pretty sure that’s what we ordered.

The crabs arrived after the salad and rice (served in a pineapple)
we ordered had been eaten.

You can't see their hairy mittens, but the pincers have a black "fur"
on them that really does look like mittens.

And they brought a couple of plates
of a cracker that looks like "Bugles"
but are much better! Crispier, less
salty, and slightly spicy.

Luckily, we had watched a couple of YouTube videos before we went to the restaurant, or we would have had no clue how to get into the little things. We certainly weren’t as graceful as the people in the videos (who actually had scissors to cut the little legs apart while we had butter knives), but we managed to get the bodies open, scrape out the gills, and eat away at the roe. Roe, it seems, can stain your face. Luckily the restaurant provided us with gloves, but gloves only protect so much. It was a good thing they seated us in a corner where no one else could see our contortions in trying to get the meat out.

The crabs have mittens - and Kathy has gloves! Which are needed, by the way,
although they don't protect from sharp pokes!

Our assessment? They were tasty but not really worth the effort (especially the legs). But we got to check the experience off our bucket list! Good thing we tried them here because it’s against the law to import, transport, or possess a live one in the United States; they’re an invasive species.

This is the meat John got in total from
all eight legs of one crab. Fork shown
for perspective - roughly a fork full.
Oh, and we got forks and chopsticks!

Meanwhile, the Christmas season is here, but you have to look for it. We’ve been in two touristy areas where a vendor had one tinny Christmas song playing over and over and over until we could hardly wait to leave, and we’ve seen a few Christmas decorations and trees in some of the more international areas,

Roses posing in front of a tree of artificial roses in the Ritz Carlton

but our little neighborhood shows no signs of the season. Recently, though, we’ve become aware of several Christmas “markets.” We visited one called Christkindlmarkt—it’s Shanghai’s longest-running annual Christmas market, set in an area by a large German restaurant. It had 70 different vendors selling a large variety of things from nutcrackers to snow globes built in lanterns to Yak hair sweaters to bratwurst. The hot chocolate--minus the rum--was like drinking melted chocolate. It was interesting to be in an area where Chinese people were a minority, and kind of strange hear so many people speaking English (although most with a German accent). It felt good to hear “Oh, Holy Night” over the loudspeaker and join people who are all getting ready to celebrate Christ’s birth.

Sparkling lights and artificial turf created a cozy alley.

The night was lovely, so it was okay that we had a long walk to the subway. Lights and architecture along the way were wonderful. We found ourselves swimming upstream, though, the closer we got to the subway. We couldn't figure out where all the people were headed with small children until we found out that Disney On Ice was in town.