The hairy crab season starts in autumn but most restaurants start promoting it in June.
This weekend Takashi brought us to one of the crab speciality restaurants that he used for entertaning his clients.
My favourites were the crystal river shrimps with crab roe & crab roe noddles.
Totally forgot about the calories and indulged in every mouthful of the rich creamy roe.
Can`t eat this too often else I will end up with blocked arteries. 
Instead of spending time scrutinising at the vegatables sold in the market, I order organic vegetables from a realiable Japanese vendor every week. Though he has a limited variety, his produce promises to be delicious and most importantly free from pesticides.
Organic food comes with a price, probably to pay the farmers for their hard work fending off pests without the use of chemicals.
This week, half a pumpkin, an onion and 4 sweet corns cost me RMB40. And these are not sufficient to last us for a week. I need to buy the rest from the local supermarket and soak until I feel comfortable.
Most locals wash their vegetables in cleaning detergent but I still can`t get use to the idea of vegetables floating in soapy water.
For home cooking, choose wisely for the quality and be prepared to pay. When eating outside, close one eye and enjoy.
Cantonese cuisine.
Tofu with seafood in XO sauce. The tofu was deep fried but very soft and delicate so it melts in mouth. Sea cucumber and squids gave the dish a great combination of textures and flavors.
When we lived in Matsumoto, I always complained about the lack of big shopping malls.
Now living in an oasis of international shopping, there is no lack of upscale shopping malls.
Smile Shun, we are in Isetan Shanghai.
Shanghai zoo is only about 15mins taxi ride from our apartment.
We wanted to see China`s national icon, the pandas and thought Shun might be interested too.
Gosh, we didn`t expect it to be sorching hot at 9am in the morning. Takashi`s T- shirt was half wet by the time we reached the pandas.
We only spent 1.5 hours in the zoo because of the heat but we managed to see some of Shun`s favourites like the elephants and giraffes. The gorilla seemed to leave an impression and he even invented his own gorilla song when we came home.
Shanghai zoo is rated the best in China with the most animals but I thought that the animals were not well kept. The elephant enclosure was smelly and we could only manage a few minutes inside before dashing out for some fresh air.
We also saw people throwing empty bottles and food in the enclosures despite no feeding signs. The directional signs were not always helpful and we had to ask around for the correct direction.
Despite all these, we got to see the real panda in action. Guess its worthwhile for a one time visit.
Shun looking for the gorilla
