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TakeNoSuke 武之助

We have been planning to check whether is there any restaurant serving Okonomiyaki or not in Shanghai. With luck I came across this restaurant while reading one of the Japanese newpaper at Season Villa clubhouse. There is an ads showing that the restaurant serves Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. The restaurant is call Take No Suke 武之助 and it is situated at 长宁区古羊路437号.

Ads in the paper (left) and restaurant menu (right)

Purposely we chose to go to a park nearby so that we could have our lunch at Take No Suke. Arrived at the restaurant quite early at 11.30am. One the ground level of the restaurant, there is a hotplate counter whereby the Okonomiyaki is prepared. Here, there are not many seats, so we proceeded to the first floor. I was impressed that the first floor is quite large. There are seats surrounding the window and in the center there are seats with hold under the table. Customers are supposed to take off their shoes and sit into. The chair is half a chair with supporting back without any legs.

We had 2 types of Okonomiyaki, one is Hiroshima style and the other Kyoto style. The Hiroshima style is cooked with soba noodle whereas the Kyoto style is prepared with eggs. From the taste it's quite meeting my expectation and what I remembered of the taste I have eaten in Japan few years back.

Hiroshima style (left) and Kyoto style (right)

Overall we were quite satisfied and would highly recommend this restaurant to whoever who wants to try a taste of Okonomiyaki in Shanghai.

More information can be found for this restaurant at:
http://www.dianping.com/shop/1926115

Shanghai Zhong Shan Park 上海中山公园

Today, we visited the park called Zhongshan Park. This is a moderate size park. Entrance is free to public.

Zhongshan Park 中山公园 was established in 1914 by the Shanghai Municipal Council as "Jessfield Park". Before then it was a private garden owned by H Fogg, a British property developer. It was renamed in honour of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1944.

Map guide of the park can be found all over the park.

We entered through the entrance at Changning Road. There was quite a lot of people in this park. Majority came here for exercise, folk dance, tai-chi, etc. I guess it is quite a normal weekend actitivies for the locals staying near-by.

About some walking distance from the entrance, we came to a place where there is a building built with pillar like the European style. Here, there are quite a number of people practising folk dancing.

We came across a rose garden. Took quite some photographs of this garden.

In the park, there is a large field of green grass. Nearby, there is a lotus pond and there is a decoration of the park's name adorned with flowers. Since this is not yet the lotus season, the pond is practically bare.

Overall, we did not spend much time here except for 1.5 hours. Mainly our objective is not really to visit this park but more to get to an area close by so that we could have lunch in one of the restaurant nearby.

Zhang Wentian Residence 张闻天故居

Today, we took the opportunity to visit homes of some famous people in China. At beginning we thought of covering 2 residences. However when we arrived at the first destination, we were surprised to find that the residence was in a busy part of ChuangSha town. Furthermore, one has to pass through an extremely small alley to get to it. We decided not to enter and straight headed towards this next one.

The next residence belonged to a person called Zhang Wentian. Zhang Wentian 张闻天 was Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China from December, 1954 to November, 1960. Entrance to this residence is free of charged. It is opened to public. The only thing that visitors are not allowed to do according to the guard in front I met was smoking. Smoking is not allowed.

Front door of this residence

It is a single storey building that is styled in the old Chinese large family building. There is an open courtyard and filled with rooms for the family members.

Inside the building was displays of Zhang Wentian's life history and achivements. A native of Pudong Shanghai, Zhang joined the CPC in 1925 and was sent to study at Moscow Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, which was set up under Kuomintang's founder Sun Yat-sen's policy of alliance between the Soviet Union and CPC to train Chinese revolutionaries and named after him. It was there Zhang came to know Wang Ming and play an active role in the following group 28 Bolsheviks.

Photo and biography of Zhang Wentian

After the end of Chinese anti-Japanese War, Zhang was sent to Manchuria with Lin Biao, Gao Gang and Chen Yun to set up a base for CPC resistance to Kuomintang.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, he became the Chinese Ambassador to Soviet Union and Under Secretary of the Foreign Ministry. He was disgraced in the LuShan Meeting in 1959 because he criticized Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward. Zhang and Defence Minister Peng Dehuai, Chief of Staff Huang Kecheng and CPC General Secretary of Hunan Province Zhou Xiaozhou were labeled as an anti-CPC group and stripped of CPC membership.

There were rooms that his family and visiting friends occupied before.

Kitchen stove and tables that the family members have their meals. The stove is quite unique as seen in the photos below.

In front of the residence there was a huge patch of vegetable plant. All sort of locally found vegetable can be found cultivated here. I guess this reminds us of the organic stuff that we bought off the supermarket stores. The local here are so innovative in a way that they fully make use of the land.

Could this vegetable patch has existed in the old days when Zhang Wentian and family still lives here? Maybe they were living off the land given that this residence is situated in the outskirt of Pudong area. Farming should have been the trade during those days.

After exploring the front part and inner part of the residence, we went behind the residence and found more interesting view. There were a round of trees planted in straight parallel lines. Quite a bit like the winter sonata formation. The base portion of the tree trunks are painted white so that at night light shine from vehicle could help driver avoid driving into them. However, these are not beside the road, so I wonder that it is for?

Neighbours even has tangerine trees across the stream

Zhang did not survive the persecution of the Cultural Revolution and died in 1976 in exile. He wrote to Mao asked permission to go to Beijing for Medical treatment while he had heart disease and was hospitalized in a a hospital even did not have oxygen in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Mao refused his petition to go to Beijing. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1978.

Zhang was a versatile scholar, expert in Marxism, western history and philosophy, and wrote and translated many articles in these fields.