Around the traps, I'd heard that one of the better places to have pizza in town is a place named Commune. Feeling like I needed pizza and to stretch my legs somewhat, after recent cocktail sampling, I headed downtown on a chilly but sunny Sunday. I took a Didi to Suning Plaza and continued walking north, turning east at the Golden Eagle Mall. I found Commune quite easily, It was a large restaurant in a pedestrian only street with tinted windows, a couple of very trendy, gangster looking types at a table outside the front, and lots of table on the side. Something made me hesitate about going in, so instead I walked along the side to the big pedestrian street where some bars and clubs were, then I went and explored the food stall market around the corner.
Being quite picky and not wanting to be standing and eating from cups, and also not really wanting Chinese street food, I ended up back at Commune and sat in a booth. The restaurant was spacious with a few wait staff milling around. I was largely ignored though and to my dismay saw that the table had a damn QR code for accessing the menu and ordering. This system is bad enough and impersonal enough in Melbourne but here it's on another level, made all the more difficult if you cannot read Chinese!
Stepping up to the challenge, I began taking screenshot after screenshot to then translate and work out what I was doing. I ended up choosing a margherita pizza, plain and simple and not usually something that can be messed up. While waiting for it, I went on a little excursion in the adjoining trendy building filled with more restaurants and a few cafes in order to find the bathroom. I'd been losing all hope on not ever finding a Western toilet in this city, other than in my own apartment or Marriott Hotel, , and to my astonishment, I'd located one, clean too! Amazing!
A short while later, back at my table, wondering what was going on with my order, and then it materialised. Quite large, and looking and smelling like a pizza, I was let down by the floppy first slice. The base wasn't cooked long enough - it needed another 10 minutes. I ate the whole thing anyway, although not too impressed with it, or Commune. At least I'd had a win by actually ordering from a Chinese menu on my phone in a restaurant for the first time.
Away from Commune I headed east until I got to the next main thoroughfare, Jie Fang Rd and headed north to the river. Apparently back in the day, the streets and alleys around here were filled with migrant worker encampments, and were quite gritty, and teeming with all manner of vice ,including as seedy bars filled with real gangsters and and their ladies, and where one would be offered all manner of illicit substances, I was especially looking for a section that allegedly had dog carcasses hanging and vendors selling dog meat tacos. I saw nothing of the latter, and walked the last couple of hundred metres to the bridge over the New Yellow River. All of a sudden I felt queasy and was ruing Commune somewhat. I figured I'll suck it up and that being out in the open air will make things better (which it did in the end).
This river, dwarfing the Yarra, was created by floods in 1938 when Nationalist forces bombed dykes on the Yellow River to thwart the Japanese. I wanted to walk along the river but the far side seemed like it was veering too far away from where I wanted to go. The other side of Jie Fang Road had music blasting from loudspeakers and lots of oldies. Wanting a more peaceful experience, I headed west along the south side but unfortunately the pathway came to an abrupt end and I had to return. This time I kept continued down Jie Fang Road then turned into a street that had an interesting clocktower positioned in the middle of it. Queasiness subsiding, I then went down another alley, stopping to take a photo of a dodgy-looking barbershop, much to the bemusement of a passerby who then accompanied me to the end of the street practising his limited English. he was polite and bid me farewell.
I then marched to a little touristy canal I'd seen a few times that's just before the start of the side street where Nice Cafe is located. The north side featured a craft market and traditional old buildings, one of which is the Xuzhou Wall Museum. I walked along the canal past the tiny moon bridge with its 3 steps on each side, took photos of brightly coloured drums, before finally popping into the cafe for late afternoon coffee and cake.
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