A Superbly Uniquely Xtraordinary Shanghai Experience - Part III

A Revisit to YuYuan Gardens

Here we were back at YuYuan Gardens again this morning. Chris and Bernard had some last minute souvenir shopping to do. After purchasing our goodies, both Chris and Bernard had a sudden craving for Pork Burgers. We turned our sniffing senses on and allowed it to lead us to our "prey". Guess where we finally wound up! Ronald McDonald's house! Having been greeted by the Big Yellow M sign and the "stoned" Ronald, we went right up to the cashier to order our "pork burgers".

The ordering of the burgers was such a big task! as the China service staff provided "made in China service" and could not understand a single word of English! Witness the change of her expression upon Bernard's first utter of an English word.

Dinner at PuDong

Being it our final dinner meal together in Shanghai, I wanted to make it a memorable one by bringing both my guests to a Bund-view Restaurant in Super Brand Mall on the PuDong side of Shanghai. My eventual pick was Xiao Nan Guo, a fusion Shanghainese restaurant. The food was mediocre but the view was Magnificant!

Feeling bloated from the inside out, we foot the bill headed outside of the mall to capture a few memorable moments of us having been to the foot of the Oriental Pearl Tower together. * complain: I'm not in there again!!!! *

Submitting to the insistence of my mom's, we ended up at Häagen-Dazs Ice cream shop to have our "final supper" together. This somewhat brought a feeling of dejavu as on the night of the arrival of Bernard and Chris, they treated my family and I to a feast of Cold Stones Ice Cream.

Heavy heartedly, we vacated our warmed benches and left for home, bearing in mind that this, was truly our "final supper" together in Shanghai..

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Both Chris and Bernard will be leaving Shanghai, back home to Malaysia tomorrow. I hope they had a superb time here in Shanghai! Cause it was a blast for me having them around! Sadly in my eyes, the image of a vibrant and colourful Shanghai, will very soon turn into a pitch of darkness.

A Superbly Uniquely Xtraordinary Shanghai Experience - PART II

After a hectic routine of travelling and visiting, we have came somewhat close to turning the whole of Shanghai inside out. Our sight visiting to-do list is now down to 2 unchecked items - Pudong and QiBao water village.

The Authentic Chinese Water Village - QiBao (七宝古镇)

We hopped onto the good old bulky buick at the point when the clock stroke 10am, and headed for QiBao Water Village.

Many might wonder why pick QiBao instead of ZhouZhuang as my tour destination for my guests. Well the main reason was because, QiBao is one of the most preserved and un-commercialized water village. Unlike ZhouZhuang, QiBao has no entrace ticketing policy, and is not a tourist destination but a habitat of local water villagers.

"Where no white people are found, is where the cheap deals are found" is a very well proven philosophical theory here in Shanghai. Hence with their absence in this humble little village, enabled us to dominate every single bargain made.

Apart from the "water" business, this village is made up of a narrow alley, squashed and towered in between by two rows of double-storey houses-turned-shops. As you can see from the above picture, the roof linings of both the buildings come so close together that the sun's ray can only enter through this narrow slit. Notice the swarm of spitting insects? I DREAD IT!

"Bon apetit"! screeches the "roti telur" which caught my attention as we strolled by. It seemed that this new food is a hit in Shanghai. They named it (台湾手抓饼) which directly translates to Taiwan Hand Moulded Pastry. Why Taiwan? Oh dear, China, you are truly laid back! I had my first taste of that sickeningly fat and unhealthy food when I was like 5 years old at a drainside mamak stall!

Lunch at Blue Frog with Sarah

Our next stop for the day was at HongMei Road. Having made prior arrangements to meet Sarah for lunch at 12pm, our arrival at HongMei Road coincided with this privileged 12pm.

Together with Chris and Bernard, the four of us turned our tummies into blast furnaces for heavy duty calorie burnings at my all time favourite American diner, Blue Frog on the Hongmei Entertainment Street.

Shopping Frenzy at various flee markets

Having satiated our appetites and bid farewell to Sarah, we zoomed into the International Pearl City (a misleading name for yet another flee market) which is located directly opposite the entertainment street.

Next in line was to head for Cao An Road, where random assortments of wholesale goods are to be found. Sadly, everything sold there deemed to be inappropriate as souvenirs to be brought home. We eventually left the place with only two calculators in hand.

Despite being overwhelmingly exhausted, we still went against our natural instincts of hibernating and dived into our final flee market for the day - Da Tong Yang. After much effortful bargaining, we "fleed" the flee market with tonnes of goodies; leaving the vendors disgruntled as we had MAGA KILL-ed every single one of them who "barter traded" with us!

The day's post is not very picturesque as only Bernard had his camera with him in the later part of the day after the Water Village visit.

PS: This day is memorable for that Bernard was EMO!!!

The HangZhou Memoir - 杭州之纪念

To fulfill my promise to my guests of showing them the scenic country side of China, our itinerary for the day was to pay HangZhou a little visit, allowing It to further beautify our memory of having been to China.

HangZhou together with the beautiful West Lake (西湖) founded by the famous poet Su Dong Po (苏东坡), was entitled as "The most beautiful City in China". The city's beautify is prominently evident in the above picture of the west lake.

Our first stop at HangZhou was the Willow Gardens (柳树公园). Personally I love the willow trees as being a fan of Su Dong Po's poems which always uses the willow trees metaphorically, I excitedly got Chris and Bernard to jump off the Buick to snap good shots of the garden.

After having had enough of the Willow Trees, we headed "bridge" which allows the people to travel across the lake by foot. This wasn't exactly a bridge but more of an isle.

We walked along the "bridge", which measures approximately 2km from one end to the other. The walk did not seem tiring as the breezy weather together with HangZhou's mesmerizing beauty inspired us to keep moving on to see what other charming sceneries it has to offer.

In midst of our journey, we came across a Peacock farm. Barricaded in an area of approximately 50 square meters laid a habitat of Peacocks. Unfortunately I missed the moment when the peacock decided to seduce its apposite gender by "flowering" its butt!

Having arrived at the other end of the Isle, we got my driver to come pick us up and send us to the all time famous restaurant of HangZhou - Lou Wai Lou (楼外楼). Here we were ceased the chance to indulge in HangZhou's delicacy, Dong Po Rou (东坡肉), which directly translates to Dong Po meat. Note that the meat is named after the poet, Su Dong Po.

After the meal, we had to further tantalize our sweet tastebuds with a specialty desert made by the restaurant.

After the meal, we set off to the tea plantations at LongJing Village. As the name suggests it, HangZhou is also famous for its LongJing tea plantations. Our arrival at the village was welcomed and greeted by a lady villager. She kept insisting that we drop by her house to try out her Long Jing Tea. She soon turned out to be a pest as she just could not give up tagging with us, constantly bugging us to drink Long Jing Tea. All we did was mumble random Korean and Japanese words to her, pretending that we were mandarin noobs.

By playing dumb by pretending not to understand her, when she pointed at the tea leaves and said "cha", Chris would point at the floor and repeat after her saying "cha"; and when she pointed at the duck meat saying "ya", Chris would point at the sky and say "ya".

Knowing that Chris is very fond of pigs and pork and that seeing such non-halal stuff dangling in mid-air is a rare sight back at home, I decided to show everyone that pork... is just a food! =P

Our final destination for the day at HangZhou was the tea museum. This tea museum is situated in midst of a beautiful tea plantation. It had a wide range of tea leaves on display.

I bet everyone must be overwhelmed by the faces of Bernard and Chris. Well, that's sadly the case as these pictures were mostly taken by me. Lets just hope that they will have lots of pictures of me in their blogs!

A Superbly Uniquely Xtraordinary Shanghai Experience - PART I

Two of my university mates joined me in Shanghai over the past 10 days. We tried to optimize this 10 day period by exploring every nook and cranny of Shanghai.

Lunch at Din Tai Fung (Xin Tian Di)

Thursday (4/12/08), I took Chris and Bernard for their first taste of the Shanghai Chinese Dumplings at my all time favourite Chinese Dumplings restaurant - Din Tai Fung.

Above: Bernard posing with Chris' 400D

Above: Chris poses with his cam

The NanJing Road and The Bund Experience

Friday (5/12/08), we woke up pretty late this morning and only started our adventure at 11am. We got my driver to drop us off at the Jing'an street and allowed ourselves the entire day to explore the whole of NanJing road.

Above: Chris and I outside JiuGuang

Above: Chris with the "snow" setting

Having covered the entire 3km stretch of NanJing Road (from East to west), we finally arrived at the Bund.

Above: The 3 of us on the Bund

An uneventful but Fun Day

Saturday (6/12/08), we didn't have the chance to get around many places today, but I managed to show Chris and Bernard how the wet market, fruit stalls and wholesale dried goods looked like here in Shanghai. Also, we dropped by Jiu Xing (wholesale construction materials) to purchase our chandelier.

Above: Bernard and I at the Chandelier shop

A visit to SheShan

Sunday (7/12/08), we rose early and set off to the suburbs of Shanghai, SheShan of the SongJiang province. We managed to capture a number of scenic moments there.

Above: Bernard capturing a shot of the scenery

Above: Chris and Bernard in the bamboo jungle

Above: A graffiti made by us which comprises 3 of our surnames in Chinese Character

Above: Chris taking a panoramic shot of the farm land during sunset

A visit to YuYuan Garden

Monday (8/12/08), we went to sight see YuYuan Gardens and managed to do some souvenir shopping at the local people's "hide-out" wedged in secret alleys of YuYuan Garden.

Above: Naughty boys posing for the cam at YuYuan

Above: A view of the modern JinMao and JinRong towers (2 tallest towers in China) through the ancient roof linings of YuYuan.

Lunch with Lilian @ Ding Tai Fung (鼎泰峰)

Today together with my cousin sister, we revisited my all time favourite Chinese Restaurant located at Yu Garden (豫园) -- Ding Tai Fung (鼎泰峰).

As they all say, one of the must agenda when visiting Shanghai is to allow your taste buds to crazy over the Chinese Dumplings (小笼包). Hence, after darting from tourist spots to historical spots, we finally ended up at this restaurant with rumbling stomachs. To our overwhelming satisfaction, the restaurant was ambient with serviceable staffs, and the food was spectacular.

The thing I find intriguing about this restaurant is that it has paintings of Hong Kong stars on its walls. In fact, they would invite these starts to the restaurant to leave a trace of their signature on their painting.

PS: note my favourite HK star, Charmaine Sheh (red blouse).

Here are some frozen delicious moments of the foods:

Above: Vegetable Pau

Above: Vegetable Dumplings

Above: Glutinous Rice

Above: Prawn with pork Dumplings

Thank your for the wonderful lunch Lilian Jie Jie =D