Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Carpenters - Only yesterday
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Shanghai Escapade 10 May - 20 May 2010
A much delayed entry to start off with. Apologies for blogees who had been waiting for this entry.. (if there's any)
After much procrastination, I had to make myself write it down so as to share my experiences and happenings I had in Shanghai and for me to reminisce.
Without further ado, let's hit it in. Haha...
10/05/10 Day 1 上海我来也！
China Eastern Airline MU568
It was an afternoon flight, Evonne came sent me and YX off at Changi Terminal 3. Not a bad flight. Reached 浦东国际机场 Pu Dong International Airport at 9.37pm and after clearing customs, we are at the exit of the airport at around 10.30pm. As it's a free and easy trip, we had to make our way around of coz. The weather was so shiok at 20 degrees at night!
We took Airport Bus Line no. 7 and then a cab to reach YX's aunt's house in 蓝村路. YX's Aunt house is somewhat like a 3 room flat and due to housing constraints, there's only one toilet. They have a small kitchen but enough to dish out local delicacies. Managed to settle down at around 11.30pm, had some 云吞汤 cooked by YX's aunt and quickly hit the sack.
11/05/10 Day 2 YUMO Makeover
Our daily breakfast was being prepared by YX's Aunt and I get to try different kinds of breakfast they had. This morning's breakfast was 生煎包. It's deep fried pastry with meat fillings and abit of soup in the bun. Yummy!
This day we had our first makeover (yes, we did 2 makover sets with 3 styles each for 2 days). Today's more of a cosplay theme. We get to choose from different themes from YUMO website before we flew over. I chose 3 kimono's style (银狐，恶女花魁，AGE娘). For this makeover, photoshop is essential.. So will probably put up once it's done. It is more of a cosplay for me. Never tried this extreme kind.. Thick thick makeup manz. And I forgot to bring makeup remover!! Great thing that YX brought along, if not I will really have a hard time scrubbing my face!
We met up YX's secondary school friends and we had Dinner @ the 3 Travellers' Restaurant. It's kinda steamboat with dumplings and different kinds veggies as well as meat. One unique food is the 肉骨whereby each diner is given a straw to suck the 骨髓 from the bone. Somewat has collagen.. Interesting experience though.
12/05/10 Day 3 欧风 Makeover
We had some dumpling soup for breakfast before taking train down to our 2nd makeover place. 欧风摄影 has a lot of themes to choose from. Of which, they specialized in artistic shoots (nudity) but it does takes abit of courage to do that.. will consider if there's another chance to go in the near future.. haha.. Anyway, had chose 百合, 韩国公主 and 午后阳光. Today's makeover was more of a sweet sweet normal not cosplay kind. haha.. Had fun as well, despite falling due to high heels..
Dinner was some 川菜 near 南京东路. 南京东路 is like Shanghai's Orchard Road. We had some spicy 田鸡脚, 老鸭汤，乳鸽... Best was the dessert with Sweet Potato coated in caramel. Once dipped into ice water, the outside of the sweet dessert became crispy. Nice nice!
13/05/10 Day 4 First Footing into World Expo Shanghai 2010
Our main purpose of this trip is to go to World Expo Shanghai. It was an invitation from YX's parents when I met them last year on YX's convocation. Everywhere in Shanghai there's information/pictures/souvenirs regarding 上海世博. Everyday sure to hear the word 世博 and 海宝.. 海宝 is their official mascot in blue.. Anyway, we reached the entrance of the World Expo at around 11am, having to queue for about 20mins. Huge crowds but smooth progress. Met some cut queue peeps but it's alright cos wasn't in the mood to get angry. Let them be.
World Expo Shanghai is HUGE. With 250 pavilions showing different countries' cultures, IT technology, fashion, food etc, it's impossible to cover everything in one day. We had set aside 2 days to come to World Expo.. As it was opened on 01/05/2010, the 3rd week since its opening was still crowded with locals and foreigners. I suppose until today there's still neverending crowds.
We 走马观花 'wah wah/ so big/ which one to go/ see this one/ see that one' for about half an hour before deciding our maiden pavilion to go. Turkey is our choice, with some ham ham ang mo smiling at us at the entrance.. Haha.. YX's fave manz.. But too bad we din take pic of him. Ask YX to approach him and take pic but she din wan.. So we joined the queue to go into Turkey Pavilion. It has 2 layers of walls, one beige wif cave drawings and one red (resembling drawings on the rocks) on the outside. Took us abt 15 mins to get in. They showcased some ancient history of Turkey, some monuments and dressing style in the past.. There's Turkish ice cream man teasing the public as usual (whenever you wan to buy Turkish ice cream, you gotta get past the tricks that the ice cream man does to you before you finally get ur ice cream). We spent 30mins in it before going to our nx pavilion.
2nd Pavilion was Iceland. Shaped like an ice cube. Queued for 15mins and we entered the simple Pavilion wif 4 walls. Temperature remains 20-22 degrees inside the pavilion. It does projection on the 4 walls and displayed the visuals, sounds of the country. Large waterfalls and ice bergs as well as polar bears to let visitors know abt the nature in Iceland.. Video was abt 8-10mins.
3rd Pavilion went was Denmark. The pavilion spirals up and allow visitors to rent bikes to cycle up the pavilion. It's one of the 'must-go' Pavilion. Why? Cos they shipped their famous Little Mermaid to Shanghai. Denmark's Little Mermaid statue is one of the symbols of the city of Copenhagen, is somewat like Merlion to Singapore that important. It was there since 1913 and Shanghai is its maiden trip overseas. Imagine ppl going to Denmark and realised 'huh Mermaid in Shanghai? Why am I at Denmark then' kinda expression. Haha.. We queued for 20mins to get into the pavilion and meet this 'lady' and tried out their Danish delights.. Yum yum..
4th. Belgium Pavilion. Queued 45mins. It displayed their famous Choc making, allowing visitors see how the choc were made. Free Choc were given at 3pm daily but we went in at 1pm, we din get to sample the freebies. Sparkling blings blings expensive stones were on display as well. Nice big ones..
5th. UK Pavilion. The SEED. 60,000 different seeds are involved. They were placed in some plastic tubes. Rather small but nice pavilion to see. Queued for 30mins to get in.
6th. Italy Pavilion. Queued for 1hr to get in. Its exterior is somewhat derived from Shanghai's traditional game that requires 20 wood bricks to form the whole picture and it symbolizes Italy's 20 cities. How cool is this! Lotsa things to see in Italy Pavilion. They showcase a whole orchestra on the wall. Yes, Drums, trumpets, violins, cellos, grand piano as well as the conductor stand are all pinned onto a large wall. Music scores were also pinned on the wall which somewat looked like scattered on the floor. A very cool wall. Branded goods such as Ferragamo were on displays.. 意大利面 were also there..
As we are meeting YX's 2nd group of friends, we gotta leave the Expo at 5pm. Dinner was in a chinese atas restaurant. Food was great and average expediture was about RMB60 (SGD12).
14/05/10 Day 5 西塘千古镇
We went on a 2 day 1 night trip to 西塘. Went wif YX's 3rd group of friends (a couple). Took a train from Shanghai to 西塘. Abt 40mins ride.
西塘镇属浙江省嘉善县，位于太湖流域的江，浙， 泸（上海） 二省一市的交界处， 是一个具有深厚历史文化的千古镇。(Ok, I din draft this description. It was taken up from the postcard I bought there, just type out nia)
Its a nice peaceful village with old town settings. Seems like we have gone back in time to the sword fighting era. Haha.. Tried smelly toufu there. Stinks but they like. Went pubbing in this old town. Seems abit weird but interesting. As there's no shopping malls in this little town, pubbing seems to be the only choice of night entertainment.
The hostel we stayed in was good! At first when we surf the hostel's website and saw they have a liberal clear view of toilet from bed, YX and I almost freaked out. Cos 4 of us 3 gals 1 guy, open toilet concept was much overwhelming for us. Great they had the white curtain screen, if not, we gotta lock 小胖 at the attic! Haha..
15/05/10 Day 6 西塘-上海
We had brunch in 西塘. As our return trip via train is 站票 (Stand all the way, no seats), we decided to take the express coach back to Shanghai. 1hr plus. Went to their 'CBD' had some night shopping as well.
16/05/10 Day 7 便宜货我扫~
Breakfast was 油条+蛋饼+ 酒酿丸子.. Today's a day to grab all the souvenirs for friends and family. Morning we went to see our pics from 欧风 and picked some pics we want for further enhancements + effects. After that, we went for shopping spree. Things were pretty affordable! We shopped and manicured and shopped..
Dinner was cooked by YX's uncle and we had a great feasting! Took pics with the host and his family.
17/05/10 Day 8 我是观光客
Today we explored the tourist-must-go places. Went to 滨江大道 which overlooked over to 外滩, 东方明珠, 城隍庙. We walked and shopped a lot.
Dinner was wif YX's 4th group of friends. We had 小龙虾 feasting! They served nothing but 小龙虾. It was simply yummy! Later on we chilled out at a Hong-kong themed cafe while YX catched up wif her friends.
18/05/10 Day 9 世博第二望
Shi Bo here we come again! This day we explored a lot of Pavilions. Walked and explored so many places and countries till we lost count. Visited some countries' Pavilions that I dun even know they existed. Okay, wif the fact that popular pavilions will require 3-5hrs of queuing to get in, why not explore the not so many ppl pavilion. Quality? Quantity? We went wif quantity instead and visited some ulu countries' pavilions. Nevertheless, it's pretty interesting to know such countries existed.
This is the day I thought I could not even walk anymore. It's the most painful walk in my life. From morning 10am till 10pm, we had nothing much except walking and taking photos and more walking. It's definitely more than 10km. I kept saying "我走不动了", yet I kept walking and walking and limping and walking. Had fun as well though...
19/05/10 Day 10 凯旋归来啦
Final day we spent at a mega mall doing our groceries shopping. It's somewat like Carrefour, wif local products as well as electronics items. My luggage was bursting out and glad that I brought along a PVC bag to bring my barang barang back. I estimated that my stuff will not be able to fit into the luggage one and indeed, a 2nd bag is required. So final day spent shopping and packing. I had 4 bags with me (Luggage, PVC bag, YX's lappie and my sling bag) and YX had 5 bags (luggage, backpack, side bag, YX office lappie and I cant remember wat she carried). YX Aunt and family helped us in getting the luggage and stuff to the cab and waved goodbye as we zoomed off to take the bullet train station to go airport. As cabbing directly to airport is expensive, we go via bullet train instead. The most 狼狈 moments were carrying our barangs from the cab to the bullet train station. Carrying 3 bags and dragging one more than 10kg luggage wasn't an easy task but 巾帼不让须眉, we did it without any other assistance.
The 上海磁浮列车 was travelling at 330km/h and we reached the airport in 10mins. We were so glad when we saw the airport trolley. Dumped most of our stuff on the trolley and it was much more lighter on our backs.
We checked in pretty early and nua at the transit. Reached Singapore at 5am+. Had some Mac for breakfast before taking cab at 6am.. Home sweet home..
Yay! Finally finished my blog on Shanghai. Summarized a lot, especially on World Expo...
After much procrastination, I had to make myself write it down so as to share my experiences and happenings I had in Shanghai and for me to reminisce.
Without further ado, let's hit it in. Haha...
10/05/10 Day 1 上海我来也！
China Eastern Airline MU568
It was an afternoon flight, Evonne came sent me and YX off at Changi Terminal 3. Not a bad flight. Reached 浦东国际机场 Pu Dong International Airport at 9.37pm and after clearing customs, we are at the exit of the airport at around 10.30pm. As it's a free and easy trip, we had to make our way around of coz. The weather was so shiok at 20 degrees at night!
We took Airport Bus Line no. 7 and then a cab to reach YX's aunt's house in 蓝村路. YX's Aunt house is somewhat like a 3 room flat and due to housing constraints, there's only one toilet. They have a small kitchen but enough to dish out local delicacies. Managed to settle down at around 11.30pm, had some 云吞汤 cooked by YX's aunt and quickly hit the sack.
11/05/10 Day 2 YUMO Makeover
Our daily breakfast was being prepared by YX's Aunt and I get to try different kinds of breakfast they had. This morning's breakfast was 生煎包. It's deep fried pastry with meat fillings and abit of soup in the bun. Yummy!
This day we had our first makeover (yes, we did 2 makover sets with 3 styles each for 2 days). Today's more of a cosplay theme. We get to choose from different themes from YUMO website before we flew over. I chose 3 kimono's style (银狐，恶女花魁，AGE娘). For this makeover, photoshop is essential.. So will probably put up once it's done. It is more of a cosplay for me. Never tried this extreme kind.. Thick thick makeup manz. And I forgot to bring makeup remover!! Great thing that YX brought along, if not I will really have a hard time scrubbing my face!
We met up YX's secondary school friends and we had Dinner @ the 3 Travellers' Restaurant. It's kinda steamboat with dumplings and different kinds veggies as well as meat. One unique food is the 肉骨whereby each diner is given a straw to suck the 骨髓 from the bone. Somewat has collagen.. Interesting experience though.
12/05/10 Day 3 欧风 Makeover
We had some dumpling soup for breakfast before taking train down to our 2nd makeover place. 欧风摄影 has a lot of themes to choose from. Of which, they specialized in artistic shoots (nudity) but it does takes abit of courage to do that.. will consider if there's another chance to go in the near future.. haha.. Anyway, had chose 百合, 韩国公主 and 午后阳光. Today's makeover was more of a sweet sweet normal not cosplay kind. haha.. Had fun as well, despite falling due to high heels..
Dinner was some 川菜 near 南京东路. 南京东路 is like Shanghai's Orchard Road. We had some spicy 田鸡脚, 老鸭汤，乳鸽... Best was the dessert with Sweet Potato coated in caramel. Once dipped into ice water, the outside of the sweet dessert became crispy. Nice nice!
13/05/10 Day 4 First Footing into World Expo Shanghai 2010
Our main purpose of this trip is to go to World Expo Shanghai. It was an invitation from YX's parents when I met them last year on YX's convocation. Everywhere in Shanghai there's information/pictures/souvenirs regarding 上海世博. Everyday sure to hear the word 世博 and 海宝.. 海宝 is their official mascot in blue.. Anyway, we reached the entrance of the World Expo at around 11am, having to queue for about 20mins. Huge crowds but smooth progress. Met some cut queue peeps but it's alright cos wasn't in the mood to get angry. Let them be.
World Expo Shanghai is HUGE. With 250 pavilions showing different countries' cultures, IT technology, fashion, food etc, it's impossible to cover everything in one day. We had set aside 2 days to come to World Expo.. As it was opened on 01/05/2010, the 3rd week since its opening was still crowded with locals and foreigners. I suppose until today there's still neverending crowds.
We 走马观花 'wah wah/ so big/ which one to go/ see this one/ see that one' for about half an hour before deciding our maiden pavilion to go. Turkey is our choice, with some ham ham ang mo smiling at us at the entrance.. Haha.. YX's fave manz.. But too bad we din take pic of him. Ask YX to approach him and take pic but she din wan.. So we joined the queue to go into Turkey Pavilion. It has 2 layers of walls, one beige wif cave drawings and one red (resembling drawings on the rocks) on the outside. Took us abt 15 mins to get in. They showcased some ancient history of Turkey, some monuments and dressing style in the past.. There's Turkish ice cream man teasing the public as usual (whenever you wan to buy Turkish ice cream, you gotta get past the tricks that the ice cream man does to you before you finally get ur ice cream). We spent 30mins in it before going to our nx pavilion.
2nd Pavilion was Iceland. Shaped like an ice cube. Queued for 15mins and we entered the simple Pavilion wif 4 walls. Temperature remains 20-22 degrees inside the pavilion. It does projection on the 4 walls and displayed the visuals, sounds of the country. Large waterfalls and ice bergs as well as polar bears to let visitors know abt the nature in Iceland.. Video was abt 8-10mins.
3rd Pavilion went was Denmark. The pavilion spirals up and allow visitors to rent bikes to cycle up the pavilion. It's one of the 'must-go' Pavilion. Why? Cos they shipped their famous Little Mermaid to Shanghai. Denmark's Little Mermaid statue is one of the symbols of the city of Copenhagen, is somewat like Merlion to Singapore that important. It was there since 1913 and Shanghai is its maiden trip overseas. Imagine ppl going to Denmark and realised 'huh Mermaid in Shanghai? Why am I at Denmark then' kinda expression. Haha.. We queued for 20mins to get into the pavilion and meet this 'lady' and tried out their Danish delights.. Yum yum..
4th. Belgium Pavilion. Queued 45mins. It displayed their famous Choc making, allowing visitors see how the choc were made. Free Choc were given at 3pm daily but we went in at 1pm, we din get to sample the freebies. Sparkling blings blings expensive stones were on display as well. Nice big ones..
5th. UK Pavilion. The SEED. 60,000 different seeds are involved. They were placed in some plastic tubes. Rather small but nice pavilion to see. Queued for 30mins to get in.
6th. Italy Pavilion. Queued for 1hr to get in. Its exterior is somewhat derived from Shanghai's traditional game that requires 20 wood bricks to form the whole picture and it symbolizes Italy's 20 cities. How cool is this! Lotsa things to see in Italy Pavilion. They showcase a whole orchestra on the wall. Yes, Drums, trumpets, violins, cellos, grand piano as well as the conductor stand are all pinned onto a large wall. Music scores were also pinned on the wall which somewat looked like scattered on the floor. A very cool wall. Branded goods such as Ferragamo were on displays.. 意大利面 were also there..
As we are meeting YX's 2nd group of friends, we gotta leave the Expo at 5pm. Dinner was in a chinese atas restaurant. Food was great and average expediture was about RMB60 (SGD12).
14/05/10 Day 5 西塘千古镇
We went on a 2 day 1 night trip to 西塘. Went wif YX's 3rd group of friends (a couple). Took a train from Shanghai to 西塘. Abt 40mins ride.
西塘镇属浙江省嘉善县，位于太湖流域的江，浙， 泸（上海） 二省一市的交界处， 是一个具有深厚历史文化的千古镇。(Ok, I din draft this description. It was taken up from the postcard I bought there, just type out nia)
Its a nice peaceful village with old town settings. Seems like we have gone back in time to the sword fighting era. Haha.. Tried smelly toufu there. Stinks but they like. Went pubbing in this old town. Seems abit weird but interesting. As there's no shopping malls in this little town, pubbing seems to be the only choice of night entertainment.
The hostel we stayed in was good! At first when we surf the hostel's website and saw they have a liberal clear view of toilet from bed, YX and I almost freaked out. Cos 4 of us 3 gals 1 guy, open toilet concept was much overwhelming for us. Great they had the white curtain screen, if not, we gotta lock 小胖 at the attic! Haha..
15/05/10 Day 6 西塘-上海
We had brunch in 西塘. As our return trip via train is 站票 (Stand all the way, no seats), we decided to take the express coach back to Shanghai. 1hr plus. Went to their 'CBD' had some night shopping as well.
16/05/10 Day 7 便宜货我扫~
Breakfast was 油条+蛋饼+ 酒酿丸子.. Today's a day to grab all the souvenirs for friends and family. Morning we went to see our pics from 欧风 and picked some pics we want for further enhancements + effects. After that, we went for shopping spree. Things were pretty affordable! We shopped and manicured and shopped..
Dinner was cooked by YX's uncle and we had a great feasting! Took pics with the host and his family.
17/05/10 Day 8 我是观光客
Today we explored the tourist-must-go places. Went to 滨江大道 which overlooked over to 外滩, 东方明珠, 城隍庙. We walked and shopped a lot.
Dinner was wif YX's 4th group of friends. We had 小龙虾 feasting! They served nothing but 小龙虾. It was simply yummy! Later on we chilled out at a Hong-kong themed cafe while YX catched up wif her friends.
18/05/10 Day 9 世博第二望
Shi Bo here we come again! This day we explored a lot of Pavilions. Walked and explored so many places and countries till we lost count. Visited some countries' Pavilions that I dun even know they existed. Okay, wif the fact that popular pavilions will require 3-5hrs of queuing to get in, why not explore the not so many ppl pavilion. Quality? Quantity? We went wif quantity instead and visited some ulu countries' pavilions. Nevertheless, it's pretty interesting to know such countries existed.
This is the day I thought I could not even walk anymore. It's the most painful walk in my life. From morning 10am till 10pm, we had nothing much except walking and taking photos and more walking. It's definitely more than 10km. I kept saying "我走不动了", yet I kept walking and walking and limping and walking. Had fun as well though...
19/05/10 Day 10 凯旋归来啦
Final day we spent at a mega mall doing our groceries shopping. It's somewat like Carrefour, wif local products as well as electronics items. My luggage was bursting out and glad that I brought along a PVC bag to bring my barang barang back. I estimated that my stuff will not be able to fit into the luggage one and indeed, a 2nd bag is required. So final day spent shopping and packing. I had 4 bags with me (Luggage, PVC bag, YX's lappie and my sling bag) and YX had 5 bags (luggage, backpack, side bag, YX office lappie and I cant remember wat she carried). YX Aunt and family helped us in getting the luggage and stuff to the cab and waved goodbye as we zoomed off to take the bullet train station to go airport. As cabbing directly to airport is expensive, we go via bullet train instead. The most 狼狈 moments were carrying our barangs from the cab to the bullet train station. Carrying 3 bags and dragging one more than 10kg luggage wasn't an easy task but 巾帼不让须眉, we did it without any other assistance.
The 上海磁浮列车 was travelling at 330km/h and we reached the airport in 10mins. We were so glad when we saw the airport trolley. Dumped most of our stuff on the trolley and it was much more lighter on our backs.
We checked in pretty early and nua at the transit. Reached Singapore at 5am+. Had some Mac for breakfast before taking cab at 6am.. Home sweet home..
Yay! Finally finished my blog on Shanghai. Summarized a lot, especially on World Expo...