My sister just left to National Service, at the same exact camp I went to last year.
Anyway, continuation from the first part of my Shanghai diary!
**ALL THE PICTURES ARE CREDITED TO MY SISTER, JO ANN AND MY MUM AND SOME FROM ME :D
4th Day : Wuxi - Hangzhou
Had breakfast in their hotel (Wuxi Landison),
and headed to the 'Three Kingdom City'.
( 'on the way' pictures :P)
gosh, this is SO cute!
a sister-version of bro-fist. (my fist on the left, my sis's on the right)
"Xiao Mi", our local tour guide.
Uh, why the duck mouth, LOL!
And that place has a really nice feel of the old historical days when Chinese people still have long braids no matter if you're a male or a female. But I don't watch much of these series so it's hard for me to REALLY appreciate it. Nevertheless, it still looks beautiful :D
Took this boat thing to some 'island' at the other side....
.... to watch a performance of a re-enact of an old story about the Three Heroes in Chinese Dynasty, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
Then we had to go to another forced shopping stop, for PEARLS. Yay pearls -.-
Was practically rotting there with my tour friends. We were so bored that even running up and down the stairs sounds like a pretty fun idea.
Finally out from that dimension, now off to lunch! We had lunch at the Jumbo, which is like a floating ship on top of the lake. It's located beside Hubin hotel.
( 'on the way' pictures again :P)
There, our restaurant!
A huge ferris wheel is just outside! :D
When we were walking out, we stumbled upon this Santa life-sized figure with a trumpet. My mum walked passed and bam, music came on and startled us LOL. Yeah it's one hell of a jazzy Santa.
OMAGAWD I MANAGED TO FIND THIS ON YOUTUBE HAHAHAHA. And it plays the EXACT same song :P
Then another 3 hour ride to Hangzhou in the bus!
Naaaaaaap time!
............
Funny looking plants they use as their road decorations :P
Reached Hangzhou, we were asked to eat dinner. YES. Dinner at 4.30pm. They said that it's a free night (going to hotel early lol) tonight so we should eat our dinner first. Many of us were like "Err, free night meaning going to sleep at 8pm...? No way, you should bring us out to some shopping area.", and yknow our hotels are ALWAYS located in the outskirts.
But that DIDN'T FREAKING HAPPEN. ;( We're always pushed here and there, and we don't have a single bit of freedom. It sucks.
Anyways, a well-known lake called 'West Lake' (Si Hu, in Chinese), is nearby. So we just walked around to take some pictures, bonded with friends, take some more pictures, ran across the road and there, 1 hour gone.
LOL I see you guys! :P
So eating at 5.30pm didn't feel as bad as eating at 4.30. LOL.
A 'real' Christmas tree! Not made out of plastic :P
After dinner, went straight back to hotel. That's it. Boooooooring. Our room's TV got a little retarded so we had to call that handyman to fix it. It's amazing how we can spend our time lazing in the room at 7pm till 11pm just by watching TV and basically doing nothing at all.
This is so not how I wanna spend my night when I go travel. Seriously. Either I'll go out to a convenience store or go night shopping. But noooooo, we're living in the outskirts :(
--
5th Day - Hangzhou
Finally there comes a day where we do not have to keep packing and unpacking to rush for another city!
A whole day of Hangzhou today.
Good morning Hangzhou!
Breakfast first!
On the way out to our first destination, Qing He Fang street!
9am in the morning, clear blue sky with cold air.
Shopping at Qing He Fang street! They sell old and antique stuff, not really my kind of items but still looks rather pleasing to my eyes.
'Interesting lighter' LOL!
Saw a vintage looking McDonald building!
So pretty!
In Shanghai, I will always go into McDs whenever we have the chance because too much soya sauce and sweet and sour is making me crazy.
Bought a 'Pineapple Pie'. So yummy, because it's hot and it's a coooolddd day!
Went to Yue Wang temple after that. History and stories again. The sad thing about being a banana; You won't really get what they say completely. :/ So I ended up going around with my sister to take pictures of the surroundings while the adults get stuck listening to the tour guide. Muahahahaha.
Yue Wang temple is a temple built in honor of Yue Fei, a general of the Southern Song dynasty when the capital of China was in Hangzhou. The temple ground is located near the West Lake, in central Hangzhou. - wikipedia.org
General Yue Fei.
Thought we could get out and have some space to breathe, but then Mr. Han came to us and started a conversation with us.
He ended up talking about what his son studies and etc etc, oh yeah, bonding time with Mr. Han.
Oh, and my mum dared us, my sister, myself and a few friends I made from the tour, J and Z to do a jump shot because the background looks pretty cool.
But obviously we were embarrassed so we dared OUR mums first. Surprisingly, my mum and J's mum agreed and they really did it.
SO CUTE!
Since they did it, it's our turn, we couldn't say no to our mums, HAHAHA.
LOL!
We then left that place to go for lunch!
Taking pictures at any mirrors you find :P
Don't play with food! :P
Oh! Then we saw the unique-est thing ever! There was this baby, which his pants was 'ripped' off behind, and exposed his backside to the cold air. We thought that the father/uncle didn't notice, but it seems like it's ripped with purpose! HAHAHA. All of us Malaysians were like jakun-ing and looking at the baby's pants.
Yeah, it's for convenience yo! Don't need no diapers. XD
That cute baby :P
Afterwards, we left for Hangzhou's famous 'West Lake', for its 'longest history and biggest influence, and it was also inscribed on the World Heritage List.' - www.travelchinaguide.com
The scenery is beautiful, really!
Then we took a boat ride around the lake!
It was a 40 minute boat ride around the whole lake. So we decided to sit at the dock of the boat to enjoy the best scenery and the cold wind. We crapped a lot among ourselves, taking pictures and enjoying ourselves at the same time. It is one of those moments I wish I could rewind back to.
:')
Then we left to the 'Tea Farm', which is one of the place where we are forced to shop again, heheh. But this time I'm just gonna sit back and sip some tea.
Our local tour guide for Hangzhou!
Badges and name cards of previous tour groups who came here.
The man who's in charge of selling the tea to us is pretty weird. Whenever he talks, he'll end his sentence with a witty remark and flash a smile that looks like a chipmunk, and his voice will go an octave higher. HAHAHA.
Apparently, my dad says that he wasn't born with the habit, but learnt this tactic to lure the customers. But yeah it's still highly entertaining.
For us bananas who don't really get what he's going on about, we just laugh at his perkiness of how he speaks, THAT is already entertainment enough!
Even when it means sneaking some shots of his chipmunk face :P
My friend managed to capture his face, HAHA!
After tea, we went for dinner. That time the temperature is dropped to 0 degrees! Freaking cold, so we just ran straight up to the bus.
Dinner time!
Digital cam. :(
DSLR! :P
We went to watch the Songcheng show, which was held at one of Hangzhou's amusement parks.
"The show is an impressive 300 people 2 hour performance. There were 6 scenes and each of them is from a historical event or folk lore in Chinese history. The show combined the flashy costume, magic lighting effects, dance, acrobats, Peking opera and even international flavors into a light hearted entertainment." - drtu.com
Getting them tickets.
Brochure, LOL!
Their pork dumpling! Not bad, but I prefer Malaysia's! :P
And we entered the hall;
Pretty effects and lighting! Really nice, but I don't really get the stories though! But my mum tells me the short synopsis every scene. :P
Oh and I bumped into my online friend again. HAHA!
After that, we just went back to our hotel ...
The BEST supper ever!!!!!!!!!
.. and sleep!
6th Day - Hangzhou - Shanghai
IT'S CHRISTMAS EVEEEEEEE!
FALALALALALALALALALA~
And we're spending its morning catching fish and plucking vegetables in 'Xixi Wetlands' ! FALALALALA~
But trust me, it's really fun. ;)
Morning Hangzhou!
After breakfast, we checked out our hotel and off we go to Xixi Wetlands.
Xixi's mascot. Sissy persimmon. HAHAHA. Omg I'm kidding.
Aww I feel so welcomed. HAHAHA.
Obviously it was there for us to take a picture with it, right? XD
Now, we gotta pluck some vegetables for our lunch. "No pluck veggie, no lunch for you guys!". But no biggy, you just pull that little dude out of the soil !
LOOK IT'S ALL ENCRUSTED WITH ICE! :D
My sister, the local farmer and I! :D
With the stuff we collected HAHA!
After veggie plucking, each of our families are assigned to a boat and we're fishermen for an hour. LOL. An assigned fishermen rows our boat and catches the fish while all of us just look at them amazed.
We caught a huge fish!!!!!!!!! I mean, our fisherman caught.
The thing is, it's actually pregnant, so my dad said that we should throw it back to the waters. The fishermen were like 'AWWWWWW~ Thank you :'D'
Had our lunch in a 'house', where they are supposed to 'cook your catch and harvest'. We kinda think that they actually released the fish and cooked the ones they got in their fridge. HAHA!
Snails. :/
Anyway, nom nom nom.
Then we were told that it will be a 2 hour journey to Shanghai in the bus, so all of us hurried to use the bathroom LOL.
But the thing is, we thought we'll be going back straight, but who knew, there'll still be another boat ride.
I'm Apple's new tour guide :P
A 30 minute boat ride. So bored and my little friend kept whispering in my ear and played games with me.
Then finally we reached our stop, and phew. Met up with the rest, and waited for another boat to arrive.
Then off we went to Shanghai !
2 hours in the bus. 1 hour used to sleep. The other hour is used to ..... well, play Poker? HAHAHA. Initially we youngsters wanted to play but the bus is moving like ....... so we didn't.
So the other hour was used to think of what to do for Christmas eve that night :P
Reached Shanghai !
First place we went is to the 'Oriental Pearl Tower'! It is a TV tower which boasts a height of 468m high, and its the tallest building in the whole of China!
Went up the building and whoa this lift goes up 7 meters every second! Imagine how fast is that!
Breathtaking view of the city at night! Too bad the camera doesn't capture it as how your eyes see it :P
There's an arcade too!! :( Didn't get to play!
Before leaving the tower, we were directed to see the 'Shanghai Municipal History Museum', and again, stories from the tour guide. My sister and I and a two of my friends went off to start taking pictures of the mannequins.
My sister's pro shots :P
Gift shops that we didn't get to see at all :(
Left for dinner after that.
That dinner was the best dinner we ever had, because my friend's dad brought whiskey! LOL! And it's our second last dinner together, :'(
"YAAAM~~~ SENG!"
Almost every guy adult got drunk. HAHA! And somehow it felt like a family reunion dinner, hahaha. Everyone got high and kept 'YAM SENG~~~~~'- ing , whoa it's really really fun. And one of our tour friend, whose birthday falls on today itself, has a mini celebration! :D A cake is brought out for her and my sister joined in too~ (because her birthday falls 3 days after)
We were supposed to have the 'Huangpu river boat cruise' tonight, but our tour guide didn't book it. PFFT. So instead, my friends and I decided to celebrate it ourselves.
Checked into the hotel, Wyndham Bund East hotel! ALL our hotels we stayed are 5 stars! :D
So the parents all decided to sleep because they were all knocked out by the alcohol. :P Only me, my sister, J and Z were awake enough to actually want to celebrate Christmas. We planned that we should go to the lobby at 10pm and see what we can do.
But sadly, the hotel is situated in the outskirts so our initial plans of 'OMG SNOW SPRAY!' is all poofed. :(
And the hotel is pretty dead when it comes to Christmas. CHRISTMAS is NOT a Shanghai thing.
Then we ended up at the lobby's lounge, and we chatted, played cards and rotted there till 12am. HAHAHA. It's not "fun", but it's a really nice thing because it's the time we spent together that was precious and memorable. Next year (2012), when I look back, I'll be like "I remembered how we spent our Christmas last year!" :')) Awww.
Not much pictures because we were all dressed so boringly. HAHA.
So it was 12am. Nothing actually happened. LOL! We all just said among ourselves "Merry Christmas~ Oh okay, time to head to bed. G'nite!". The hotel actually offed their lights in preparation to 'close shop' already. Bahahaha.
Had a really 'fun' night despite the lack of energy, but still ! Had a blast :D
--
7th Day - Shanghai
MERRY CHRISTMAS! :D It's Christmas in Shanghai and nothing is happening!!!! :DD
Last day of a full day in Shanghai, and we're going home the next day :'(
Had our breakfast, and the first place we went to is the Chinese Traditional Medicine shop. Yeah those stuff again!
We were like rotting there, ughhh. Come on, we wanna shop. It's our last day in Shanghai! :(
Went to our first shopping area called Tianzifang. It is an arts and craft street, which are more like, galleries and stuff. 'Tianzifang is known for small craft stores, coffee shops, trendy art studios and narrow alleys.' -wikipedia.org
walking, walking.
Here it is!
Nothing much, though the buildings look pretty nice! I saw my friend buying a crepe with ham and cheese from the 'Hot&Roll' store (which is originated from our home country, Malaysia!) and boy, I tell you we were really tempted! Too much soya sauce for the past 6 days was killing us. So we ordered one, and my whole family nibbled and savoured the cheesy taste of the melted cheese and enjoyed it so much! I can't describe how is like to taste cheese after so long. It's like, magic! :'D
Sexy stuff. :P
I found a cafe which sells pastries, and immediately, I went in to buy a doughnut which costs like, RM6 for A DOUGHNUT. Okay a little pricey but I don't care because it tastes sooo good.
Some weird cloak :o
After that was lunch. Almost the same stuff. ;/
Then we headed to 'Nanjing Road', which is the 'main shopping street of Shanghai, China, and is one of the world's busiest shopping streets.' - wikipedia.org
But first, we had to see Madame Tussauds's Wax Figure Museum. But meh, I've already seen that in Hong Kong last year so I didn't want to waste much time on it. Plus, Shanghai's one is super small and cramp and filled with people! D:
Inside ze building
Fastest Olympic runner in China!
James Bond ;)
So we only took less than 30 minutes to walk through the whole museum since we saw almost everything before.
Finally, real shopping! Not. The whole place is filled with people when we got out, there's not much space to breathe as everyone just walks here and there.. how to shop la like that?!
In the end, we just went for Starbucks while walking around and absorbing the energy from humanity. :P
Lee Hom!
My tired face and my Cafe Latte :'D
Crossing the streets ;D
Walked back to our bus..
The sun's already setting!
Spot the Rilakkuma mascot? :)
These are all shops, ;)
SHOPPING!
FULL of stuff that we can buy there, plus, not as many people as Nanjing road! :D
J met his friends and he told us that this area sells the fake and cheap Beats headphones. HAHAHA. So we really gotta find this one.
Found it! ;)
Baby Xiao Chang ♥
Went to the convenient store to get ma supper, ;)
Walked back to our bus.
Z's a huge fan of SNSD. HAHAHA.
"Call meh~" ;)
Had dinner afterwards.
Snake wine.
Just the tour guide checkin' out his tourists.
Then we finally went for that Huangpu river cruise thing that we didn't get to go last night. But something terrible happened that night, which involved a fight. But I won't tell you guys here. :P
Staffs going into the 'basement' because they finished their shift. HAHA.
Z, sis, and I.
That marked our epic night with an epic event. HAHA.
J and I took the Beats we bought and took a picture of it. Since we gotta pack, I threw away the box so yeah. So funny, we took this at the lift area, outside our hotel rooms. I was like insanely paranoid when the lift went 'DING!' LOL!
Our loot. :D
I'll definitely keep the box if I spent a bomb on that.
Last night, just ended like that! Kinda regret we didn't had a crapping session that night. :( Oh well..
By the way, our hotel has a remote control for curtains. HOW AWESOME IS THAT.
Room pictures!
SLEEP!
--
8th Day - Shanghai - KL
Last day! We were going HOME! :( Well, not yet.
Good morning Shanghai!
Woke up at 7.30am, and had our light breakfast. By 8.30am-ish, all of us gathered with our luggage to again, load it into the bus and check out of the hotel :(
Hotel lobby
First place we went, is our LUNCH! Japanese Teppanyaki! Though a bit oily, but seeing how the chef cooks the food in front of you is DE.LI.CIOUS!
Everyone was exchanging emails, taking pictures with one another at that time. Kinda sad :'(
I remember that time I was telling my sister; "By the time we reach home at night, we'll say that 'Isn't it just this morning that we had to wear such thick clothes because of the weather?'". Awww.
Then after lunch, we went to sit on the Maglev train, which is a magnetic train so it's pretty fast! 300km/h. :D
The bus that drove us around for 8 days. :(
Within 10 minutes, we reached Pudong Int'l Airport.
We had to pull our luggage to the end of the building. L O L. Mr. Han, our tour guide, said his farewells and he went off. Aww, bye Mr. Han :(
Had to push our luggage all the way to the other end.
Us young people were like just hanging around when our parents are doing all the lining up. Hehehehe.
Then afterwards, we walked around the airport, bought chocolates and went to our gate. 4pm flight and woosh~ We're on our way back home!
Goodbye Shanghai :'( ! So much sweet and unforgettable memories made here, I'll come back someday but it won't feel the same as this.
Sky getting darker and darker. Beautiful!
Touched down at KLIA at around 9pm. When we left the aircraft, my dad was in the 'I-don't care-we-better-get-home-fast' mode. So we didn't get to say goodbye to my tour friends :(((( .
Took an airport cab home. Dumped our stuff at home and my dad drove us out to eat roti canai for supper. HAHA.
Reached home, went online for a bit and slept.
--
Shanghai diary, THE END!
Very detailed, hope you enjoyed it! :P
1 comment:
OMG i can't believe by reading this makes me realize how much i miss Shang Hai :( Good memorizes
Post a Comment