eating in shanghai

my mouth was watery as i was collaging and compiling all the photos. i think i managed to eat well despite travelling on my own in shanghai. it is better than those food prepared by tour groups actually. you can to choose on your whims and fancies and i do love trying all sorts of snacks. did i put on weight in shanghai????? not the first few days when i had hectic schedule at the expo. we only ate moderately in the expo ground as food was not cheap there. luckily dad and uncle pek are not big eaters either, so the diet was rather controlled.

this is the bakery where dad and uncle pek hang around every morning before we started our day. they always left the hotel earlier while i had my first round breakfast in the room- my 3-in-1 nescafe brought from malaysia and an apple. then it was toilet time. muahahaha without fail every day. that raisin bread was my breakfast on-the-go. i usually had that around mid morning. the apple could only last 2 to 3 hours. a really nice bakery, just 5 mins walk from the hotel. oh, and 24 hours too.


food at the expo..........expensive but there were a lot of varieties. most pavilions have their own restaurants hence you can try food from all the countries if you are willing to pay the price.
the glutton me of course could not resist....

finnish pancake...the texture is quite hard but it is not bad at all. yummy....

belgian dark chocolate. expensive right?? rmb62 for 3. it was made inside the expo during the first few days and are in limited quantities. my dad's choice of choc and he says to only buy dark chocolate the next time anyone comes back from overseas.

ice-cream, portuguese egg tart, banana and jackfruit roll and san miquel beer (the philippines pavilion), set lunch and tako yaki (squid ball) from japan industrial pavilion. those squid ball cost me rmb35 but they were good.....hot and freshly made. salivating!!!

lunch of roast duck at duck king....a franchise restaurant. the duck was good. they cut it in front of you and it was hot fresh from the oven.

french loaf from the french pavilion.

now to the streets of shanghai....walk walk walk, visit visit visit, when hungry, stop at any place which serve food....
my lunch on the first day. a special type of vermicelli like those i had in guilin. the soup is kinda oily but it tasted not that bad. and i could not finish the big bowl of course. scary ah.

aah.....shanghai's famous steamed buns filled with crab roe. nan xiang steamed bun restaurant. we queued for about 20 mins to get into this restaurant near yu yuan garden. it is really a famous one and they have takeaway and the queue for the takeaway counter is always more than 10 meters long.

some assorted biscuits and dried meat. dad could not resist and bought some meat and we had them when we were hungry. but of course, we finished everything in one day. hahaha.....we just love our meat.

pork filled bun. we don't have this type in malaysia. it is quite filling.

aaahhh....how can i resist belgian dark choc magnum?? but my favourite is still dark choc with mint which i had in australia. that was really cooling. talking about cooling, we bought slices watermelon at rmb2 a slice at shanghai old street. it was cut in front of us so ok lah.....can pass the hygiene test. it was sold from a cart in a back lane.

stinky tofu which dad also could not finish. he gobbled them up because it would be a waste of money throwing them away. hahahaa.....it was his first time trying. i passed since i have tried in hk.

our meal in qibao (7 treasures) water town. don't like the dumplings because the skin is too thick but love the trotters. see.....meat lover.

steamed mantou....very very cheap. only rmb0.80 for one. haha....i had to double check when i heard the price. that lok-lok sticks were also good. they dip them in curry water and they have all sorts of meat balls and mushrooms. the mushrooms were good not to mention healthy as well.
i don't like their rice dumplings because the rice really sticks to the leave.

spring chicken....i did not try. too much food. but love my cooling drink. aaahh......

the chinese called these ling kok.....u know the dark horn like thing you usually find during mid-autumn festival? those are very ripe ones. these are raw and taste a bit like coconut.

our lunch at zhu jia jiao....paid by elaine's uncle. so many dishes just for the 5 of us!!!
from the first row left- bean curd, stuffed glutinous rice in lotus root and preserved beef.
second row from left- stir-fried ling kok, river shrimps, chicken and chicken soup.
last row from left-salted vege, beans, fish and trotter.

my best meal in shanghai- cantonese cuisine in one of the popular cantonese restaurant here situated on nanjing street. it is adjacent to majestic plaza hotel if i remember correctly. we had goose, salmon, brocolli and scalllop and claypot sichuan ma lat tofu. rmb265

my last dinner in shanghai at one of those fusion restaurants on the top floor of a mall in on nanjing street. the service was not good but the food was reasonable.

hmm...did i miss anything?? different types of bread, starbucks coffee, kfc shrimp burger, curry puff, red tea (singapore pavilion), herbal jelly, ice lolly, apples, peach, grapes, bananas and sushi rolls. yup, basically these are without photos.

so do you envy my makan makan time in shanghai?? i think it is nothing to shout about lah but u know you won't starve if you are there. local shanghainese cuisine is normally oily and sweet. very very sweet. even the locals say so and they also like cantonese cuisine. but there are many types of restaurants and eateries and snack shops for you to sample the different kinds of food. hence you only have to make sure that your stomach can take it.

day 9, shanghai

finally...the last day of my stay in shanghai. the weather had turned cloudy and wet and again it rained.
however, on this last day, i had special guides from china......one of my girls' (elaine) aunt and uncle. i am so grateful to elaine for introducing her hospitable aunt to me. i had a good time that day going to another ancient water town called zhu jia jiao. don't ask me how to pronounce it properly in chinese, until now, i can still pronounce it wrongly. but ppl do know which town i talk about since it is one of the most famous ones around shanghai with more than 1700 years of history.

we left the hotel at 8.30 a.m. and drove about 1 hour to the town. elaine's uncle wanted to pay for our entrance fee (rmb60 for eight scenic spots) but we insisted on paying it ourselves. they paid for our lunch anyway. they have different prices for different packages.
this here is my favourite and i think best photo of my whole trip. it is so serene and quaint and calm right? and i think the picture manages to capture the essence of this water town. that tower in the background is a temple. this is the view from the restaurant's window where we had our lunch.

we did not buy the package which included a boat ride, so we walked all the way in and all the way out through the narrow streets. we had a map of course or we would definitely be lost as every street looks almost the same.
one of the scenic spots we entered- kezhi garden.

another attraction we visited was this qing dynasty post office.

we only left at around 4p.m.......and it was still raining when we left. reached the hotel as the sky was darkening and the traffic back to the city started to get heavier with city dwellers coming back from their weekend escapades.
elaine's aunt and uncle, dad and uncle pek and their toyota. we don't have this model in malaysia. me? i was the camera woman. the one which dad took for me was not clear. sigh.....the camera is not that user-friendly anymore.

and so, this last visit to zhu jia jiao ended my visit to shanghai. the next morning, we left the hotel at 8a.m. and i took the metro all the way to the airport. only rmb7 for that 1 hour ride. damn cheap.

i still haven't finished yet with my shanghai post. coming up next will be food and shopping posts. which one shall i post first?

announcement!!

is anyone looking for an extra hand/ helper/ assisstant/ etc (??) this coming november and december??? escape 2 happens to have a lot of free time to spare and would like to earn some extra $$$. she ain't going for any holidays end of this year because she has just 'invested' her money in a ticket on MAS to london come may 2011 and another 'investment' is on airasia back to kl in june 2011. she still cannot accept the fact that she has actually booked those tickets. she is flying with a female colleague of hers.

so yeah, i am really interested to earn some money for the trip and to make use of my time also lah. i am quite flexible and i am a good multi-tasker. i also learn fast and am efficient. anyone wanna hire me???

day 8, shanghai

aaahh...it is so noisy outside my house! a group of girls all who have just finished their std 6 upsr exam was screaming their heads off playing with water balloons and water. i wanted to get a nap but had to cancel that plan with all the deafening shrieks!!

so continue with my china post instead. urggh....another shriek!!!

on this day, we decided to go to the outskirt of shanghai. hated the sky...it rained, rained and rained till evening on that day.

we went to sheshan national forest park which is about 35 km on the outskirt of shanghai. we took the metro again but from sheshan station, we had to take a cab to the park. there is a theme park here and i saw the roller-coaster track....impressive. but i pitied the theme park goers.....how many rides would be open in the rain??

the park is quite big but we went to the two attractions here which are the astronomical observatory and maria basilica....the first basilica in asia if i am not wrong. yup....you have to pay to enter. have forgotten how much we paid now.
a pagoda greets you as you finished walking up the steps from the entrance.

inside the observatory.....if i remember correctly, this is the first observatory in china and it has long history and remarkable records of all the astronomers who had done their research there. the museum has compiled thorough notes to inform the visitors of the development of astronomy study in china.

view from sheshan. some of the most expensive houses in shanghai are here. we saw bungalows dotted areas around the hills. such a misty day. this photo was taken at about 10-11am.
maria basilica. those stained glass is fake....the original one was burnt i think and they have pasted fake ones to make it attractive to tourists during this expo period. shanghai government is really leaving no stone unturn in providing the best image to tourists wherever they go. mass is still held here every sunday. and i think devotees make pilgrimage journey here once every year.

we checked the metro route after finished visiting the national park. still drizzling and the sky was really gloomy. dampened all the mood to go exploring.

so along the metro route, we found qibao (7 treasures), an ancient water town which is still preserved. there were quite some tourists there too. met a group from hk. you don't have to pay entrance fee to enter this place. it was really serene ambling along the river and the little streets here...but only if it was free of the crowd. we had to jostle here and there and everywhere with the crowd all holding umbrellas on the narrow street so it was not really comfortable.

we called it a day the earliest on this day. we reached the hotel at 7p.m. dad and uncle pek freshened up and took a cab to the railway station to get their tickets to the next destination. then they went back to fuzhou street to look for books while i alone went to check out the shops on nanjing road.
that was when i found that things in china was so expensive. zara shop was so crowded although there was no sale but mng was rather empty. why ah?? i thought mng had better collection this time around compared to zara's. i guess it is all in the branding. i did not come back empty handed....but i will leave all the shopping to another post.

day 7 shanghai

gooodness....when am i going to finish all my shanghai posts????
sorry for my tardiness....well....blame cafe world and laziness.
whenever i switch on the computer now, it is straight to facebook and then to cafe world.
it is kinda childish but the game is getting more and more fun with so many die-hard fan friends. yes, i have got a group of my friends playing it and we are helping each other to finish the tasks. talk about teamwork. we even have a special chain e-mail circulating among us updating each other about the progress of our task. talk about organised. muahaha.....don't let the fun stop.

okok...but i have to get back to the real world too ah....but if there is a machine to suck me into my 'cafe'.....i would like to have it please. i think i will make a good restaurant manager.

ok day 7 in shanghai.....another leisure day. aaah......oh, it was hari raya that day, 10 sept. was thinking of all my colleagues who i did not sms with my greetings. usually i do sms them. well, it was too expensive to do that.

pearl tower.....i went up once many years ago so this time, we skipped this. you need to pay about rmb100 to go up and they have different tiers of prices for different levels of the tower.

this is the place we went to first on that day....shanghai ocean aquarium. it is right next to the pearl tower. i think we spent more than 2 hours here leisurely strolling along all the aquariums.

the world's longest underwater viewing tunnel. yup, quite long and u only have to stand on the travellator. the long standing time was quite tiring though. haha.

the big roundabout outside.....
the building with a hole is world financial centre. i think they have an observation level you can go up to but of course, with a price.

from the aquarium, we went to the science and technology museum which is situated on the same metro route.
again, the building is massive and impressive. what you see is only 2/3.

a replica of an ancient time measuring equipment i think. we saw the original one at the museum.

there were not many visitors and we got 10% discount as we had our expo cards with us. they have many halls and gosh, my legs were going numb walking from one hall to the next and from one level to the next. i wish they had more hands-on stuff for us to try instead of exhibits. it would be great if they do it like our petrosains.
we spent quite a few hours inside exploring all the halls....yes...all of them in that huge building. i think we spent almost 3 hours inside.

then dad suggested going to a cultural street called doulon road. it used to be a cultural gathering street. it was almost 6 when we were there so it was getting dark already.
the buildings are still retained in its original size but of course on the outside of the buildings, you can see air-conditioner units spoiling the sight.
bookshops and shops selling chinese brushes and things related to the academia are found here.
we found ourselves at a small street at the end of the road and there was a cart selling all sorts of pirated books. uncle pek bought 2.
dad found himself in a shop selling tea and he bought some green tea leaves.

yup....that was our day. a very slow one eh? but it was still interesting visiting places which packaged tours will not bring you too. we don't see any tour groups at the places we went to at all. definitely worth checking them out.

happy commonwealth game

i kinda choked a little when i saw the picture of the australian contingent walking into the stadium at the commonwealth game being held in new delhi now. ooh....the pride, the joy, the honour of representing your country.
seeing all the contingents in their uniforms is one of my favourites during the opening ceremony. some say it is bored, but not for me.
well, i did not watch the opening this time because i have no tv here, but i know i will be checking the results of the games everyday.
so good luck to all athletes and whether you win or lose, you are already champions in ppl's hearts.

p/s: i went to commonwealth games 98 in kl with grandpa to see 100m and 200m semi-final and i also attended the closing ceremony. it was really cool.

6th day in shanghai

first day out and about in the metropolitan of shanghai. a city where the population is almost more than those in the whole of malaysia. hard to believe right? but travelling is such an ease here with the efficient public transport. we used the metro most of the time and did not step into any bus at all. getting a cab is a breeze too and the price is reasonable. so let's jalan-jalan now.

yup, we still need to walk but unlike those days in expo under the hot and sunny sky. the weather was milder nearing the end of our trip.

first stop: yu yuan garden, a famous classical garden which has existed for more than 400 years.
the location: anren jie and the metro stop is yuyuan garden. how convenient.

before you reach yuyuan garden's arch and entrance, there are streets and streets of shops selling locally made products. this is the place to get your shanghai souvenirs.



yu yuan's garden entrance. rmb20 please.
inside yuyuan.
cool inner rock gardens and pavilions with ponds. a great escape from the hustle and bustle outside.

after that visit, we decided for a walk around the area with no proper destination in mind. we thought of going to the metro station but the farther we walk, the more confused we were of the direction. still, a bit of aimless wandering is good because you will not know what you can find in those alleys and streets.

and so it brought us to the famous temple in shanghai- i think it is called shanghai city temple. it is where dreams and wishes are granted.....with a fee. rmb10 i think for entrance into the temple. we skipped this.
and so after a peek of the temple, we continued our walk.

it brought us to another tourist destination- shanghai old street where the shops are small in size but still offer a myriad of cheap clothes and shoes for those looking for a bargain. uncle pek bought 2 pairs of bermuda trousers here and both men got 2 pairs of slippers as well as the weather was too hot and unbearable to walk in sneakers. pirated crocs are seen everywhere.

when we found the metro station, we decided to hear to shanghai national museum. it is 4th most visited museums in china i think and the building itself is impressive. and the best thing is- entrance is FREE!!!
it is huge right?? the sunlight makes it so yellowish and that is the 5p.m.'s sun. the museum closes at 5. we only managed to stay for less than an hour there. so sad.
they were having a very nice exhibition of catherine the great of russia. the exhibits were really exquisite. no photography was allowed. we only managed to visit 2 out of the 5 floors in the building.

so outside the museum is the famous renmin avenue.
a group of young military trainees i think doing their evening exercise at people's avenue park. very disciplined chaps....even their footsteps were synchronized.

people's avenue square where the national museum, shanghai grand theater and municipal government buildings are. this road is vast and they have an underground small mall under the square's park.
we found this tunnel under the square. it was on dad's guide book. the tunnel has been here since the 1930s. small shops and cafes line both sides of the tunnel. the lighting and deco of the tunnel surely bring you back to the 30s.

from the people's avenue, we walked and walked and walked all the way to the waterfront. we asked for directions and the expo volunteers who have booth almost everywhere told us it was near. near to them is like those distances less than 5km i think. we walked and walked and walked for almost 2km before we reached the bund!!! but it was a good walk because this was where we discovered that we were on fuzhou road which is famous for all its book shops. dad and uncle pek went there again the next day to books in both english and chinese language.....and they managed to get some cheap ones but of course they are pirated ones.

the bund in the evening. many of my photos taken here sucked because the camera's battery was low. so these are the best i have. the lights along the huangpu river were breathtaking thus this place is a popular haunt in the evening.
we joined a river cruise, rmb100 each which brought us along the river for about an hour. phew! it provided the much needed rest for my tired feet. the upper deck is open air but i only stayed there for few minutes as it was very crowded. it was not that big. come to think of it, it is such a waste of money right....paying rmb100 just to sit in an aid-conditioned area. you kinda see everything when you are at the bund waterfront area already. and i notice that most tourist sites in china now require a certain amount of fee. they are really good at making money from tourists and most fees charged are not small but to the cash-laden chinese they might just be a small fee.

usa...i wanna go....

image from www.tumi.com

do i need another bag??? but i love this special edition pink travel bag from tumi. the pink is the big attraction here and it is made to celebrate breast cancer awareness month. the price?? US$95. a steal or what?? i can imagine using it when i travel. instead of a similar longchamp le pliage that you see almost everyone toting at the airport, this tumi is a perfect lightweight travel bag.
so now, who can get it for me?? they have tumi store in midvalley i think and i wonder how much they are selling it here.

oooh....if only i earn a lot more from my job.......greed is doing the talk now. do you know how much a prominent dj can earn a month in his job? my jaw kinda dropped a little when i read about a lawsuit lil' kev a former dj of hitz fm won over astro over bridge of contract terms. he actually earned rm24,000 the first year in his contract and rm26,000 the subsequent years. oooh....to be earning that amount of salary.

a senior told me to put my money in shares...but gulp.....me investing? i don't think i trust my own judgement and i have a feeling that whatever i try to do to make me get more $$$ will definitely backfire. it is like giving me a lesson on greed and to be satisfied with what i have. the stock market is a play on speculation and i will only go in if i have alice cullen's (twilight saga) special power to read the future.

image from http://sanrio.com

so maybe a smaller purchase first this time around??? i really need an alarm clock. most ppl rely on their handphones nowadays, but when you have a handphone which can go dead in the middle of the night because of low battery level, you better make sure there is a plan b to wake you up in the morning. i think iphone users will know what i am talking about since their phone need constant charging as well.

i am setting my eyes on a hello kitty alarm clock.....an original one. i don't want those pasar malam ones which will die within months. so no more hesitating when i see a sanrio hello kitty corner at the mall. just buy it.

oooh....if only i were in the states (usa) ............