China Trip

Day 1

My parents and I anded at Shanghai Pudong airport after a 5.5h flight from Singapore by Garuda Indonesia. Seating was comfortable. Though the layout of the airport makes it look very spacious and by that I mean emptily spacious so it is in no way comparable to Changi. We saw other members of the tour group. 10 people in all and we had a small bus to ourselves.
We boarded the Maglev train that travels from the airport to Shanghai city outskirts. That’s 30km. The ride was about 7min long only, with speed hitting 437km/h. Woosh…so fast!


Train @ Max Speed


Then we loaded our stuff on the tour bus and set off for a 2.5h ride to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a city replete with history and development of the Arts and it has a reputed beautiful scenery of the West Lake.
Our first stop at Hangzhou was a park beside the West Lake. We walked through the lush gardens, heard crickets calling, admired peacocks and peonies and peered at the red carp in a pond. There was also the lei2 feng1 ta3. People who watched Madam White Snake will know that this place is supposed to be where the white snake was buried under till her son grew up and got her out.
We visited a tea plantation. Hangzhou is famous for it’s long2 jing3 tea. Green tea that is fragrant and hand processed. It was really expensive! 200yuan ($40) for 150g is quite quite outrageous! We didn’t buy any lah but I did take a few nice pictures and the green tea candy is simply tasty!


@ Gardens of Tea Plantation

At night, we visited the Sony Dynasty Theme city and watched a very good show. Lots of props, nice costume and agile acrobats. There was also a water splashing show. I’m glad I didn’t get wet.


End of the Show

Day 2
We set off for a mini cruise on the West Lake. Scenery is picturesque enough (though in my opinion, not comparable to Niagara Falls) and half of the area is developed into city scape while the remaining is the nearly original scene of xi1 hu2 centuries ago. There’s a bridge where liang2 shan1 bo2 and zhu1 ying1 tai2 admitted their love for each other. It’s a short bridge but they accompanied each other from one side to another that they took 2 hours to part. It’s a Romeo and Juliet thing lah in the end the lovers committed suicide cuz their parents disapproved.


cruising around xi hu

Next, our stop was at the academy the oriental Romeo and Juliet studied at. See right, Juliet went in as a guy and Romeo was her roommate and totally didn’t know about her being a girl. Can imagine how blur he was lor. The academy is on top of a hill. About 100 steps up. And in that sweltering hot weather it was quite tiring.
After lunch, we were in for another 1.5h long ride to Suzhou. Yes, Suzhou, the place of pretty women. Our tour guide said:
Go Hangzhou to see scenery (dunno what tou)
Go Suzhou to see pretty girls (ya tou)
Go Shanghai to see people (ren tou)
Go Wuxi to see stone (shi tou)

The Suzhou-Singapore industrial park looked like Singapore. Apartments were in those ECP luxury apartments style and the place was very structured. Just compare it to Suzhou outside. But this city is unique in that it’s the Venice of China. Many many rivers within the city area and Suzhou has an ancient architecture that the government has taken trouble to conserve.


Suzhou-Singapore Industrial Park

We visited the Ou3 yuan2. This garden in the middle of a large garden is surrounded by a river and used to house a government official and his wife. Note, only 2 people and servants. The couple was barren and no concubines. That’s the way man! From the outside of the gardens, we took a ride with a river woman and she sang for us in the Suzhou dialect. There’s a saying that you would rather hear 2 suzhou people quarreling than hear 2 ningpo people talking. The suzhou dialect is very gentle, even it’s equivalent of “you want me to slap you?” sounds very mild.


Woman rowing boat

Han2 Shan1 Si4 temple was our next stop. There’s a large bell in the tower rings on 31st Dec at 1142pm 108 times. It is said to help you eliminate the typical 108 worries in your life so at that time, there will be thousands of people outside the temple just to wait for the ringing to begin!
At night, we went shopping at the central area. All shophouse style, even those departmental stores had to have roofs that looked like temples.


Han Shan Si bell


Day 3
We visited a silk factory and saw what happened to silk pupae. They got boiled and they pupae kena used as Chinese medicine. Everyone bought silk quilts for relatives, friends and themselves.

Goodbye to Suzhou, we proceeded to Wuxi, home of the large Taihu (Lake) which is 7 times the size of Singapore.


Swee San @ Tai hu


The main attraction there were the gardens, springs (for bathing) and of course the great lake itself. Apparently the tour guide tried to waste time by bringing us to pearl factories, jade factories e.t.c. SIGH

We had a brief shopping stint at Wuxi too. I don’t really like to shop in China. Chinese women don’t seem to have hips so it is difficult for me to buy bottoms of any sort.

Day 4
Early morning ride to Nanjing. There we met up with this really chio tour guide. She looks a bit like Sabrina.
Our first destination was the Nanjing bridge across the Chang Jiang. It’s a considerable architectural feat because it was not easy to erect such a bridge because the river flows at a very, very fast speed and also USSR withdrew it’s financial support for the construction because there was some political disagreement. The Chinese are very proud of this bridge. Each supporting pillar (10) stands for something.
They were trying to sell crystal balls and vases with drawings inside for the maintenance of the bridge and my mom somehow bought a crystal ball for 2500 yuan ARGGGHHH. I would have prevented her from buying it if not for the pretty tour guide who engaged me in conversation in order to distract me so that she could perhaps get commission. Later, the salesgirls were trying to sell my mom a vase that cost 8800 yuan and my mom seemed interested. Of course I vehemently insisted that it was a sheer waste of money and the tour guide wanted to distract me again by checking if the crystal ball was properly packed but I ran off and caught my mom before she got to sign the piece of paper. HAHA
No glass balls please, much less heavy glass vases, even if there are 300 human figures drawn inside.
Night shopping was at fuzi miao. Very pasar malamish. Very hot. Swee San doesn’t like pasar malams. Give me a shopping centre please. Parents as usual went to camp at Mc Donalds. Not very fun shopping with them.

Day 5
Loonnnnng ride back to Shanghai. It took us 8h on the bus. Sit until backside pain. Worth it though. Shanghai is scary, more scary than HK. Those buildings are at least 40 storeys high on average.
First stop was at chen huang miao. Not much. Again the pasar malam. Hot like hell. 35 degrees Celsius!


Chen Huang Miao central area

We had dinner at some nice place that served seafood but guess what…we didn’t get ANY seafood.
Then we had a night cruise of huang pu river and got to see the magnificent Shanghai night scenery BUUUUUTTTTT all the lights weren’t on because everyone was short of power. Such a let down. There are two sides the east and west of the river. The east part is the new city with skyscrapers and the west part is the older commercialized place.


Night Scenery of Pu Dong

After some kind of detour, we proceeded to the oriental pearl tower. Nice design but they copied CN tower’s layout minus the glass floor. That is not so original.

Day 6
Shanghai tang. Yes a view of both old and new Shanghai in the afternoon.


Swee San @ Shangtai Tan

Then we dropped by the 2nd Song sister’s memorial building and park.
Later we visited Yang Xiang Road’s pasar malam. A lot of fake branded goods and the funniest part is that the police came for a raid and you could see a lot of people communicating through walkie talkies “they’re here, they’re here” they said in Chinese. That was amusing. Sounds like Singapore’s pirated VCD vendors.
From there we found our way to huai2 hai3 road. It’s Shanghai’s version of Orchard Road. All departmental stores, what’s new?
Later that night, we visited the clubbing district called xing1 tian1 di4. Night life is quite present. Saw a lot of China equivalents of Sarong Party Girls around.


Xin Tian Di


Day 7
Shopping at Nanjing road. It’s 10km long worth of departmental stores, smaller stores and it leads straight to shanghai tan. The roads nearer to shanghai tan is blocked and there are these cute trains traveling to and fro. We got to see shanghai tan by night. Very very crowded I must say.

Day 8
Home sweet home. Enuff said

Overall appraisal:
Food- bad. Oily and salty. Wuxi has sweet food but too sweet already. Chilly sux. Singapore belacan is best. Always eat about the same food.
People- most not polite. A lot of shoving, shouting and smoking. I HATE TOUTS.
Hotels- not too good. The hotel in Suzhou switched off hot water at night. Save power until like that!