Purple has now turned blue... purple is joy, yet blue is hope!

掌握一生的幸福。。。

Monday, April 24, 2017

Shanghai, China Trip - Sep 2016

I called it 探親記 a.k.a. visiting relatives! LOL. Well, it had been the best reason for us to re-visit China, after several years of break. Honestly, the country and its people had improved tremendously, over the last 8 years. Evolution, and of course, further improvement still acquire for the best of all, particularly on air pollution, and street cleanliness. Public transport and public manner had further improved, though we couldn't get away from the ever crowded population in the city or metropolitan.

Nice greenery view from Pudong
I had never stay opposite the Bund, namely Pudong. The district is much cleaner and neat, it was new township perhaps for the last 10+ years.

Here are some street roaming pictures, as we touched down on day one.

Day 1 - street roaming, i.e. buy local SIM (apparently its cheaper getting outside from airport)

Native broom, environment friendly
Full of textile... I was shopping for CheongSum. LOL



Gotcha! Couple posing at Bund area

Joy City - MI Flagship Store


Visited the only MI flagship store

Ever curious on how Durian pizza taste

Yang's Fried Dumplings

Fried dumpling.. nice

Hai Di Lao 海底撈

  • Very nice steamboat, accompanied by many types of sauces (self fill from buffet counter) - personally like those with sesame based
  • Starter was served with pop corns and nuts, all the way from the waiting corner outside the restaurant
  • Pampered with their serving, as well as variety of sliced meat served (thank to my hosts!)
  • Lastly, one will come demonstrate "pulling" fresh noodle (拉麵) at your table before serve

Tasty sauces

Just when it started...
 Day 2 - Main station heading to SuZhou 蘇州

Train to SuZhou

Packed breakfast in the train
It's high speed at affordable price



  • Traveling free & easy, with public transport has always been our type of holiday
  • Of course, lots of "homework" require prior to the trip.. (thanks to my partner)
  • Plus... walking from A to Z, nothing special
  • We took the bus from train station to the historical/tourist main locations
  • We hopped on local busses, could really figure out the right direction especially when it was raining cum traffic jam around the tourist area

Local bus

苏州园林博物馆 Suzhou Garden Museum

  • It was free - refurbished or new architechture

Humble Administrator's Garden

  • Need entrance fees, pricey but worth the penny
Touriust spot

Rain... oh... I had to buy a pair of shoe rain coat

Scenic

蘇州過後唔艇搭

Scenic

桂花樹

Local fruits - 烏梅


清真 Halal beef noodle



  • We could grab a taxi, since it was having heavy traffic jam
  • Thought of using Uber, but account didn't set up properly
  • We walked and walked... discovered direction wasn't right, as we are heading to our hotel which is quite a distance away
  • Apple Map came into play (apparently the Chinese are heavy Apple users)

Apple map guided us using the correct bus and correct lane

  •  As we walked along the river, some familiar shop caught our attention


Rotiboy?

Finally in the bus heading to the hotel

Hyatt Regency Suzhou

  • Checked into the hotel, as we were partially wet
  • Nice room, view and hotel, I wouldn't regret staying away from the crowded town
  • This is a new township, built by Taiwanese, 新光天地

Evening view

Room - Looking through the bath room

Room - simple architecture

  • We roam the surrounding area after shower, hunting for food.. but we didn't had our proper dinner, instead settled with Burger King for supper
  • The surrounding night view was spectacular, made it nice especially with the not so cold weather ~21C
  • Too bad, it was still drizzling

Scenic night view

At the pier

Cultural center

Hotel Check out view

蘇州國際博覽中心

Florian @Shin Kong

  • I shopped quite a lot at 新光, up till we were entitled for a free espresso and macaron!
SuZhou train station - Do you notice the locals are queing up?

Tsui Wah Restaurant

  • Reconnect with our host and headed straight for dinner
  • We thought of having XinJiang food for dinner, but the restaurant was fully occupied
  • In the end, we settled in a Hong Kong restaurant.. not bad
TsuiWah for dinner
Day 4 - Holiday (it was Mid-Autumn holiday) with our hosts\

Tian Zi Fang 

  • Did a semi-tourist wandering... 
  • Visited a nearby local wet market, looked around their vegetables, it's about the same as our market
Nice souvenir, but I didn't get one

Wet day again

Market
Bought local tea

韩国八色烤肉

  • Lunch in Korean - yummy meaty meal
Yummy

花季花鸟市场

  • Nursery - Shop for plant??
  • Partner was looking for a tree!
Indoor nursery.. multi storey, interesting

Found a MoBike outside (Mobile Apps enabled city bicycle)

Décathlon | 迪卡侬

  • Shopping day continued
  • Found affordable florescent Tee which i like most... more choices than Malaysia's branch
Sports shop


耶里夏丽新疆餐厅 | يەر شارى

  • Finally! We managed to settle down with the XinJiang food and its performance show
  • Very nice skewed lamb stick though, it's halal and very nice
  • Interesting and special food I had never tried before
Great performance during dinner

Special dish
Bought some Lays

Day... (lost count) - Our second last day
  • Set nearby Pudong airport
  • Visited the new Premier Outlet, next to Shanghai Disneyland
  • Spent quite a sum here too :)
Pudong airport

Shanghai Village

  • The place is very nice and clean, nice weather for pretty shots too
  • Typical outlet mall, with lots of branded like in US
  • Unfortunately, food court or restaurants are just too minimal.. couldn't settle down for a meal, as the crowd has drawn the place

Cutie mascot - the rabbit 
China's toilet a nay? Absolutely wrong!



Nice art marble even on the floor

  • Sort of China town of Shanghai
  • I was starving since that noon, had to get dumpling there to cure my stomach
  • Soup Dumpling, a.k.a. pao was nice, they even supply a straw for one to sip the soup in the dumpling

Soup Dumpling

Other snacks

  • From Yu Garden walked towards the Bund
  • Local tourist on MoBike, heard its onl RMB1 or so per hour? One could just stop the bike anyway upon arriving at destination, or it will locked after the timing ends - pretty interesting

Tourist on MoBike

Nice weather for nice shot

Old building
Last Day - Pudong street roaming

  • We walked and walked and walked the whole day long, until our flight out around dinner time

3 giants

Super Brand Mall

  • Missed the lamb sticks, had some again!

Lamb sticks

UNCLE'S FRIENDS CAFE & STORE | 同道大叔的星座咖啡店

  • Soft launched cafe, featuring LINE store and friends
  • Sat outside the cafe and enjoy the last chance for chill weather
  • Drinks were just alright... service (at that time) seriously need improvement
LINE feature store

Our drinks - based on star sign

广东煲仔饭

  • Cantonese styled claypot rice as we walked back home
Nice simple dinner

End of trip report. Bye Shanghai.