东方明珠===上海

We have reached Shanghai on the fifth evening, as majority of the streets were curfewed due to the Russian leader summit, we did not manage to do much except shopping ard the neighbouring shopping centre The merchandise are more expensive than other town, thus we did not spent much there.

On the sixth day, we have been bought to 新天地, an area where it resemble our clark quay, filled with foreigners. There are plenty of pub and night life been seen. Next we went to the Xiangyang road and shop in the famous 向阳市场. This market will be closed after tomorrrow. The whole streets used to sells\ cheap counterfeit goods. It used to sells those class A fakes, but since China wants to join the WTO, they are to eradicate all those places that sells those goods. Still we managed to find some cheap goods such as "puma" Bag for 30 rmb ($6), and cheap braclets and earrings for 5 rmb. I did not buy any on the first time, but then return on my free and easy day to buy some home. Xiangyang street also has a very nice restaurant that serve 豆浆油条。The soya bean milk is not as sweet as the Singapore's. It was hot and authentic. The doughstick is elastic and yet crunchy. The size of the doughstick is double the size of Singapore's. The restaurant also provided free sunny side up or 荷包蛋。Yummy ~_~!

After lunch, we were being bought to 南京路。Although it is called nanjing road, this road is in Shanghai. The best thing about this street is that it has a very big book shop; 上海书城。The Shanghai bookstore is very new and it resemble the kinokuniya bookstore in term of decor. Too bad the book store did not sell English books, but if you want to buy any Chinese book, it will be available. I managed to buy a few books that cost between $3 - $5 (after the conversion)I really regret of not bringing a bigger suitcase so that I can hurl more books home. I bought about 7 books in all. （ I went there the next day too)The book store also sells CDs, DVDs and VCDs. I bought a movie known as " The Music Box" or 理发师 by 陈坤。He suppose to win the Shanghai best actor through this movie. Fortunately I bought this movie in Shanghai as I can't seems to find any of those Chinese arty movie in Singapore, except those starred Zhang Ziyi. There is a Taiwan styled vegetarian restaurant in Nanjing road itself, thus after 6 days of Vege only diet, I finally have the taste of something more closer to home. Honestly I dun mind those vege only diet as I will be quite thankful to any morse given.(it was hard to find vege food in other part of China)The food was quite good and cheap, all Chinese restaurant will give complimentary tea and watermelons.(We eat watermelons during every meal, no other fruits available)

On the evening of the Sixth day, we cruise the HuangPu river,黄浦江 and enjoy the full night scenery of Shanghai.


This photo was taken on the boat. This picture shows us Pudong, 浦东，which is full of hotel such as Hyatt and the orient tower. 浦东 was developed much later than 浦西, (This is the site of the peace hotel and HSBC, Citibanks)浦西 was part of the French concession in the early 20th Century. According to the guide, pudong symbolise the male as it was the east, Puxi symbolise the female, thus due to the fact that Pudong was developed much later than Puxi, the female was stronger than the male in Shanghai and Shanghai male has to do all the housework... Dun noe how true is that though, although my guide say that her husband does all the work... Hmm maybe I shd go and find a nice Shanghai man... Haha， Just kidding, I will rather preferred a certain Chongqing man *wink*



This is a photo of the Orient Tower, it was the third highest building in the world and the tallest in Asia. We have to take a lift up to 260m tall and view the whole of huangpu scenery. Hmm very breathtaking. After the tour, we take a underground train knowned as sight seeing tunnel, which run across huangpu river to reach the other side;Puxi. The site that we alight is known as the The Bund, 上海滩。

On the seven and the eight day, we are supposed to have free and easy day. I planned to visit the Shanghai museum, but then heard that the entry fee is quite expensive, thus we spent the two days shopping.

The first stop that we go is 七铺路，it was like a big complex fitted with whole saler priced clothes. There were a lot of baby doll dress found. Not quite my style, thus din buy anything except scocks for my brother. You will have to negotiate for a good bargain, although it may looks cheap, you can still bring down the price further. The price of the bag can be brought down from 120 to 35 rmb after some "disscussion", but then you have to have the thick skin in order to do that... (Finally, my skin come in useful on those days) The complex is quite crowded and there are 6 floors for you to shop in. The complex is extremely crowded in the morning and even the local exclaimed that this is quite a dangerous place to go. We go despite of the hearsay and find it quite okie. It resembled our far east plaze with greater variety and cheaper price.

The worthy stop that we made is to 城隍庙,this is the street that look like Chinatown. It has quite a lot of famous local restaurant in Shanghai. One of them sells the famous 小笼包. The queue there is long from 9am, the restaurant only start selling the 小笼包 at 10am. At 10am, you will probably need to wait for an hour for your 小笼包. In China, all the restuarant has two pricing, the first storey will be comprise of the cheapest menu, thus it will usually be crowded with people. If you prefer peace and quiet, you can proceed to the second storey with pricer items. But the 小笼包 restaurant is so famous that the 2nd storey of the restaurant was also packed with people. The next famous restaurant in the street is a vegetarian restaurant.(It was famous because, it appeared in the LOnely Planets) As usual, I only took a look at the first floor menu, as I was too full I only managed to buy some vege bao from the restaurant. The vegetarian is unlike any that I have taste before. It was more authentic as it contains spinach and mushroom.(the bao is 1 rmb, I bought 2, and it was v filling as it was quite big;double the size of our veg turnip bao) Its seems that the Vegetarian food in China are devoid of those mock meat. I rather like it as it feel more vegetarian to me... Durhhhh. But then there are not many vegetarians in Singapore as they equate being vegetarian as being poor, if rich, they shd afford to eat meat.

All in all, I love 江南,it was fabulous and is full of rich history for us to learn. There were so many famous food to eat as well such as the Suzhou dessert, Hangzhou salted duck, Wuxi braised meat, Nanjing 东坡肉。 上海小笼包。Good for the rest of them, I din taste any of those food except for those dessert tho. @_@

It was a remarkable trip... as you can see that I remembered quite a lot from the tour guides explanations without any notes taking.(there is a TCM　recipes from one of the guide regarding cough, I copied that one down though)

I think I wld visit other parts of China such as Beijing and Xi an for the Qin Terra Cotta army and its tombs,I am also interested to visit my ancestor hometown;Chaozhou. Thus I am actively seeking for travel mates for the Dec holidays.

远游江南， 在南京

After Hangzhou, we reached 南京，a town full of historical richness and grievance.

南京

We reached Nanjing at night and we start off with 夫子庙，this is a shopping street that used to house the chinese scholars in ancient China so that they can prepare for their imperial exam in Nanjing, which is the captial city of ancient China. But opposite this street is a street of brothels, no wonder so many of the scholars cannot be the 状元. Too much of the "temptation" maybe.
Now, 夫子庙 is a vibrant shopping street, with cheerful motivated salesgirls who encouraged each other via PA systems when one of them closed sales. Super ONz ah!!!
This is best place to shop as one polo t-shirt cost abt $8 and female one is even cheaper at $5(after the conversion) This is cheapest place to shop among all those town that we had visited. DVDs, Juicy peachs are plenty and good. Too bad, I didn't manage to buy the Peaches, my mum say I shd have bought, yah as if it was real light for me to hurled it back. =P



The place that we take the photos is where scholars lived, crossing the river will be the brothels.

Early next morning, we went to this bridge 南京长江大桥


This may seems like an ordinary bridge, but it uphold the dignity of the Chinese at that time. This bridge is designed by those Russian, who used to sent their engineers to China to help them to rebuild their cities after the civil war. But the Russian retreat and refused to help the Chinese due to some politicial issues, in short they left the Chinese to fend for themselves. Thus without the help of the Russian, they build the bridges with lots of sacrifices as they have to dive underneath the yangtze river to build the beams as there is no great machinary available in China in the 1960s. They took 8 wholes years and was completed in 1968.

南京大屠杀

This event was known as the forgotten holocaust of war world II, being a Singaporean, we are aware of the deeds done by the Japanese in the world war II, but when compared to the atrocities committed in Nanjing, it was pretty small scale. More than 300,000 people die in 6 weeks during the invasion of Nanjing, starting from 13 dec 1937. The killing does not stopped totally, but then subside after the 6 weeks. Maybe there were not so many civilian to kill after all. Or prehaps, the Japanese was busy invading other countries after 1939. The whole group of us was brought to the 大屠杀纪念馆。You can see a lots of Corpses and photos inside the museum. I did not feel much personally after the tour, because the description was not as comprehensive. The most absurd things that the Japanese have done was the killing competition。 They saw killing as fun and killed more than 100 civilians at one go for own ego sake. This prode me to read The Rape of Nanking and after reading that book (Ｉstill have 30 pgs to go)I really felt like puking, when I read about how the Jap soldiers raped those women, it is really grotesque, I need to shut the book for a short while to continue as I was really affected. No wonder the writter;Iris Chang die from depression after the publish of this book, The strand of getting all those information really get to her. After reading, I learnt that I am so fortunate to be living in Singapore at this period of time.
Maybe I was one of the civilians in my past life, I dun noe

After Nanjing, we stop at a town surrounding the taihu called wuxi, it was a beautiful town and it has a Movie Shooting Sites for the warring states. It was a short visit to this town though.

争霸传奇

范蠡



modern photos of 陈坤



Wah, finally can post pic.... thus can post my shanghai 's pic in my next post liao.

远游江南，漫苏杭。

苏州
Suzhou is the first place that we visited after we alight from the Shanghai Pudong Airport. 苏州 is a place that famous for its gardens. If you think that it was like chinese garden, it is so far from it. The gardens are the 后花园 of those rich men in ancient China as women are not allowed to go out except during the 初一十五of the lunar calender, thus the rich men has to emulate the world outside and create a inner world in their own garden. No wonder the women there are called 大家规秀.I wonder how does the poor girls survived in olden China. Maybe they are allowed go out to work. Thus can never imagine myself to be those 大家规秀 playing in those garden. The hotel that we lived in also resemble those 后花园, those I think it is the nicest hotel among those that we lived in. The air is fresh and the sky is already bright at ard 5.30am. WOW!!!



杭州
Before Hangzhou, we took a mini stop at wuzhen. This is the place when people want to flim the olden china like the old street that you see in Misson impossible 3. There are still pple who still live there. Amazing. I wonder whether I can lived there too... The place is as pretty with tint of ancient beauty, yet I dun think Singaporeans will like to live there for the long term. It is too rustic.

HangZhou is a really pretty place and its streets are filled with all kind of restaurants. The air is also quite cool there. Suzhou and Hangzhou is really the prettiest among the cities that I visit. There is a saying 上有天堂下有苏杭。Hangzhou has beautiful garden, but not the 后花园 kind, the prettiest things there is 西湖.


There is lots of beautiful stories surrounded the west lake like the 白蛇传 and the 梁三博与祝英台。Beautiful fables and long bridge which all couples should cross 13 times in order to 白头到老。This is because of another love story. Thus according to the guide, Hangzhou is a place for couples to visit and it has a very slow pace of life and pple in Hangzhou like to take time and relax. Hmm good for those stress out. It is refreshing to walk along the west lake early in the morning drinking the special brew of 龙井茶。Longjing is the tea grown in Hangzhou. The leaves are big and pretty. Hangzhou pple are very particular to their tea. They catagorise their tea to many different cat. Cat A is called 女儿茶; picked by those girls who are young and unmarried (max is early 20s) Cat B is called 媳妇茶, the tea is plucked by those women in late 20s to early 40s. Cat C is called 阿婆差,pluck by granny of cos. The top notch is the 雨前女儿茶。That kind of tea is v v exp woh. I managed to buy the 2nd grade one. Not so exp, but good enuf.


吴越之战
In 460s BC, Hangzhou is called 越国 and Suzhou is called 吴国. The two countries are constantly in battle with each other. There is a show shown in 浙江卫视regarding this. It is called 争霸传奇. The casts are mainly from hongkong, but the lead actor 范 蠡 was a mainland actor called Chen Kun (陈坤）. Quite a good show as it remind me of Jet Lee 's hero. This is a classic history legend that consisit of a lot of 成语,like 沉鱼若艳 to discribe 西施， 卧心尝旦 to describe 越王勾践's determination to endure the humilation caused by 吴王 夫差 so that he can upstage the latter after 10 years thus there is a saying, 君子报仇，十年不晚。. I am so hooked by this show that when I leave china, this shows was my greatest regrets. Hope that this show can be bought as soon as possible. (Durhhh I search for the whole of Shanghai oso cannot find this shows as it was the newest)*sob*


Dun noe why, I can't seems to upload my photos... Haiz... Thus no photos to see lah