Shanghai Sept 2018

Shanghai 16 to 23 Sept 2018

We finally visited the Chinese land! This time, Dear decided where to go for our next hol and he thot it will be interesting to visit China since we have not done so and everybardy is talking abt its high tech cashless lifestyle (Dear just wanna experience it haha).

Then we were deciding between Beijing and Shanghai, in the end Dear thot it may be good to visit the more 'accessible' city first, so off we went to Shanghai.

We arrived in the late afternoon and visited the famous Shanghai Bund at night. I guess this is really the most impressive sight in Shanghai.

We ate hairy crabs for dinner. It was in season! I planned the meal in as I have not eaten hairy crab before; Dear who has eaten it said actually it doesn't taste that out of this world. Oh man, he was right :( It tasted like normal crab, albeit with a stronger flavoured roe. Like, I won't pay the extra price to eat it leh.

Athough Shanghai is a city that dun have much sights, its surroundings are beautiful. It is near Hangzhou and Suzhou which are known for its beautiful sights and water towns, and pretty women (says the ancient Chinese).

Our first day trip out of Shanghai was to Suzhou. We visited the water town Tong Li too. Unfortunately it was drizzling that day and affected a bit of the mood :(

The gardens are a main feature of the scenary in this region. But Dear got a bit bored of them, ahem. Luckily for me, I had just finished watching the very hot imperial palace drama, Yanxi Palace, so I was able to appreciate these scenary a bit better.

 

Lunch time- traditional fare eaten by the water town folks in the past. Ok lah, still acceptable for our tastebuds but this boiled river prawns that we ordered was really super meh. It was quite tasteless as it was literally boiled in water and the waiter said we can taste the sweetness of the prawns, but ehm, just prawns leh. No taste one. :p

 

Then we went to the night shopping street. Atmosphere is not bad for a walk walk.

Then it was back to exploring Shanghai city. We visited the Yuyuan Garden (think Dear got a bit too much of gardens by this time hahah) and walked along the shopping street there. Tried the must try XLB too, but we still prefer DTF hahaha.

Then we went to the shopping areas like Xin Tian Di and Tian Zi Fang. I think the nicest place to walk walk is Tian Zi Fang cos of its hipster vibes.

We saw this very guai and cute doggo right at the entrance of the Tian Zi Fang alleys. I think he is an attraction in his own right. A lot of people stopped to take photos haha.

夜上海~~夜上海~~what is a trip to Shanghai without the night lights. But the actual thing is too many people on the streets hahaha.

上有天堂，下有苏杭. So after the visit to Suzhou, we have to go to Hangzhou. Both look very different. Suzhou retained more of the traditional houses and vibes, layout of the town was a bit messier too. But Hangzhou was more modernised, more like a city with the modern buildings srurrounding its attactions. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake.

We had planned to do a bit walking round the lake but it was toooo hot that day with the sun shining down. We felt very cheated during the trip cos the wether was supposed to be cooling and turns out to be hot!!!

So we hopped on the tram and toured around the lake instead. Heng got the tram. It still took around an hour ride around the lake, i think. That's how big it is!

We also had lunch here at the Grandma's restaurant here and it was the best meal of the trip for me! The flavours suited our test buds very well. No wonder they are highly raved too.


After we got off from the tram, we ran off to get some respite from the heat in the shopping mall and got a   massage since we had time. Super awesome, their massage is cheap and good. The rooms are machiam like KTV room, can watch tv and eat fruits and you can hang around in the room after the massage too!

Then we went to their old school shopping street. The shops were more touristy then the street in Suzhou and we finished walking quite fast. Halfway also got heavy rain and we tried to seek shelter where we can, sibei cham.

Then we got dinner at one of the recommended restauarants and tried the Qian Long's fish head. Actually it is like fish braised in black bean paste lah, but I think must have been quite a novelty for the Qian Ling emperor to have tried it. Generally we found the food in Hangzhou to be quite good and the best from the areas we tried during this trip.

We were also lucky that got a good breakfast shop near our hotel and we tried their default Shanghai breakfast: 豆浆油条 and pancakes. Very nice and crispy! They also have a savoury version for their 豆浆 which includes adding like chilli and soy sauce. That was not quite for me, even though I'm the savoury kind of person. :/

Think this is an alcoholic drink? Nope we went to the biggest Starbucks in Shanghai where they had all these fanciful corners and hipster concoctions. This is a coffee cocktail!

And of cos we went to Hai Di Liao too! Actually we don't find the experience much different from eating in Singapore, maybe a bit cheaper, that's all. If we go back to China next time, maybe we should try other brands of hotpot.

But we met nice staff at the Hai Di Lao! They missed my manicure turn and said they will help me set up a station for me. Turned out that they mean to bring me to their small office room and help me do that. A bit ehm, yes. But it was very funny, when I went in there, there was a big sized Japanese Spitz there too! Turns out that his owner came to eat and the staff helped to take care of the dog by keeping it in their office first, lol. Like that also can.

We also devoted one day to Disneyland. While we didn't encounter any traumatizing Tiong behavior, we wouldn't really recommend the Disneyland in China cos it just lacks some of that magical and dreamy touch whenever the Tiong accent comes out. Ooops. LOL. 

The second last day of our trip was quite free and easy and I let Dear suggest where we can go hehe. We went to this hipster place which used to be a butchery to look see and chill.

They also have a dog cafe there where we ended up to while away some time.

And Dear found that the Shanghai football team was playing so we can go watch Oscar! Totally a woofie itinerary haha.We even got the interesting experience of buying from scalpers cos the ticket office had closed by the time we reached the stadium.

We also went to eat 小龙虾 cos Dear's bro recommended them. Taste is not bad lah, the sauce is like the mala stir fry we like but removing the shells for that little bit of lobster meat was tooo tiring.

Oh ya we also stopped by this park where parents will come paste their children's resume on umbrellas to look for potential partners. Really is like that also can right haha.

All in all, it was quite an eye opening trip to Tiong land. Not as bad as we thot, but maybe becos we were in Shanghai. We would still wanna go Beijing to see the imperial palace and great wall, maybe maybe we will go there in the near future? LOL

And oh, what I also found interesting is that quite a lot of people keep dogs as pets. We see a lot of them walking their dogs. But not much accessories shops, so sorry Buddy, we didn't bring back much for you haha.