Dinner was lunch that stretched from 2pm to 7pm. Wandered from Citadines to The Bund while jostling with people and buying foor from the shops that popped up along the way :D
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| Skyline! |
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D2. I feel like a dumpling after putting on four layers of clothes. The smoking/spitting annoys me They smoke/spit everywhere, even in the shopping centre. Am wary of stepping on dark spots on the ground…
Went to QiPu Lu, a seven-storey shopping colossus packed with everything from clothes to accessories to leather goods. We (with the exception of my Dad) understandably went a little crazy with the shopping and bought two additional suitcases to put all the goods.
Lunch of XLB, paus & porridge was an incredible S$7 for a family of five! They have awesome eggtarts there :D
Dreary drizzle since noon makes moving about a little inconvenient but I quite like the bleariness.
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Sis (while watching a Chuck Norris film),”Eh, change la. It’s so boring. It’s like Dora the Explorer meets obstacles…”
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D3. Rain continued its fine, steady descent throughout the day. Becoming a little like the droll British weather except that in Britain, it smells better. Arrived at South Bund Fabric Market after dropping off at the wrong station, got misdirections and walked for ages in the wrong direction. I thought the street vendors outside were more interesting.
Cannot tahan the spit-everywhere-syndrome. According to the ‘rents, it’s already much better compared to when they visited five years ago. 0.0
Burnt the apartment carpet with the iron. Oops. Really, not my fault. Realised after two days that our apartment’s thermostat has been on the heat priority setting. No wonder it’s always so warm and mom always looks flushed. My sister is depriving me of sleep.
The random show with Angelina Jolie and the curving bullet is so stupid.
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D4. Went to SuZhou via highspeed train. People need to stop spitting around so much. It’s really gross.
Am loving the XLB and cute fried dumplings from the store near the apartment. Am loving the random street food too although Dad’s rather wary.
Visited Lion Grove Garden, one of SuZhou’s many gardens. The rock structures are beautiful – abstract & zen (: Weather was painfully cold however, with the temperature dipping to -5 degree C at some point. :/ The chill bites through the bone.
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D5. OH LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW (: The light, fluffy, feels-like-rain kind of snow.
Made a day trip to LongXi Lu to check out the pearl market. Insane place – there are pearls everywhere you turn and it’s relatively dirt cheap!
Lunch at Xiao Nan Guo was awesome. This chain of Chinese restaurants provides amazing food at very reasonable prices. Savoured drunken chicken, crab tofu, roasted goose, Jap-style eggplant and braised pork nuckle (Y) Pretty sure we’ll be going back for round two one of the days.
Scenery seems to get better the farther it gets from the city centre where we reside.Wind is freezing cold. Tried to bend my ear and I heard the cartilage crack. I think my ear’s capable of falling off.
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D6. I freeze my tips off each time I venture outside – nose, toes, eartips, fingertips. Ears are perpetually red.
Went back to QiPu to get fluffy hat before our brains freeze and ears drop off. Dad rocks, he bought more eggtarts (: Sisters and I take childish delight in huffing&puffing just to see the air condense (:
The train system so awfully convenient, especially since the station nearest to us (People’s Square Station) is about as central as it gets. We don’t even need to hire cars/perpetually hail cabs like a lot of other tourists do. Although we only cab if we’re lost (which has happened a couple of times.)
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D7. Would it kill them not to light up at the train station or upon immediately exiting it? NO. THEY WON’T. In fact, I’m pretty sure they might live longer cos the cumulative effect of the seconds acquired from NOT SMOKING will save their lives (am I making sense?)
Hangzhou has absolutely picturesque scenery. Went on a day tour where we visited XiHu, walked some of the gardens, dropped by a tea house (where the tea was rather expensive) and speculated about the questionable relationship statuses of some of the couples who were with us on the tour.
Dinner #2 at XinTianDi’s Xiao Nan Guo! My family can’t get enough of it. We even got a members card this time round. XinTianDi/French Concession’s gorgeous at night, what with all the bars, crowds and décor. Love the old architecture!
D8. The street vendors pack up really fast. Didn’t get to buy my jianbing :(
Trooped down to Yuyuan today. It’s a rather touristy place but it’s still worth going cos the buildings are beautiful & there’s lotsa food here&there (: Yuyuan Lu has this row of amazingly talented artists who specialise in skills like miniature pearl carvings, clay figurines (insane, this one), leaf paintings, paper cut caricatures, leather silhouettes (also crazy good), copper calligraphy etc. Really, really talented people who should have more support/promotion instead of having to hawk their talents at touristy places like Yuyuan.
Yuyuan has good food although the tang bao is a joke. Love buying bits of food from here&there&everywhere and calling it my lunch (:
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| Yuyuan (: |
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D9. Beautiful day to stick my head out of the 16th storey window of the apartment, enjoy the fresh morning chill, greet the city, sneeze and go ohshucks.
Visited TaiKang Lu (aka Tian Zi Fang) today. It has a very quaint Coven Garden feel, what with the little alleys and quirky boutiques. Has potential to flourish as the next ‘random-hotspot-that-artsy-people-go-to’. Most of the goods/shops there are a more high-end and there’s a good number of art exhibitions being held in the compound. There was an exhibition by paper-cutting master Li Shoubai which I wanted to check out (awesome stuff) but didn’t get the chance to since the family was brisk-walking their way through everything.
Times Square/HuaiHai in the afternoon. Not very impressed – it’s like Orchard Road all over again, except with cooler weather and random park spaces. Walking around and people-watching was much more fun than browsing through their many malls. After much walking, we chanced upon a pleasant city park space where we decided to rest for a bit, stone, watch the people watching old men play Chinese chess and laugh at the kids attempting to play badminton.
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| Perfect place to while the afternoon away (: |
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