* when you see this ---> [::] <--- it means, that whole paragraph(only!) was researched from the net.
17October2008
…before we left our Kyoto hotel room, I was looking for my O2 PC phone because I know that I can use it in China. I looked everywhere, in our luggages and in our bags but I couldn’t find the darn thing! My sister said, “its probably in the luggage and you might have missed it, just look again when we arrive in Shanghai”, ok, whatever you say…
Early start to catch the 6am airport shuttle to Kansai Airport in Osaka. The flight to Shanghai was uneventful. Our travel/tour guide “Joanne” was there to meet us. It is a private tour so it would just be my sister and me on this tour. After checking in at our luxurious business suite room at the Bund Hotel, Joanne offered us an afternoon tour of the other side of the river.
…well, well, well, our Shanghai hotel room is not too shabby. We really don’t need a suite with the kind of schedule that we keep on these tours, its not as if we are going to sit around all day here, more like shower, sleep, get dressed and off we go. BUT, don’t get me wrong, absolutely no complaints here, you bet I’ll take it anytime baby! lets at least use it to do some pictorials sis ..haha, nobody cant accuse my sis and I of being shy when there’s a camera around. For our China tour, the routine was we were always picked-up to and from the airport and showed around by our private tour guide. We were always a group of four, the driver, the guide and the two of us. And at the end of the day would be brought back to our hotel. Breakfast is buffet style at the hotel, lunch is always served somewhere(just for my sis and i) and we usually make our own dinner arrangements unless it is pre arranged to go with an evening show or a night at the opera …aaah, the life ..haha:)
...Anyhoo, I did look for my O2 PC phone as soon as we reach our room and I couldn’t find it. I tortured myself into thinking that someone is already making overseas phone calls from my phone to god knows where, I have to call my cellphone company ASAP! Problem is, what phone to use, we cant use the one in our room, that would set us back by how many dollars, so we looked for the concierge and asked for the next best thing, he said just buy some phone cards from a shop a few steps from the hotel …ok bought some of that and used the phone in the lobby. AGAIN, we cant make it work, what is it about me and prepaid cards, I just don’t know how to use them. The concierge must have noticed the letters LOST on our forehead and approached us to help. What do you know, Piberg and Nnylanna bought the wrong phone cards, yikes, the concierge asked us where we bought it and returned it for us himself and had it replaced with the correct one, thank you
Mister Concierge. Finally I was able to call home to ask one of the people there to report my lost phone but GlobeTelecom wouldn’t cut its services on my postpaid line unless I report it myself, ugh, as if its easy to call their toll free number specially when youre abroad, but, do I have a choice? After how many Yuan/Rmb spent on these calls, I was able to talk to somebody from Globe Telecom and Miss OC’s mind is now at ease.
With all those architectural masterpieces specially the new and very famous “Pearl Tower”. I cant believe im here. I’ve only seen the Bund on chinese drama series and it is quite beautiful. Separating the old colonial architecture of “The Bund” from the ultra modern buildings is the Pudong River. So far, this tower is the BEST among the few that I’ve seen during my travels. Of course, Eiffel Tower will always be a sentimental favorite.
…the Oriental Pearl Tower is indeed an impressive structure to see in person and like everything in mainland China it is HUGE. Of course, my sis and I went up this tower and from its viewdeck, we were in awe of the development of this city. This area were these new buildings are located is where the 2010 World Expo is being held today. 2 more skyscrapers are noteworthy in this area, 1st is the World Financial Center building, the tallest structure in Shanghai and right next to it is the Jinmao Tower. Of the two, I’d say Jinmao is more beautiful, its like a shinning silver pagoda, nice:)
We’ve decided to explore Shanghai’s most famous shopping street “Nanjing Road”, it’s a pedestrian street and was about 7mins from our hotel. Bought nanay a nice jacket then headed off to “the Bund” to check out the night view of the city’s skyscrapers.
...what we bought for Nanay was this very elegant cream colored silk jacket with embroidery details. we had to muster every bit of haggling technique that we learned from our mother dear to get a good price for it. another bit of useful info about shopping in china, dont jump at the first price the saleslady will give you, they will give you the same merchandise for a third or a fourth of the original price set.
[::]Nanjing Road is the main shopping street of Shanghai, China, one of the world's busiest shopping streets. It is the earliest significant shopping street in Shanghai. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, a wide variety of merchants gradually established hundreds of stores on both sides of the road because of the good fengshui there. In 2000, as a part of the development plan held by the local government, Nanjing Road was reconstructed to be a characteristic pedestrian street (areas of a city or town in which automobile traffic is prohibited). The Bund, is a famous waterfront and regarded as the symbol of Shanghai for hundreds of years. The most famous and attractive sight which is at the west side of the Bund are the 26 various buildings of different architectural styles including Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, Classicism and the Renaissance. The 1,700-meters (1,859 yards) long flood-control wall, known as 'the lovers' wall', located on the side of Huangpu River from Huangpu Park to Xinkai River and once was the most romantic corner in Shanghai in the last century.
Everyone here in Shanghai seems to be heading on the same direction along the river to admire the view of the city. QUITE IMPRESSIVE. Walked by along Nanjing Road again. So vibrant, so many people and the weather is quite warm so we decided to have an ice cream (Haagen-Daz, with a big sign that says, Made in France, because of the Melamine issue in China).
...remember those babies in China that got sick because their baby milk formula was tainted by Melamine? what a big issue that was all over the world, that's what we get when the "world's factory" mess up, the ripples could be felt world-wide. btw, in case youre wondering, yes, thats me on the photos below, right there smack at the middle.
18october2008
Morning tour of Zhujiaojiao, an ancient canal town an hour out of Shanghai. Sometimes referred as the “Venice of the east” with its canal snaking around town. Typical old Chinatown. Not as picturesque as Venice but has charm of its own. bought a few souvenirs as our tour guide suggested prices are cheaper here.
…I think my sister bought a couple of hand embroidered “thingy” that will be put in a frame.
Next stop is a silk factory. Quite amazing how from this tiny silkworm comes silk and how durable the fibre is. It took five of us to stretch it. Showed us how to make a silk quilt. I wish I could buy one as it is so cheap and very light/warm for our Aussie winter. Unfortunately, we are already overweight with our luggage and will still be flying to Xian and Beijing. Bought a few scarves for myself.
…”a few scarves” means a good number of them in my sisters’ standards. Oh and remind me later on to tell you about the prices of these very same silk scarves in a Beijing shopping haven, I’ll let you take a guess what I mean ..haha.. some people just never learn their lesson about panic buying. and yeah, was very impressed too with Mr. Silkworm.
After lunch, we headed off to Shanghai Museum. Love it… so much history, very impressed to the max. the Chinese civilization is so deeply rooted going way way back thousands of years before Christ was born. The scope of their inventions is a force to be reckoned with, you name it, they did it first(commerce system, class system, taxes, coins, printing, invented paper etc.)
We stumbled on a whole wing of ancient Chinese paintings which was donated by a Filipino Chinese industrialist named Mr. Ching Bankee, who over several decades passionately collected hundreds of works of art from different places outside of China and housed them in Lianghuxuan. Before he died, his wish was to return his entire collection to China, their country of origin. So his children donated them to the Shanghai Museum.
...its the pinoy in Mr Bankee that taught him that money is not everything ...haha..indulge me, that's what i want to believe :)
Also notable are priceless Ming, Qing furnitures and vases, made from jade, porcelain and other materials, ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL.
The collection of money, both coin and paper was also worth the look so as the traditional ethnic costumes.
…I would have to agree with every superlative that my sis wrote about this museum and its contents. I joined her in the ooohs and aaahs when we saw what was housed in this museum. The business woman in me couldn’t help but try and imagine the pricetag of the entire collection, those vases alone that number i would say into the hundreds could fetch …ah, I don’t think one can put a price tag on those, China is one very rich country, in more ways than one :) with that last statement, i can feel the insecurity of one superpower from the other side of the pacific ...what can we all do, China is poised to be the next superpower, its an inevitable fact that we must all get used to.
After all that cultural thing. Joanne our tour guide took us to the War Memorial for photo shoot and then to a traditional Chinese tea Ceremony. Very nice and relaxing. Lesson learned when preparing real Chinese tea(not the sachet type): you do not drink the first water you pour, throw it out as it is used to wash the tea leaves first.
…my sister wrote extensively about the tea ceremony(must have made quite an impression on her) but I decided to edit the thing ‘coz I don’t want to bore you people, we should have just taken a video of the thing but i didn’t, so, sorry mea culpa.
Rested for a little while in our hotel before heading out tonight for an Acrobatic Show. The show was very entertaining and lasted for 1 ½ hours. It has been a long tiring day and we still need to pack everything as we will be flying out of Shanghai tomorrow for Xian in the afternoon after our tour in the morning, so we wont be coming back to the hotel.
19October2008
Late start today, Joanne picked us up at around 10am and we already checked out. We headed off to the famous Yu Yuan Gardens, built by the head of the military in Shanghai for his parents. This is the finest example of a Chinese garden during the Ming Dynasty [::]1368-1644.
…I think I prefer the Japanese garden to the Chinese garden. They’re like the complete opposite of each other. One is minimalist and the other excessive, I’ll let you judge which is which from the photos that I’ve posted on my travel blogs.
After lunch, we headed off to a Jade Museum. OMG, everything here is wow to the max. they have carved a ship on a single stone of Jade(HUGE). Priceless collection of jade jewelry and vases are on display. If you have the money, you can buy jade here as well.
…before you enter the area where they sell jade jewelry, there was a couple of jade bangles and we were made to pick which one was the real thing. Hmmm, they didn’t know that my sis knows her precious stones and she picked the right one, me, im useless with these things. And since the people there now knows that my sister is not exactly an amateur about jade, they continuously pestered her about buying one in their shop and they were relentless. I was thinking, let me see you get out of this one sis .,.haha… she told them that we already have those ‘coz our maternal grandmother gave each one of us a pair of earrings as our first jewelry, well, that’s not exactly a lie but I have no idea where those jade earrings are now. Since we have the earrings, they are now trying to sell us a necklace which they insisted on putting on my sister’s neck ..haha.. I’ll give them an “A” for persistence and an “F” for failing to sell us anything.
Next stop was a store specializing in fresh water pearls. Unlike the Japanese cultured pearls, this a more traditional way of harvesting pearl from an oyster. They have kindly shown us the process of harvesting them and one oyster can have more tha 10 small pearls inside. The lady has given us a sample of a pink pearl. Joanne then drove us back to Yuyuan Garden area to find my teaspoon for my collection and buy more souvenirs. We’ve decided to stay here until it was time for us to go to the airport.
…let me clarify what the “teaspoon” is, its those tiny teaspoon made from metal or silver or plated in either gold or silver, engraved with the name of a city or country where one is visiting. My sister collects them and she has a place where she displays and keeps them all. for some reason, she couldn’t find one in Shanghai. To think that those that she bought in Europe were in all probability Made in China …haha.
Pudong Airport is so big that just like the new airport in Hongkong, you have to take the monorail to the next building. Our flight was so full and uncomfortable as it is only a small plane and we’ve experienced air turbulence all throughout the flight.
…a little bit of info about moi, im not too fond of flying, let me rephrase that, im actually scared of flying when I think about it. So I try hard not to think about it. But because we were on a plane 5 times in 2 weeks, I told myself to get over that and try not to torture myself too much. My sister was sooo right about that flight from Shanghai to Xian, you would wonder if you are riding a plane or a boat while being hit by a typhoon. The plane was shaking the entire time, over two hours I think. Pudong is one cool airport, huge of course and was this the airport where I was talking to somebody at home from a phone booth when the train arrived? Not sure where that was … I just realized now, two years after that the train was a Maglev(Magnetic Levitation). the train was going 430+ km/hr, I should have paid more attention. another bit of info that people who has never been to mainland china should take note of, the people manning the airport except for the airline employees looks to me like they are working for the Chinese Red Army or the military in general. They all look young and no-nonsense wearing this military-like uniform, I guess this is what its like in a communist country. Don’t get me wrong, they were not mean, they just look mean :)
...another photo that we forgot to take on this tour, out of the hundreds that we already took is us posing with our driver and our tour guide specially here in China where we are always a company of four. so to Joanne, our private tour guide and our personal photographer, who has this funny habit of flipping her hair with her hands (that Nnylanna loves to copy), this is the only photo we have of you, or should i say a photo of your back ...haha...she's the one on the right and my sister is walking with her to her left. thank you Joanne ((*+*))
