My trip to Shanghai wasn't that bad. In fact, it was one the funniest trips I ever had....I went there together with my family and my first aunt. I woke up early on Wednesday, 19th of Dec 07 (I actually woke up around 6.45...quite late as I was expected to be up at 5.30 of excitement). We reached the airport quite early to find sooooooo many people in the airport queuing and waiting for the stupid luggage check-in thingy to open....it only opened around 7.30! pity my tour guide who had to be there at 5.....We didn't know that water bottles (most importantly WATER) wasn't allowed on the plane.....Oh well, 5 mineral bottles wasted......we kinda reached to departure area the last although we WEREN'T the last to reach.....we got the second last row in the aeroplane as a result....the air steward said that this was the safest part of the plane. Our stupid row didn't have the usual tables that hung down from the chair in front....instead, ours was hidden inside our armrest. This was because of the unfortunate number-of-seats difference. The row in front had 5 seats (occupied by the family of 4 and sum1 else unidentified) and ours only had 4 seats...unbalanced and unfair. The flight lasted for approximately 5 hours. I played chess for almost the whole flight , with the exception of an hour's efforts on cramming unnecessary burden into my head (F2 maths which I had missed from my tuition class). We reached there at around 2.30.
When we reached the Shanghai airport, we waited for our bus....and I was actually thinking that M'sia was less poluted than here....I read Reader's Digest of the November 07 issue (I think) that Shanghai and Beijing were the last 2 most "livable" cities among all the countries in the research thingy they held. I looked through the rest of my tour members (all of which I only found out about later in the tour)....a newly-wed couple, a family of 4 (2 kids, one 12 and 15) and a family of 8 (5 kids, 1 my age, one 19, the rest unidentified....parents and a maternal grandmother). The oldest kid in the tour was a 19-year old guy who studies in Australia. We took the bus-ride for approximately 3-4 hours starting from 4.00 pm and had a toilet break once around 6 (I did not take a trip to the loo here as I did not drink any water). The journey on the bus continued until about 7. We had our dinner then. It was really cold....I did not wear my thermal yet but I DID wear 4 layers of clothing....and I was still cold....I think it was 'cos of the wind.....the food was really salty but since we were so hungry, we just gobbled it up. After the dinner, we headed for Wuzhen Water Village, a living fossil of ancient oriental civilization for its profound history,cultural, graceful water town scenery. We stayed in a 5-star hotel (not bad actually). When I reached the hotel, I quickly wore my long-john thermal and went out again....in 3 and a half layers. Then, the whole tour went around the town to
explore. The pic on the right shows the biggest wok in the world. If there's a "King of Cooking" in the world, that guy could use this wok as a throne =) The tour went back to the hotel around 8.00 pm. My parents, my aunt and I continued walking on. There isn't really much to see at night, but we saw multiple bridges that, when seen from a certain angle, looks like a dragon. My father went back after seeing this "landmark". I insisted on walking on so my mother and my aunt followed. We turned back after seeing deserted streets and inns.Thursday, 20th December 07, Wuzhen-Hangzhou
I woke up at 6.45 am today (before the morning call at 7). I got ready in less than 15 minutes which included drinking lots of water, brushing my teeth before breakfast (dfjsdbgbsdgb) and changing. I reached my parent's room at 7.15 am. My father and I went out to eat breakfast first while my mother waited for my aunt 
who said that waking up early was unnecessary.....The breakfast was quite alright (it was buffet)...the fried rice was the best today, the noodles were oily and saltish, the black rice cake tasted like dessert (I think it was supposed to be dessert)...there was some sort of cake called rice cake 
and it tasted sweet, and the best was the rolled up crackers thingy (poh piah, if that's how u spell it) with seaweed inside it. My mother came down before my aunt (gave up waiting....XD) about 20-30 mins later while my aunt was more than half an hour late (OOPS!). After breakfast, 4 of us took a walk around the 
whole water town and discovered some very ancient-looking places (we read somewhere around the town that this town is a national heritage). We also walked until the turning point and went in slightly deeper and off-track to see a pagoda. We saw several shops selling different kinds of stuff like winter shoes (handmade, with fur inside), batik and some other stuff of colourful folk customs wear.
I woke up at 6.45 am today (before the morning call at 7). I got ready in less than 15 minutes which included drinking lots of water, brushing my teeth before breakfast (dfjsdbgbsdgb) and changing. I reached my parent's room at 7.15 am. My father and I went out to eat breakfast first while my mother waited for my aunt who said that waking up early was unnecessary.....The breakfast was quite alright (it was buffet)...the fried rice was the best today, the noodles were oily and saltish, the black rice cake tasted like dessert (I think it was supposed to be dessert)...there was some sort of cake called rice cake 
and it tasted sweet, and the best was the rolled up crackers thingy (poh piah, if that's how u spell it) with seaweed inside it. My mother came down before my aunt (gave up waiting....XD) about 20-30 mins later while my aunt was more than half an hour late (OOPS!). After breakfast, 4 of us took a walk around the 
whole water town and discovered some very ancient-looking places (we read somewhere around the town that this town is a national heritage). We also walked until the turning point and went in slightly deeper and off-track to see a pagoda. We saw several shops selling different kinds of stuff like winter shoes (handmade, with fur inside), batik and some other stuff of colourful folk customs wear.We departed around 9.30 to go to Hangzhou. We ate lunch around 11.00 at the same place as 
our dinner the previous night. We reached Hangzhou around 3.00 (2.45+ to be exact). We changed tour guide here. This is the lake 
in Hangzhou (West Lake). The panorama here is beautiful. We didn't walk round the whole lake as that would be approximately 15km long. We went to a museum (West Lake Museum) after taking a short walk. Our tour guide mentioned about a fruit which can foam up when soaked with water and some people use that fruit as soap (soap fruit!!!!!!! see pic). In the museum, we saw lots of paintings...every painting had a story to it. After we came out of the museum, we walked around a bit but unfortunately, our camera ran out of 
battery.....and even our last hope died off (my aunt put her camera on stand-by the whole time....I'm not exactly sure, but I think that's y her battery ran out). The pic on the left (about a dragon and a phoenix) was the last picture we took after our camera died. There was a commotion on our way out of the museum. 2 guys on a motorcycle knocked each other and they were fighting in front of a policeman (HAHAHAHAHA).We ate dinner around 5.30 (everyday....so my appetite was lost..bad timing for me). After that, we went visit the first largest Song Dynasty Culture Theme Park to see a show (Romance of The 3 Kingdoms) featuring Song Culture. It was like a play except that the effects were spectacular. It was really amazing (except the fact that out camera was dead). I bought an ocarina today (an instrument made out of clay). It was in a shape of a black leaf. It has 6 holes in front and 2 holes at the back of it. It's like a recorder, see pic. 
our dinner the previous night. We reached Hangzhou around 3.00 (2.45+ to be exact). We changed tour guide here. This is the lake 
in Hangzhou (West Lake). The panorama here is beautiful. We didn't walk round the whole lake as that would be approximately 15km long. We went to a museum (West Lake Museum) after taking a short walk. Our tour guide mentioned about a fruit which can foam up when soaked with water and some people use that fruit as soap (soap fruit!!!!!!! see pic). In the museum, we saw lots of paintings...every painting had a story to it. After we came out of the museum, we walked around a bit but unfortunately, our camera ran out of 
battery.....and even our last hope died off (my aunt put her camera on stand-by the whole time....I'm not exactly sure, but I think that's y her battery ran out). The pic on the left (about a dragon and a phoenix) was the last picture we took after our camera died. There was a commotion on our way out of the museum. 2 guys on a motorcycle knocked each other and they were fighting in front of a policeman (HAHAHAHAHA).We ate dinner around 5.30 (everyday....so my appetite was lost..bad timing for me). After that, we went visit the first largest Song Dynasty Culture Theme Park to see a show (Romance of The 3 Kingdoms) featuring Song Culture. It was like a play except that the effects were spectacular. It was really amazing (except the fact that out camera was dead). I bought an ocarina today (an instrument made out of clay). It was in a shape of a black leaf. It has 6 holes in front and 2 holes at the back of it. It's like a recorder, see pic. 
Friday, 21st Dec 07, Hangzhou 2
I got up 15 minutes after my alarm phone rang. In short, I got up at 7. It was raining terribly today. We didn't really do much in the morning....
just walked around the
just walked around the West lake again. Then, we had our lunch and went to a Yuewang Temple, it was built to honour and commemorate General Yue Fei, who was successfully led his troops to victory against the Jin invader. Lunch was kinda interesting as after the meal, we saw lots of things Chinese folks eat and we don't dare to even touch. We saw lots of snakes kept in bottles just like our preserved fruits. When we came out, we were on our way to a lake cruise. On the way there, we had to go through some underground tunnel. On the way out, we had to use an escalator. Mummy, Hui Qian and I were far ahead of our tour. 3 of us took the escalator first and reached the top before the rest of our tour. At the top, Hui Qian found an escalator some excalator buttons and pressed one. Next thing we knew, the escalator stopped. Just at that moment, our tour guide was about a metre from reaching us. Hui Qian panicked and pressed another button. Almost instantly, the escalator moved backwards. After abit of fiddling, she got the escalator to stop and function properly again. That was probably the funniest thing that happened in the whole trip. After that, we took a cruise around the West Lake (at exactly 2.00 pm). It was rather misty but still, the scenery was great. The pic on the right was taken during the cruise on the lake. These are mandarin ducks. I was lucky to have caught the female duck flapping its wings =) After that, we took a walk somewhere around some garden. The place was very scenic. There were willow trees almost everywhere we 
went. The rain DID stop but it was still very misty, 
creating that
went. The rain DID stop but it was still very misty, 
creating that sort of mysterious atmosphere. I bought another ocarina today, a brown one. This time, it was a bigger one with a lower sound range. There was a dragon carving on it.
Saturday, 22nd Dec 07, Hangzhou-Suzhou
I woke up half an hour later than my alarm phone today (OUCH!). We changed tour guide again. We visited a Hanshan Temple, Winter Hill Temple in Mandarin, famous for its bell rings and Buddhism culture. It rained today again. 
In the temple we visited, you could pay 5 Yuen to ring the bell 3 times. If you try to ring 4 times though, they presume you want to be a monk and will shave you bald and ask you to strip(hahahahahaha). There were wishing trees and souvenir shops within the temple. After that, we went to another place (the leaning pagoda) which was quite scenic at Tiger Hill.
In the temple we visited, you could pay 5 Yuen to ring the bell 3 times. If you try to ring 4 times though, they presume you want to be a monk and will shave you bald and ask you to strip(hahahahahaha). There were wishing trees and souvenir shops within the temple. After that, we went to another place (the leaning pagoda) which was quite scenic at Tiger Hill.The leaning pagoda.....skywards..... 
Information about the pagoda.
A beautiful view on the way out of the place.
After that, we went to the 3 Lions Garden. This garden was rather rocky but really scenic....our current tour guide wouldn't slow down much to let us snap some pics though. Oh well, I guess I'll just slow down and find my way through. There were mazes in the garden (hallelujah!) but we didn't stop to take the challenge (NOOOOO!!!!). I tried to take a pic of dew on tree branches here but it turned out as a work of failure many times. At evening, free shopping at Guanqian Walking Street before adjourned to dinner. At night, my parents and my aunt went to some massage place and did foot reflexology. They went with another 6 people (I think). I had to stay in another tour member's room for around 2 hours. We watched TV and ate maggie noodles. We were kind of shocked to find out that we were actually watching The Omen for about half an hour.....somebody actually died.....I went back to my room around 10 to take my shower. Those who went for the massage came back around 11.
Sunday, 23rd Dec 07, Suzhou-Nanjing
We visited a silk factory in the morning. We bought lots of silk stuff. I got a silk pillow and pillow-case. I thought the rest were unnecessary. My parents bought the "unnecessary" stuff though. Everything totalled up to 8000+ Yuen. After which we were on our way to Nanjing to have ducks lunch, which means every dish contained ducks. We went to National Park of China in the afternoon around 4. We took our group photo there and climbed alot. The pic on the left shows a short distance walk which shouldn't be underestimated too early.
TORTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The tour guide said there were 321 steps here..... (I think...can't remember).
There wasn't really much at the top once I made it there. There was a statue thingy on the left and the toilet on the right. There was a mausoleum for Dr San Yat Sen, the father of Republic of China in the middle (the blue-roofed building on top). 
After that, we went to a famous bridge, Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. It is a double deck and double service bridge built completely without external assistance which China was so proud of. The government of China wants to demolish this bridge to replace it with another one but the public has protested against it because the bridge holds sentimental memories. Then we went down (in the bridge) to look at the glass paintings. My favourite painting was on a glass vase. The theme was fishes. My mother liked the horse paintings. After that, we ate dinner and went shopping at Confucian Temple(NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!). We were supposed to go for a cruise at the Qinhuai River to admire the night view along the river side but unfortunately the canal was under repair. So sad. At night, our room (I share rooms with my aunt) had a "heat" problem. We couldn't figure out where the heater switch was. My aunt told me to look for a button for the heater. I saw a red unidentified button. Yes, there were chinese characters on it and I knew how to read them. Unfortunately, I was desperate for the heater and pressed it before I knew what I was doing. BIG OOPS! About 5 minutes later, the police arrived (with a gun). My aunt was confused. The people opposite our room came out to see what the commotion was about. It turns out they are Sabahans and are a Hakkah people too. The lady's husband came in to our room with the policeman, walked over to that red button which read "Press to call police"; in Mandarin 'Gong An' and used a key to turn it back to normal. HAHAHAHAHA
Monday, 24th Dec 07, Nanjing-Wuxi
We woke up early to go to some place to see jades. Today, I figured that a master negotiator was among us. Seriously, at 19 years old, a guy named Lim Kee Jiang (I think) could bargain an 18k Yuen jade pendant to 3k Yuen for my mother. His mum could bargain a 30k+ bangle to 3k+(somewhere in M'sia). My jade pendant's price was also reduced from 4k Yuen to about 1k Yuen. My pendant was a laughing buddha. I heard that his father could negotiate prices until the seller couldn't get any commission. Wow.......I want the father to help us. Heard they live in Ampang...ONLY... not that far. We could always get their help.....anyway, even his sister who's about 17 in 2008 "compressed" the price of 3 laughing buddha pendants worth 4k each to become 3k for 3 (plus the addition of free gifts)!!!!! After that, we went to Wuxi. We visited a The Lingshan Grand Buddha. The Statue of Buddha- 88m in height, 42m taller than The Statue of Liberty on the other side of ocean. We were given 1.30 hours there. Our tour was extended by one day and so we were given more time here than any other groups. The place looked sealed up by a sleeping dragon, very good feng shui place. LOOKED. My father didn't believe that we could climb up the hill to the golden Buddha on the hilltop. I tried to convince him as the place looked small and the tour people wouldn't be dumb enough to let us dawdle around here. We went to the back and DID find an entrance to the back. A small little humble entrance. We climbed all the way up and my aunt and I bought the tickets up to the golden Buddha up there (tickets required...).
It looks so near from here. But the actual distance can be measured by the picture on the right. . We actually had to buy tickets to go right to the top (see the golden buddha on the left? The bigger and obviously at the higher altitude one). After climbing all the way to the top, we went down again to see a show, the fountain opened with young buddhas inside. After dinner went shopping at Yaohan Shopping Mall. Dad got angry with me for urging him not to smoke. After this we went back to the hotel.
Tuesday, 25 Dec 07, Wuxi-Shanghai
Today morning, we found a double-yolked egg (TWIN CHICKS!!!!!). It's raining again today, and everything's all misty. We went to this The City of Three Kingdoms, the largest movie shooting bases located along Taihu Lake. The architectures are true to details from Han Dynasty. We could see the simulation of the Chinese forts (I think) and palace.
We went for a cruise ride on Taihu Lake, the famous producer of pearls and Hui Qian (the 12-year old girl and I went to the 1st storey).We saw a "horsy" perfomance by the Chinese "generals" after the cruise. The "generals" did stunts on their horses to dramatise the show. It was actually about a war....ancient war. We travelled everywhere within the place on the train-like vehicle. After that, we went to a pearl factory. There, we were shown how to pearls were obtained. We were then 
given the pearls as souvenirs. Each person only received a tiny pearl. See the pearls below? The oyster looked rather disgusting at first sight though. There was also pearl cream. Rather odd-looking. It was made of gel and there were pearls in it. Funny that the pearls were soft and like powder. We bought that and pearl powder too. They claimed that the pearl powder can give numerous "healthy" effects on the consumer but this is not exactly scientifically proven as in other places, processing pearl powder requires mercury. My mother was tempted to buy a pearl pendant. The big boss recommended the golden pearl which was always more expensive. Somehow, golden stuff seems to be more expensive.
The pendant, which was a "twin" pendant, one gold and one white pearl, was supposed to cost 14.5k. It was reduced by the great negotiator until 4k. Apart from that, we also got a free pair of earrings. =). All hail the great negotiatior!!! Unfortunately, I overheard a conversation that the boss actually offered a pearl worth 100k and reduced it down to around 10k+. That was such a waste because nobody bought it!!!!! That was VERY VERY DUMB. We had lunch after that and left for Shanghai. We reached Shanghai quite late. We started shopping (DARN!) at Nanjing Road Walking Street. Then, we had dinner in a "floating" restaurant. It was seriously floating. It was a 
real cruise ship. After that, we went to The Bund to enjoy a sight of magnificient buildings with different architecture. Then, a cruise on Huangpu River which separated the east and west of Shanghai to form the picture of the sign of Ying and Yang. To get to that cruise, we had to overcome many obstacles......such as getting through lightyears and lightyears of space....after those obstacles, FREEDOM!!!!! When the cruise was over, we went to an extremely tall tower (Oriental Pearl Tower). Not sure if this building is taller than the KLCC tower. We went up to the 263rd floor (cool huh?). Too bad we only got to go up to the 2nd sphere for a glimpse of Shanghai. There were 3 spheres I think. The whole city looked extremely misty from up there. Crystal versions of the buildings around the tower were there in display glass boxes. We checked in to the hotel quite late, around 11 if I'm not mistaken. I decide to check out the city (first time!). My mother, my aunt and I walked down a street near the hotel. We saw Hui Qian and her dad walking around too. Looks like she wants to get a chocolate drink. There was a shop which only sold drinks. She's in luck. There, she and her dad separate from us. We wanted to get something to eat. We found a restaurant. We ate "Yu Tiao" there. I only found out later that it was "Yao Cha Guai" however you spell it.... We saw The Negotiator there too with his sister (the almost brownish haired one, also another negotiator). Hui Qian went there too after a while because it seems that the "drink shop" only sell coffee. I ordered cold soya bean while all those smart people from my tour ordered HOT soya bean. Pity them.....the Chinese were really honest. Really hot soya bean. No one could drink their soya bean for over half an hour (we finished the meal after 12). I decided not to bath that day since I was a deep sleeper and can't get up that easily.Wednesday, 26th Dec 07, Shanghai 2
We went to a memorial place for Song Ching Ling the honorary chair woman of the People's Republic of China, wife of Dr San Yat Sen. She lived from 1893-1981. After that, we went to listen to a Feng Shui master. He talked alot about Pixius. We bought 9 Pixius that day. 2 for each person in the family 
and 3 other gigantic Pixius. It was SO heavy! After that, we went to The Shanghai Movie Studios. No, there were no famous actors or actresses there. So freaky. They should make the visit coincide with some sort of filming or shooting so we won't just come see the facades of some empty buildings. We entered a 
white building and there were exhibitions on different places. After that, we went to visit a clay teapot factory. The negotiator's family started negotiating again. One A grade teapot set was worth 1k. The family bought 2 A grade teapot set and a
We went to a memorial place for Song Ching Ling the honorary chair woman of the People's Republic of China, wife of Dr San Yat Sen. She lived from 1893-1981. After that, we went to listen to a Feng Shui master. He talked alot about Pixius. We bought 9 Pixius that day. 2 for each person in the family 
and 3 other gigantic Pixius. It was SO heavy! After that, we went to The Shanghai Movie Studios. No, there were no famous actors or actresses there. So freaky. They should make the visit coincide with some sort of filming or shooting so we won't just come see the facades of some empty buildings. We entered a 
white building and there were exhibitions on different places. After that, we went to visit a clay teapot factory. The negotiator's family started negotiating again. One A grade teapot set was worth 1k. The family bought 2 A grade teapot set and a 
free B grade teapot set-all in 1k. The pictures on the left are of the Universal Studios. The picture of the white building we entered is also accompanied by a small picture of the negotiator (fiddling with his 1k+ camera). In the pic too is his brother and his sister. Then, there's the eye of China...At night, we went to see an acrobatic performance. There were 2 girls who were so flexible they could bend the other way round and end up like flowers (heads as the middle and legs and hands like the petals). Then there were young boys who could do so many odd stuff like juggling their mexican hats and wearing them at the same time. They could even play around with hoops and turning round and round in them. Too bad our camera was almost out of battery. We only snapped photos of an incredible boy who balanced on more than 10 chairs stacked on top of
each other. The top chair was slanted and he was sitting comfortably in it. He even balanced upside down on the slanted chair. That was the most cheered performance. After that, the grand finale....4 men were caged in a spherical metal cage with their motorbikes and they were supposed to ride within the cage without hitting each other. This included riding upside down and sideways without stopping at all. The lights were also turned off so that we could see the special light effects on the motorbikes. After the show, we went to some place where there were lots of night clubs and pubs which called Sin Tean Ti. We ate Haagen-Daz (I think this is how you spell it) ice-cream there. A different kind of feel when eating ice cream in winter.
Thursday, 27th Dec 07, Shanghai-M'sia
Thursday, 27th Dec 07, Shanghai-M'sia
It was raining again today. We went to Chenghuang Temple, the area has the street of old and new temples, foods, handicraft and ate those famous Chinese dumplings there. We also ordered some prawn thingy which was kinda nice too. After that, we went to eat lunch at a rather weird restaurant. Actually it wasn't really odd. It was kind of cool. The waiters and waitresses there wore skates to move around faster (WOW!). After that, we were on our way home...not yet! There are still odd things to mention. We took a ride on a train which could go up to 431km per hour!!!!!! It was so fast that taking pictures of the speed we were travelling at was so difficult. I finally managed it before the speed declined. We reached the airport in 7 minutes. No water was allowed in again......this time we wasted more than 6 bottles!!!!!! We headed back for Malaysia and reached around 9.30. Guess what?????? We waited for our luggages to arrive up till 11 something...hopeless in M'sia isn't it? Then I called Angeline to ask about my class....found out I got Batai....DARN!!!! Lucky she's not asleep yet though....School's gonna start....wonder how it's gonna be like............
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