Saturday, July 26, 2008

Instant noodles for lunch! budget budget! Already used 600RMB out of the 3000RMB i brought.

No bowls....soooo, make do with cups! Lucky we bought 2 spoons yesterday!


Finally washed our clothes todae. Spent quite long figuring out the washing machine. And washed the clothes twice!! Too much soap powder! Oops...

Went to rackey route to our workplace! SBA Stone Forest Corporate Advisory (Shanghai) Co. Nearest train station is 娄山关路站, abt 25min frm our place 龙阳路站. BUT its like super far walk frm the station!!

And 南 is south!! 北 is north!! I always thot its the opp way round!! Gosh, almost ganna lost..

Our workplace area quite 热闹. Got lotsa shopping centres. Its some 虹桥新开发区. Quite near the 虹桥机场, the airport for domestic flights.

Next went to Ikea (宜家家居) @ 上海体育馆站. Had to change train..quite mah fan, haf to walk rather far and up a few flights of stairs...



Quite grand entrance, got the moving round door like in hotels...


Ikea hot dog!! 3 rmb. Super long hot dog!

We bought 6 hotdogs back for our breakfast tmr...and kop-ed ketchup frm ikea in a cup! haas..



Saw the shanghai indoor stadium 上海体育馆. Next to it is the shanghai stadium 上海体育场. Quite grand, but couldn't go in.

Shanghai quite environmental friendly. Almost everywhere see their dustbins got divide between recyclable waste & other wastes. And no matter where they dun give plastic bags!! Arghhh!!




Housemate say we always go home in a super "cui" state!! All sweaty & tugging lotsa stuff home!

Todae, I was hugging the huge ikea bag, with hangers popping out. Housemate was hugging 6kg of peaches and the cui cup of ikea ketchup, trying hard not to spill it! Shagggggg...haas..

Friday, July 25, 2008

It’s 40°C todae!!

Went to police station this morning to make our temporary housing permit. After that, chen si’s dad’s fren’s driver brought us to this restaurant for some 西安特产 food.

Yummy Yum!

西安 food tend to have vinegar, which gives the food quite a refreshing taste!! Much much better than the soya sauce food commonly found here.


Liked the 木耳 dish the best! Next best is the 凉皮(a bit like the 刀削面with spicy sauce & vinegar). The 羊肉also very nice, much much nicer than those roadside 羊肉串. Yummy lunch and they have a chain store near our house! 外卖!!!



Went to 新世界城shopping center @ 人民广场站 in search of some office clothes for my housemates. But the clothes are not much cheaper than spore. Luckily i brought enough.

And 七折 actually means pay 70% of the price. I thot 七折 means 70% discount!! Direct translation to english mah. Arghh.

Super short me with yaoming's wax figure @ the wax museum ticket booth in 新世界城shopping center.

There was some performance outside the shopping center.


Then we walked along the 南京路步行街. Wanted to walk to the 外滩(bund) at end of 南京路步行街, but needed to catch the last train back. Argh, another day ba.


Trams along the 南京路步行街.

Our dinner @ yong tau foo style 麻辣烫.



Finally, some 小笼包!!

Suppose to suck the soup from the lil hole on top! Quite salty!! Tink just bite and eat the 包with the soup nicer..

This strawberry yoghurt drink is super nice!! Almost couldn't order it! Coz couldn't read the chinese name of yoghurt! lolx..

Thursday, July 24, 2008

38°C todae!! Lazed around in the house this morning, before deciding we needed to brave the heat and get out of the house!!

Took the train to 上海新科技站 for lunch. China’s train station is very similar to Singapore.

Topping up our ez-link card.

Entering train station (Tap card like spore, then push the gate)

Inside the underground station. Black walls and dark tunnels look a lil bit scary.

2 types of trains (as shown on the green signboard: 6 cabin & 8 cabin) So don’t anyhow stand right at the end like spore, and have to chiong to the middle when the 6 cabin train comes!!

Train schedule (Accurate to the seconds!! Ok lar, the train usually reaches when shows abt 10-15seconds.)

Went to 上海亚太新阳服饰礼品市场 @ 上海新科技站. Many imitation goods there, with many shops previously from the famous Xiang Yang Market which has now closed down. But the things are rather expensive, about same price as spore.


We were too hungry to shop though. Searched around the上海亚太新阳服饰礼品市场, but could not find any food place other than a restaurant and KFC.

My lunch: Zinger meal with a super duper nice Summer Drink!! (Its some ice-cream float in sprite & aloe vera with a bit of lime taste. Forgot the name though. Chinese words are so hard to remember :S)

After lunch, we went to 世纪广场 (Century Square) which was just nearby. And we were super roasted!!

Me and my roomie (Pei Lin) @世纪广场



Walked along this bridge linking世纪广场 to 世纪公园.

Dried up pond!

Me and fellow intern, Chen Si @ the end of the bridge. 世纪公园 (the trees & lake) in the background.


Next, we took train to 世纪大道站 in search of some nice shopping places. We kinda got lost. Saw many computer malls, like sim lim square. After walking super long, we finally found a departmental store 八百半, which is like taka, and the things are just as expensive as spore. Found some nice food malls nearby too.

Taking pictures to record down 外卖 contacts. But most of the 外卖 don't deliver so far. Even from 上海新科技站 which is only 2 train stops away, they also don't deliver (maybe its very far for them using bicycles). Arghhh...deprived of food @ our ulu long yang home.


At night, some smu students (who have been in shanghai for 3 months already) brought us out to 夜市. We took train to a quite far station 耀华路站.

Interesting! Bin for the explosives @ 耀华路站. The lid is rather heavy.

Recording the last train timings, some of which are like super early @ 9 plus!!

From 耀华路站, we walked to the 夜市, which i forgot the name again!! Many small roadside stalls. Rather 热闹.

But then got police come to chase the stalls away. And very quickly, suddenly, the streets become super empty!!

Some food stalls along the way.

Had our dinner @ this 大排档 at one of the small roads nearby. Can pick the raw food on the table and the chef will cook it.

Our first 2 dishes 冷菜(毛豆 and some wierd chicken stuff/intestine?? recommended by the chef. Hope we dun lao sai tmr! But that weird chicken stuff tasted rather nice.)

Ordered a total of 8 dishes for 7 pple, which cost slightly less than 100RMB. Finally, we had a cheap & nice dinner!! The most satisfying meal we had since we arrived in shanghai. The 2 nicest dishes was the 皮蛋豆腐 and the spicy 三成肉.

We were eating halfway, then they suddenly switch off all the lights!! Coz the police were driving past the main road, and that illegally setup roadside stall wanted to avoid being found.



After dinner, we cabbed to 吴江路美食街 near 南京西路.


Real tree in this shop!! Shop was built around this tree! Tried the 招牌芒果沙冰, which is very nice with sago inside!

Very very nice dumplings from this stall!! Seems a bit like 汤包. Tasty soup inside the dumpling. Had quite a hard time trying not to spill the soup.

Learnt that 两actually means 4 pieces of dumplings. I thot it meant 2 onli!

Nice barbeque stuff (eg. 肉串)at this stall, but we were already too full to really try out the food.


Opposite this 吴江路美食街 is the 吴江路休闲街(Wujiang pedestrial street) with many shops, but were long closed by the time we reached.

It's been a long day out! Time to catch some slp...Nitex...

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

In Shanghai!! The new home until 28th Dec.

Thanks phoenix for sending me off (and missing the last train). Thanks for the photos!! (which is currently sitting on my small bedside table)



I got the window seat on the plane! From above, the land look so flat, very lighted, and the sea is like so vast surrounding the smaller land. Said final goodbye to spore. Hmm…it felt weird, not scared/worried but rather the “excited going for short holiday” feeling. Maybe it hasn’t hit me yet.

Arrived @ Shanghai Pudong Airport, Terminal 2 early this morn around 6.30am. It was pretty cold, around 27°C (so different from the killer heat during daytime).

The school arranged shuttle bus to bring us to the GIP Shanghai Office, where we had briefing-cum-breakfast. Breakfast was soya bean milk, 饺子, 糯米饭stick with 油条and pork floss inside (quite nice but quite dry).

From there, our housing agents brought us to our apartments. A total of 3 groups (including us) engaged SenS housing agent, 1 in puxi (陆家浜) and 2 in 浦东(隆洋). The first drop-off point was puxi (陆家浜), so we had the chance to see puxi. Crossed the 南浦大桥 (above the 黄埔江) from pudong to puxi. This is the only bridge linking pudong and puxi, the other 5 links are all tunnels. Managed to see a rather good view of parts of puxi, but could not see too far because of the rather strong mist from the air pollution.

陆家浜 seems like a very happening place, so many small eating places, shopping centers, banks, etc…Quite big difference in the houses, high rise condominums on one side of the road and very very run down 2-3 storey houses on the other side.

隆洋 (where we stay) is a more quiet residential area. Quite happy with our house, its quite big and considered quite clean. No view though, coz we staying on the 1st floor. Luckily we didn’t get the other house, the other grp in long yang has to climb 6 stories everyday!! Coz they stay on the 6th storey with no lift.

Not much eating places nearby, mostly restaurants, no 小笼包 and cheap food. Settled our lunch at a nearby restaurant, with coca-cola flavoured chicken wings (couldn’t really taste the coke), some fatty pork with 梅菜(which is super nice!! The pork taste like those in the dumplings in spore), some vegetable in soya sauce (which came in long crunchy stem with almost no leaf!! We were like shocked!!) and corn rice for a total of 25 RMB.

The heat during the day was just killing us. So we da bao-ed our pizza dinner straight after lunch and spent the afternoon lazing around in our air-con house watching the Beijing Olympics on TV and napping.

Walked to the METRO supermarket and bought lotsa stuff (pillows, bedsheet, towel, cups, hangers, water filter, etc.). They dun give plastic bags!! Felt like sandbag training, carrying the stuff back in a recyclable bag.

We spent quite a while fixing the water filter for the water dispenser in the house. Trying to understand the manual in Chinese!


Fixing water filter in progress



Filter is working!!