Experiencing China.

Well...I know I should have done this a while ago, but I wanted my pictures to look nice and that takes time. Well, Shanghai will be on one of my most unforgettable trips overseas. It was the first trip out with my grandparents without my godmother. Since my godmother was usually the one who was in charge of my grandma's toilet duty, without her around, the duty naturally became mine. I am not complaining about the difficulties I faced during the trip. But those difficulties made me stronger and helped me understand that I am indeed quite awesome. Haha. I am not boasting. I think I can survive working in a old folk's home.

Haha. We followed a tour agency and I must say that I was pretty impressed because all the hotels had five stars and they were all clean and big. We arrived at Shanghai, then moved on to Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi then back to Shanghai. I have to say that I enjoyed myself because I did not expect to do so. Of course, I also saw some things I will never forget. I will tell you about them later. I did not take many pictures, only about 200+ for the entire trip. This was because the camera was with me and I was too lazy/my hands were too chilled for me to take pictures. Haha. Okay, on with the programme. I will get be touching on each area I went and the most exciting experience I remember I had over at that side.

Once we touched down in Shanghai, we went on our way to Suzhou. We had our lunch there at this interesting restaurant. Here's my favorite dish!

What do you call this? Heh heh. I do not know what is it called. It was made of beancurd and it had a very interesting texture which I really enjoyed. It was served as an appetizer and I feel that that was the most delicious dish of the lot because the rest were to heavily seasoned for my taste. This was also the place when I had to bring my grandma to the squatting toilet. It was not easy, but my cousin and I did it. We bought silk in Suzhou and yup, I will be using a silk pillow with silkworm's poop for the new year. Haha. By the way, did you know that the silkworm's poop is actually Chinese medicine? It has many benefits! I did not know that too. The poop is also made into tea! Haha. Indeed, the poop smells like tea.

Corn Ice-cream

The best thing in Suzhou was this corn ice-cream. It was nicer than the thingie above. It was cheap too! 2 yuan. That's about 40 Singapore cents? Yum yum. I love corn.

That's all for Suzhou. Hangzhou was a nice place. I can say it is sort of comparable to Singapore! The streets are clean, the food was not very salty and there are trees almost everywhere. Hangzhou is where they grow Longjing tea, by the way. I love the tea. It is a kind of green tea that sort of smells like seaweed and has a pleasant taste. I love Chinese teaaa! It used to be for emperors only. It is healthy as it sucks up all the oil when you eat food. I know not how or why, but it is like...magic. Haha. It was duper expensive though. about $240 per box of tea. We also bought tea polyphenol, which was supposedly the essence of the tea so it is even better. Haha. I hope it can absorb all my fats from my body!

very nice but crooked view on the Xihu lake

Garden decorations

The view is really nice huh? There is more where that came from in Hangzhou. OMG. I sound like I am promoting the place-.- but it was really nice. Other than the food that is. I am really not good at adapting to their food.

Next we went to Nanjing. The food there was saltyyyy! Apparently, the people there consume a lot of salt.*Hypertension alert* Haha. I no like salt. There was this place where the food was not bad though. The island area. the ginger chicken was very nice! That is considering that I do not like chicken OR ginger. It was really nice. The only picture I have for the place is one of my brother and I. Somehow, all my nice pictures seem to be taken with him. Sian.

Gosh, why is my face sooo big.

Haha One picture of us is what I have for Nanjing. Not much but I think the lighting was nice.

Next up was Wuxi. It was okay...but the shopping was shiok because we had our hotel next to a shopping centre! I like. There is this san guo cheng where they filmed Romace of the Three Kingdoms. It was quite nice, but too commercialized for my liking.

Lastly, we went to Shanghai! Yay. Even though I did not like the food, I thought the roasted chestnuts were amazing. Sweet and warm. Do not get ripped off though.

This was the famous Xiao Long Bao!!!

Looks good? Heh heh. I think lt was okay only. Still prefer Singapore's Xiao Long Bao. The skin is thinner. Ahhh.The egg soup behind is bland and not tasty. I wonder why it was 'wowed' over.

Okay. That's actually all the pictures I edited. Tough job you know? Haha. Anyway, at this point of time I have a mini disclaimer! This post is super biased in terms of the food. I am really quite particular about the kinds of food I like to eat so what may be too salty to me can be just prefect for you. Therefore, please do not use this post as a guide to find out what to eat in Shanghai. Do try the Xiao long bao and if you like it, good for you:) The Xiao long bao is definitely cheaper there.

Shopping! Shopping is also definitely cheaper there! I like to look at the weird stuff. Take a walk along the local markets. What you see there might surprise you as it had me. I saw how they killed poultry! A little painful, but so many people loves eating chicken, someone has to kill them somehow right? The reality of life:/ Toilets takes some getting used to, but I survived without stepping foot into any longkang toilets. Keypoint: NEW shopping centres. Haha.

If you are going to Shanghai anytime soon, I wish you a pleasant experince:) That's all for today, I finally got this up. Ciao!

Rebecca:p