Last journey by train! It was stressful fighting the Chinese crowd, buying tickets and also lugging our suitcases into trains so we were glad to get to our last leg finally. It felt endless at one stage.
Our fast moving train that took us from Nanjing to Shanghai in just over an hour. It travelled at over 300 km/hr.
We were even given a drink and a goodie bag of snacks.
We arrived at the huge Shanghai station and it was like arriving at a different universe after being used to the kampung kampung areas we'd visited. Even Bruce Lee was there... heheh.
We dumped our suitcases at our serviced apartment and Dad upgraded us to a 3 bedroom apartment after we got there. The parental units are very gu look as they get older and like to have huge space around them when they sleep heheh. Our apartment was very central as well so we legged it to Mum's favourite place - 城隍庙 City God Temple. It's not a temple, rather it's a shopping and eating place.
Roasted pigeons for sale
We came here four years ago and witnessed the crazy queues of people wanting to buy the famous 小籠包 steamed buns and it was no different this time around.
Ground floor was reserved only for takeaways and the only buns available for sale was their basic pork ones. Price was the cheapest and people would buy and sit next to the pond to scoff the buns down.
We even saw groups of Europeans following the locals' lead and standing around eating the buns heheh.
First floor of the restaurant was for dining in and again, only the basic pork buns were available for sale. The price was a bit more expensive than the takeaway option.
Continuing up the restaurant, you would see Level 2 which is the mid-range dining area with a handful of different buns and side dishes to choose from. Again, the prices go up as you go higher up. The top level is reserved for the most expensive buns such as buns made with abalone, foie gras etc. There was also a set minimum spend for the higher levels.
We chose Level 2 - aka Business Class haha.
Mum and Dad looking smug because we didn't have to wait in line like those poor suckers downstairs. Dad's teeny tiny Heineken was RMB20!!!!!
臭豆腐 Stinky tofu RMB10 - this didn't taste that much different to normal deep fried tofu. Admittedly there was the occasional smelly gone-bad smell every now and then.
Spring roll with crab roe stuffing RMB8 each and Shrimp ball with crab roe soup on the right RMB8 each.
This was the most expensive item - a giant xiaolongbao with crab roe soup RMB48! You are meant to suck the soup up using the straw.
Unfortunately i took so long with my photos that the soup had all leaked out of the bun by the time I got around to drinking it. Expensive mistake.
Steamed bun with crab roe and pork stuffing RMB48. Yes, everything had crab roe on this level.
We also saw a lady getting her hair dyed in public. Not sure why. I think she was a random being asked to try the product out.
We also walked past this super popular bakery with huge queue of people wanting to buy a freshly baked snack.
Me being me, I also queued up but it was sooooooooooooooo slow I gave up.
We looped back an hour later and there was no one around. I ran up to the window gleefully, only to be told that they had sold out. Booooooooooooo!
This was an old school puppetry show I think.
After that, we walked back to our apartment to drop off a very very heavy mahjong set that we bought an ingrate
Wandered around the famous pedestrian mall 南京路 Nanjing Road.
A mall JUST for kids......... brats!
We saw this quite often at night in China - ladies dancing like crazy people by themselves in public heheh.
We stumbled across a familiar sight in one of the malls and went in to get a dessert. Hohoho.
Mum even scored a "gift" for Mother's Day.
Mangoes overdosed. I still prefer Honeymoon Desserts.
Even DIVA is here!!!!
After that we went to a famous chain of restaurants owned by some bimbo celebrity's husband for dinner.
Manggo milkshake anyone?
Sooooooooooooooooooooo hot.
Check out the chillies we left behind.
Service was bad, maybe because we only ordered a few dishes. Who knows? But the toilet was the BEST of all the ones I went to in China. I felt like I was in Hong Kong. Sniff sniff.
After dinner, we went for an obligatory walk along 外灘 The Bund. Everyone looked dodgy so I didn't ask anyone to help us take a group photo.
We were in Shanghai for 4 days and took a few day trips in between. Separate posts on these to come. After a day trip to Suzhou, we were dropped off by an underground mall (yes, another one) so we went shopping. The underground mall was decorated like the Old Shanghai which was quite cute.
The floor had interesting drawings on them about old Shanghai.
Dinner was at a super busy Macau cafe that we randomly walked past.
There was a huge queue which in our books, meant YUM. It was closing at 9 and we just managed to sneak in after a long wait.
Fungus curry? YUM.
These two girls were very very wasteful. They ordered 3 hot pots, a fried rice and some pork chops. They didn't even touch two of the dishes.
On another day, we took a RMB100 (one way!!!!) taxi ride to this outlet shopping mall whicth some random Shanghai tourist dude told us about during one of our one day tours in Luo Yang. It turned out to be a huge outlet mall for brands like Polo, Bally, etc... like an upmarket Brandsmart. We only bought Polo tops for the kids and a set of suitcases for me (which turned out to be more expensive than Australia!) Never buy branded goods in China, people. We had lunch at a yum cha place there.
Dad's mango pudding
Fried luo buo gao
Mum's favourite fried buns
These xiu mai were quite interesting... i think they had a quail's egg in them.
Can't remember what we did for the rest of that day now. But dinner was at a Korean bbq place. Mum said since we weren't hungry, we should just go someplace casual and eat a little bit. A strategy that never worked for the Hiis.... sigh.
Pre-dinner dessert on our last day was at Honeymoon... hohohohoho
Me favourite - mango sago with pomelo!
Dad's mango with chou li.
Mum's black sesame soup
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