We survived the Expo!

Yeap..we did and came back to share the tale.

We spent one day at the expo and really, that was not enough at all, but since we only had 1 day to spare, we had to make some choices about what we wanted to see and what we were willing to give up ..(some like the China Paviliion was not a choice at all, cos we just couldn’t get in as the tickets were all given out in 10 mins when we were still trying to get in!)

This is probably the only part of our Shanghai trip that we did some planning about. We bought our tickets in Singapore at CTC Travel. It cost us $36 per ticket which is the same price as what you pay there. The only difference was that we had to get to the Expo site ourselves and we didn’t have any tickets to the “popular pavilions” which usually reserve part of the daily tickets to group tours. You can easily purchased the tickets with local travel agents as well, but do make sure it is one with credentials cos there are fake tickets on sale.

We avoided the crowded main gate of the Expo by taking a cab to Entrance 3 – Bansong yuan Road. This entrance is furthest away from the subway station, so the crowds don’t really use this one. Plus this is located on the Puxi side of the Expo where the smaller exhibits are. But the queue to enter is the shortest, and it took us less than 20 mins to get in. (Tip : Get the English version of the Expo maps outside the entrance. I st ood in queue while S went to get the brochures) It just felt like waiting for your turn for a ride in Disneyland :) It was a moving queue, so it was ok. Although you are not allowed to bring food & water but many people still managed to sneak them in. You can see many families with lots of food having a picnic :)

Our plan was to visit the less crowded places so that we “get” to see some things and to get some stamps. In case you were wondering….Expo has a tradition of issuing ‘passports’ which will be stamped whenever a pavilion was visited. This is to mimic the ‘travel’ experience when in the past travelling was quite difficult. Now it has turned into a “sport” as many people seems to be more interested in the stamps than the exhibits itself. On a more pragmatic not, one fully stamped passport can fetch up to 6000 yuan online…so there is a monetary reason for that rush. If you are keen to join in the fun, I suggest you get the passport from the store at Nanjing East Rd where you get to have more than the usual passport and get one like mine..all for the same price of 30 yuan but looks much prettier and it does get a lot of stares :)

Visiting the City Pavilions on Puxi end was a good choice as the queue was much shorter. We visited Taipei ( where I got a souvienir pic taken and heard Wang Lee Hom sing…he was there!!!!), Paris (where we got 2 black bags from Galeries Lafayette), Hong Kong ( email picture & wrist-strap) and lots of bits of stuff from all over :) i love freebies!! We also visited Liverpool, Barcelona, Suzhou, Osaka…

We had a quick lunch (Pizza and beer!) at one of the booth. We decided on non-Chinese food cos the queue was shorter. Another tip about food is that try to avoid eating between 11am-1pm. Somehow the Chinese seems to want to eat then, and the eateries does get VERY crowded. So you either eat non-Chinese food or eat at odd hours. Another tip, there are lots of water coolers that provide both hot an cold water so just bring a bottle along, or if you want to look like a local, bring a bottle with tea leaves inside, then fill it with hot water :)

We took a ferry to the Pudong end of the Expo was greeted with the sight of the Chinese Pavilion :)

The Pudong part of the Expo is where the country pavilions are. They are also the most crowded!! We had to skip many of the popular booths that included Korea, Japan & Taiwan ( 4 hour wait), USA, all the Asean booths (3 hours) and of course China & Saudi Arabia ( 5 hours). We decided on pavilions that had a “moving” queue so we ended up visiting Australia (one of the best!!), Nepal, New Zealand ( filled with lots of NZ flora!), Canada, Israel, Demark (saw the Little Mermaid sculpture!), Turkey, Slovakia & Cambodia. There were also others that we visited, but didn’t get the stamps….There are also announcements and electronic notice boards that tells you how long you may need to wait for the pavilion, so you can decide if you wanted to spend the time waiting. Thoughtful don’t you think? You will also see many young people standing all over the place ready to answer any questions that you may have…but if you can’t speak in Chinese, you will have to make do with heavy accented English. I have come to the conclusion that Shanghai and the expo is pretty difficult to navigate and understand if you don’t know Chinese :P ( and now thank my Chinese Tuition teacher!)

From right clockwise (Saudi Arabia, Thai, India & Israel)

The Expo is a very big and you do get quite tired walking and waiting, but there are lots of. seats around for a quick rest – Some people take this literally and lie on the benches to sleep! Men & women, boys & girls…everyone does it! There are also shuttle buses that takes you from one end of the expo to another so do catch one of those when you are tired. There is no shortage of food & drinks in the Expo as there are many reasonably priced food courts and restaurants to chose from. Many of them are specially selected to be part of the expo…so you can just catch up on yummy local food at the expo too :)

You would notice that as the evening approaches, it gets quite cool there, so do bring a coat along it you intend to stay until the Expo closes. Although it is supposed to close late, most pavilions would have closed by 9:30pm, with some closing as early as 6pm. So if you have a place that you really want to visit…do it early as you never know if it would be close by the time you get there!

The Shanghai Expo was one of those things that I wanted to do and actually got around to doing it. I have always wanted to visit an Expo since the Brisbane one in 1988. Now that I have been there and done that…I must say it is not what I really expected. I had expected to be immersed in the different cultures of the world but what I realised was that the Expo felt more like a huge NATAS fair, cos many countries were showing how nice their place is …in hope of gaining the interest of the Chinese people and them visiting. Chinese Tourists are the most sought after people in many countries now…really! I guess the exhibits didn’t really resonate with me partly cos I think here in Singapore, we are quite exposed to many different cultures and have visited many different countries plus the fact that I do watch Discovery Travel quite a fair bit.., so the popular pavilions are not really high on my agenda. There are also many pavilions that I had missed out, but looking at it from the outside was good enough, cos some did look better outside then inside!

The Expo at night is really quite beautiful, especially when the lights from the pavilions are turned on. It gives you a whole different feel, much like Shanghai itself. It makes you think you are in a different place altogether. So I suggest..take your time to enjoy the place, don’t can caught up with going to all the pavilions ( which you cannot do in 1 day) or even the popular ones…just browse and see what you want.

We finally ended our day by exiting from the main entrance, where it is nearest to the subway station :) And what a sight greeted us at the exit…the flags of all the nations taking part in this :P

Shanghai Surprise..

It was a totally unplanned for holiday, cos S and I normally don’t take a vacation in the middle of the year. We usually take a couple vacation at the end of the year after the family vacation. But this year was different, thanks to expiring frequent flyer points. It was also unplanned cos both of us didn’t have much time to read up about Shanghai. All we did before we left was to book the tickets and hotel…and we went..to our long post-poned trip. ( the last time we wanted to go to Shanghai was 7 years ago, right before I found out I was pregnant with D, and the trip had to be cancelled)

We flew the mid-night flight out of Singapore and arrived in Shanghai bright and early at 5:30am :) We took a ride to the city on one of the fastest trains in the world, the Meglev. It was rather ‘slow’ ride as it only went up to 301kn/hr even it could have done more than 400km/hr. The trip took only 7 mins when a cab ride would have taken at least 30 mins. Oh well, for the fun of it and the bragging rights :) We took the train to Loyang Station at Pudong, and then Line 2 to People’s Sq where it was only 1 block away from our hotel.

We stayed at Citadines Shanghai at Beijng Xi Lu. This place is more like a service apartment then a hotel. We booked a one-room studio that came with a small kitchenette (S$140/night), but they upgraded us to a one-bedroom apartment with free broadband & breakfast. No complains there! :) It is very convienent as it is within walking distance to Nanjing East Rd where the shopping street is and also People’s Theatre where all the local day tour meets :)

Since we didn’t really plan for this holiday, we relied heavily on the guidebook that I got from the National library. It was a pretty good guide and is the 2nd most recommended Shanghai guidebook on Amazon.cn :) Yeap, it is in Chinese :) So, we just followed the recommendations of the book and off we went to Huanghe Road for some yummy lunch as recommended the guidebook - 小扬生煎包. All for 16 yuan. There are lots of small eateries there and they are all recommended places. Another place that we wanted to visit was the place that offered 汤包 opposite the 生煎包 place.

Nangjing East Rd was our next stop. It was just around the corner, and is touted as THE shopping street in Shanghai ( of course, there are others now like Huahai Road). It is very crowded!! All tourists go there and plus it was the semi-golden week (dumpling festival holidays), the crowds were really in! There were some local stores, and also many familiar names like Uniqlo & Mango. There was also a large shop that sold all things from the Shanghai Expo! See..you don’t really need to go to the Expo to get the souvenirs :) But other then shops I must say the night view of the street is also quite spectacular.

We also had a ‘cultural lesson’ when we visited the People’s Park where there were scenes of local SDU in action…erm…matching making in the park…done mostly by parents and gradnparents. Check out the “advertisements”! S found the whole scene so amusing that he kept taking pictures. One of the parents thought he was interested and wanted to engaged him in conversation…but too bad…I came along…haha!

We also visited Pudong and “saw”the Pearl Orient Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Centre. It was rather cloudy and the queue was soooo long….we gave up. We decided just to snap some pictures and went to the mall instead!

We also visited 新天地 which is a nice place for alfresco dinning. You can get quite a variety of western food here if you ever get tired of local meals. It feels very much like Clark Quay cos this place is filled with expats and you would certainly not think that you are in Shanghai, but maybe in Taipei, HK or Singapore.

This place is within walking distance from Huaihai Road..another shopping street which sells high end stuff ( think LV, Cartier & Tiffany). The streets looked lovely in the night as the trees are all drapped with light bulbs…reminds you of Champs Elysee, If you are into Barbie dolls, the official Barbie store is also located along this street.

And of course, we had to visit the Bund!! How can you come and not visit this place? But I must say, I was a little disappointed cos it is so similar to Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong especially when you look across the river to Pudong. The only difference is the line of buildings behind you brings you back to the 1920s & 30s.

There are also other places that we went to like Hangzhou and Shanghai Expo, i would probably write those experience in another post. Overall, the trip was certainly an eye -opener for me. I have not been to China for about 10 years, and things have certainly changed alot. Shanghai is very cosmopolitan yet has retained some of its old world charm. However, every where you go, you can’t escape the rapid modernisation of the place. Old and new Shanghai seems to have an uneasy existence. The places may be new, but the people are still very much Shanghainese. I still see people wearing their PJs walking around, people arguing in loud voices ( yeap…and almost a fight too..), and of course the infamous lack of “personal space” wherever you go. But this is the charm of Shanghai, to be able to still remain the same despite changes happening around it at a blinding pace. I wished I had more time to explore and to enjoy this city cos I think there are so much more to see then what the travel brochure tells you about. Sometimes i wish I could meet someone local when i travel so that I will go to places where locals go to..but I think I got a glimpse of what locals do when I joined a local tour to Hangzhou, but that’s for another post!!

Malaccan Food

I know this is a really back dated blog entry, as I have already been back from Malacca for almost a month now! I realised that I had these photos of the food I ate there, and it would be a real waste not to show them…

1. Chicken Rice Balls
Can you spot the rice? At first when it came, we thought it was fried fish balls! Ha…I almost said “ we didn’t order this” then I realised that it was rice! oh well…

It was “tourist” food. The rice was well very packed, so it lost the “fluffy” feel of the regular rice. The shop we went to was along Jonkar Street named “Farmosa Chicken Rice”.

We found out later that it was not the “original” store. The one that you want to go to for the authentic, hand-made chicken rice ball is at the end of Jonkar street, at the junction opposite OCBC Bank and San Shu Kong. …but queuing under the hot sun is NOT my idea of fun…but to these people(below), it seems to be worth it.

2. Peranakan Food – Donald & Lily’s
How can we visit Malacca without eating Peranakan food? My cousin brought us to this house opposite the Jonkar Street Car park. We literally ate in their back yard!! It was a small outfit, and food often ran out if you did not go early. We barely got the last order for the Assam Stingray. Here is where they cook and below the sign board was their actual back door!

Actually, we ate a lot of Chendol!! Alot….we had at least one bowl a day! Daniel got so addicted to it, we brought gula melaka home and try and make it…key word here is TRY, cos as of now….I still have not made it! :P

There are actually a lot more food in Malacca like Satay Julut, pineapple tarts, Kueh etc…but I was too busy eating to take pictures…:) If you are keen to find out more about Malaccan food, there are a few blogs online that will show you where to go :)

Malacca Trip May 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Evelyn's 3rd Birthday

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Perth Dec 08

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Food, Glorious Food

When I am in HK, I buy more, when I am in Taipei, I eat more.....in fact, I ate ALL THE TIME!
There were so many interesting street food to sample. I think if Steven went with me...I wouldn't have eaten as much cos he is VERY particular about eating street food....he doesn't like to! I did not eat ANY street food when I was with him in Hua Hin last year......so this time...I ate and ate and ate....you get the idea...
Here are some pictorial evidence of my gluttony! ( I would like to add that I did not eat EVERYthing by myself...Min & I share most of the food...expect for my favourite....pig's intestine!!!! I had to have them every day...in one form or another!)

We actually ate a lot more than this...but I was too busy eating to take photos....so....


From top Left.. Ah Zong 面线 Lunch at Basement Food court@ShinKong Mitsukoshi Dept
Dinner at Foodcourt @Taipei 101

Mixed veg, fish, pork in soya sauce Steam boat

Note :
(1) Ah Zong Ah Zong 面线 is at Ximending, it is not difficult to find as many people would be standing outside the shop eating it. There are no seats! Unlike Singapore's version, there is no osyters...instead they have pig intestines!!!!! Yummy!!!! I ate it 2 nights in a row.....

(2) Mixed Veg thingy is like Yong Tau Foo...you chose what you want from the stall, and then it gets cooked in the sauce. It is meant for sharing...They have a unique way of ordering the food...cos you have to watch when the guy puts it into the pot to cook as he cooks 3 different portions at the same time. When it is ready, you have to "claim" it, so if you are not paying attention...someone else may take yours! The one we ate was at Shida Market. It was a pretty big stall and you eat inside a bubble tea shop behind the stall.

(3) There are LOTs of Jap food in Taiwan! They are everywhere, each foodcourt would probably have about 3 Jap food stalls! And they are quite reasonable...the bento in the picture above cos S$14. I couldn't finish it...too much!!

(4) Egg custard (bottle next to the Sushi) from ShinKong Mitsukoshi Dept (A8) store basement is GREAT! It is in a nice glass bottle with a little caramel at the bottom. We wanted to buy some back but they only had 3 left, so i took everything! Steven ate one last night...he didn't even share with me. I need to remember what is the name of the stall......

Taiwan 101

Taipei 101

Yes, it is the tallest building in the world ( at one time I guess...) taken at dusk in Taipei...well the actually name of the building is Taipei 101. It looks very impressive, and you can see if from quite a distance away. However, my first impression of the building when I entered was ...." How come it feels like KLCC huh? Maybe all tall buildings have the same type of architectural...."

That's my impression of one of the finest building in Taiwan!
So this begins my tale of my trip to Taipei! :)

I was in Taiwan from 5-9 Sept, and since it was a short trip, we (Min & I) spend more of our time in Taipei city itself. I found the place quite different from what I imagined....it is a lot less crowded, and the air quality is not as bad. The people are orderly ( as in everyone will stand on the right side of the escalator, and wait in line for passengers from the MRT to alight before boarding) and very friendly. While we manage to visit some of the touristy sights like Shilin Night Market, Shida Night market, National Palace Museum, Ximending( where we stayed), it was the more unconventional places that we went that left the deepest impression.

Couple from Turn Left, Turn Right

We spend an afternoon at the Eslite Bookstore. It was a great experience. We visited an exhibition which showcase the work of artisit "Jimmy" He drew the pictorial "Turn Left, Turn Right" which has been made into a movie. This pictorial is also going to be made into a musical. The reason for the exhibition was also to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Jimmy's work. It was by pure chance that we were at the bookshop to view the exhibition and to attend Jimmy's talk & book signing event :) As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations, they had also created Scriptures and made installations of pictorials and had them all over Taipei city! It was a really great experience, as I have read some of his works and have really enjoyed them. His pictorials are often accompanied by short phrases that really makes you think....check his website out...you will know what I mean.


We also visited this area called 九份 which got its name from the nine households that started the village. Since there were nine families, everything in the village was divided by nine...hence the name ....well Communists at its best! :) The place is worth at least 1/2 a day of visit. We went in the afternoon and had tea in one of the tea houses while watching the sun set behind the hills. It was quite an experience. We took the train there, but as we didn't know the time-table & the complicated train schedule, it was quite an experience!! Some nice 'uncle' came and explain the system for us and help us buy tickets! ( we must look really lost!). The train from Taipei Main Station will take you to 瑞坊 (Rui Fang) in about 1 hour for NT$52. You need to then take a bus from the station to get you to 九份. The bus journey reminds me a lot of taking the bus in HK to Stanley Market...the roads are winding up and down the hills and the bus drivers and equally....fast! We realised after arriving that there was a direct bus from Taipei City to 九份! We just had to take it from the Zhong Xiao Fuxing station ( outside Sogo Dept store!) for NT$90! That would have saved us a lot of hassle! But the view & the experience in 九份 was certainly worth the trip...

More about the trip in another post!