Day 7 - Shell China Trip

Day 7

(FINALLY! 3 Months late!!)

Woke up damn early today to pack my bags.. Which is when I realised that the sun apparently rises by 4am in China.. well at least during that period.

Went for breakfast and took some photos.. :p

Lovely dishes they had there..

Fry the New Year Pudding	Stir Fried Assorted Rice
SMALL CAKE!!!

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you... SALT!!!

That right.. This here is salt.. It's not sugar.. And please don't tell me otherwise just because you think it looks like sugar. I was there. I had a taste. It's salt.. After 7 days of eating tasteless food, I finally find some good ole salt. 6 days too late albeit.

Anyways. First up today was yet another shopping street. It's a very popular tourist spot so it was damn crowded...

Fancy a spot of tea?


Brilliant signage!

My mom was in one of the shops bargaining for some blouses. After some bargaining, it turned out the lady didn't have any stock and was left with the display piece. Being the crazy oppurtunist my mother was, she attempted to bargain more for that item. Needless to say, it failed(tourist spots can afford to hold out). So my mom left and the lady started cursing and swearing at her. Which is when I gave that woman the dirtiest stare my cold and hard face could give. I was a bit surprised though that the lady didn't seem shocked. I mean, c'mon.. I sometimes freak myself out when I look in the mirror in the morning.

Who says Starbucks is on the decline!?

Starbucks is WESTERN FILTH!!! wahahaha...

Street Hawker

"Road Sweeper's" cart.

I tried to photograph the sites and sounds of the places I'd been. Notice the colours in this country are different. That gray cart for example would've looked more silvery here in Singapore. Not just because of the paint(doh!), but also because of the colour temperature in that region.

Some of the popular tourist dishes

The Chinese and their Koi

A Koi farm in China equals $$$. I swear. The sheer number of these Kois and the way these Chinese flock to these numerous ponds must make the aquarium shop owners love Capitalism.

Singaporeans will understand this

Malay speakers will understand this

Do you know the way to San Hose?

Can you spot Bruce Lee?

Those pictures were from yet another tourist shopping street. I got some stuff from there like this magnetic UFO thingy that allowed you to spin a top in the air. Unfortunately, there was some trouble with this item at the airport.

Our last lunch that we had today was the usual with duck for the appetizer and the usual watermelon desert. Also as usual, there was lots of left over food. This is when I found out that James' wife had bought me a Mickey Mouse belt which was a Godsend cuz my pants was sliding off my arse. The belt wasn't as childish as you might think.. In fact, it was quite cool.. lol

A Trike! Never seen one in Singapore before!

Last view of the "wrong-direction" streets :P

Anyway, we set off for the airport where we saw these real cool buses that had beds in it and all. It was pretty obvious that what the guide had said about the rich and poor gap being very big was true. WE HAD NO BEDS!! WHERE IS THE JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD?!?!

So, at the airport, I was going thru the metal detector right? When this lady called me aside and asked me to open my bag that went thru the X-Ray machine. Apparently that magnetic UFO toy had too strong a magnetic field. Costs us about S$12 in total.. Since I had 2 of them with me.

List of prohibited items (Magnets included! DOH!)

Da Rules

More Rules

Anyways.. The whole of China, airport notwithstanding, is full of people who tend to burp and fart WHILE WALKING and continue walking as if nothing had happened. This reminded me of cows. lol. No offence. In fact, right in the airport, this guy walked right pass me, slowed down, and bent forward a bit, and let loose a semi-dry one. "DAMN!", I said to myself. "Something just ain't right here." lol.. It explains the extremely high ceiling in the airport though.

Futuristic but simplistic, high ceiling.

Then there's their travellator. Which is nice and all, save for two things. (1) It's way way way too narrow for the trolleys. (2) My little sister could walk faster than the damn thing could move.

Space saving bastards! :P
(Apologies for poor framing. Cropped!)

Multi-Directional Trolley (Speedster)

You got that? Passengers only!!

The lights even went out for a bit at the passenger waiting area. Budget sia!!

Passenger waiting... er, in area. hmm..

SAFETY TIPS!

Did someone say, FIRE!?!?

Someone I know did manage to get in with some pretty strong magnets though...

That's a BATTERY on the chain, PEOPLE!

After a fellow Singaporean mumbled "Fucking Inefficient" when he was stopped from entering cuz he didn't have a RED sticker on his ticket, we walked onto the last bit of China we'd be seeing for quite a while(No more Pudong and Pusi.).

The gangway

And on to Singaporean Property!! S.I.A!! MUACKZ!!! (Moment of weakness there. Ignore it)

I saw Badawi(One of Singapore's MPs) on the plane in Business Class. Hmm... There was some holdup with the plane and we left behind schedule.

KrisWorld was different this time. My unfinished movies from the flight in to China not being available anymore coupled with the fact that you were no longer able to fast forward or rewind the video meant you had to sit thru those boring and unending commercials and if you pressed the wrong button.... it meant u started from the beginning again.. But..

Le Remote Control

Le Screen & Remote.. and my hand.

I've got to say. SIA is Number 1 in service. I love their KrisWorld. I love their crews' accents(BIASness there). I love their warm attitude. I even love their safety instruction video, which is hilarious btw. Then there's the fact that they give us warm towels to wipe our face just before the plane takes off.

I dunnoe if any other airlines do this service. But if they do, I think they give the towels after the landing. So that the passengers can clean up after themselves. Which brings me to another point.

SIA has the BEST FUCKING pilots! I swear. All my trips on SIA have had perfect landings. This landing though caught us with some tailwinds but I swear, the pilot realigned the plane seconds before touchdown such that we felt like nothing had happened. Well, actually I felt the plane about to tilt over but what they hey. I could've passed it off as my imagination without being the wiser.

I know that one of my fishing buddies who was a former steward told me about all the hush-hush stuff from SQ about Taiwan and shit.. But who fucking cares?!?!

And as usual, I got a deck of the customary playing cards.

This was when I overheard one of the Shell guys mentioning that the quality of the petrol these days was so high that people only really cared about the prices now.

We arrived at Changi Airport ahead of schedule to a very balmy 29ºC dry wind. We didn't need to worry about crossing the street anymore cuz we were on the right side of the road.. haha

Uncle Simon was there to pick us up and Dad gave him a bottle of Black Label. I don't drink myself cuz I don't like the taste so I wouldn't know how much it meant to him to get that and stuff.. haha.. Which is also when I found out that the flight crew aren't allowed to buy drinks from the DFS..

(Photo Edited. What is missing eh?)

The day was ended in my SPRING mattress and snoring my head off.
Part 7 of 7

Good night guys.

ADDENDUM: Apparently there was a flood in Shanghai the day after we left. God is great ain't He? But then again.. It would have been way fun.. haha.. *Scolds the sadist in me*

Day 6 - Shell China Trip

Sorry for the delay. This post was the hardest to do cuz I had nothing to write about but a whole lot of pictures to post.. heh heh..
Warning: Photo Intensive! If pictures don't load, refresh the page.

Day 6
Decided not to eat breakfast today. Didn't really like to stuff myself on poor quality foods..

So we were back in Shanghai again since yesterday. We would be staying in the same hotel till tmr when we left for Singapore.

Our first stop today was to go to Central Shanghai to catch the view of their wide spaced water-front paths amid the businesses and buildings all around.

You can see some western influence in the designs of their buildings and contrary to popular belief(my belief), China doesn't have that many Pagoda-styled buildings laying around let alone in the business district which is supposed to be the oldest district in Shanghai.


The whole group then took some photos with the waterfront as a background and I took this oppurtunity to take more photos of our surroundings... After I had taken my photos with the waterfront as a background of course.. haha


Then I smiled with glee as I took a picture of yet another sign board with bad English. Albeit, it wasn't that bad... Besides, it shouldn't have been bad.. It was posted by the Chinese Government. lol

The buildings in Shanghai have a very Western/Colonial feel to them.

And they get a view of the waterfront.

After all of us had taken enough photos to make the film developer very happy(we were using digitals btw.. heh heh), we walked over to a Shopping Street about a kilometre away.

Censorship in China? No way!

"World Peace!" -- Communists

The Shopping Street is around 5Km long and boasts a mix of Original Products, "Original Products" and the Low Quality Local Originals.

Shopping Street (Start)

The start of the mall street boasts the local products and generally looks, to be honest, run down. As always, the locals don really care about the traffic and they regular intermingle with each other along the crowded streets. This is in spite of this area having "traffic" marshalls who try to enforce the rules with nothing but a whistle and a stern look that says, "Don't you cross... Don't do it... The Commies will get yer otherwise...".

I am one with the road...	... or will be soon.

I was delighted to see a phone booth along the street. It's something that we don't have in Cellphone Singapore.

A phone booth...

... or not.

Took a picture of their Bus Stop after I saw 2 Chinese dudes pretending to be blind to catch a free(or discounted - I dunnoe) ride on the bus.

Their bus stops look vaguely familiar. :P

While walking through one of the shops selling local products, I spied this gem... Only God knows what it means..

Finally! Some decent Engrish(sic)!

Took a few more photos of the sites along the way. We stopped in at one of MacDonald's for a break for my Dad who was carrying my 'lil' sis who was sleeping. This is where I discovered that the MacFries in China only tasted good when they were hot. And also that they didn't have a proper stirrer for their MilkShakes which tasted sweeter than Singapore's... lol..

- Agricultural Bank - "Save your grain with us. 5% int"	- MacDonalds Milkshake - "Stirring machine's down!"
- New Zealand Natural - "Taboo Food"	- Tobacoonist Group - "LMAO!!"

I also learnt that my family and my milkshakes don't go well together because it spilled for the second time this entire trip..

Sweet eh? In Singapore, we'd never waste space like this. We'd fill up the place with bazaar or something when not in use.

Walking Street	Walking Street
The Poor	The Poor

While walking along the street I saw this nice shoe hanging in a "dark" department store. So I went inside and after haggling(yes... haggling in a department store) and tried on the shoe but found it was too small so the lady went to get the correct size for me. I waited about 15 minutes just for a $13 shoe but when she came back, she told me they were outta stock.

So disappointed, we continued on down the 5km stretch of shops. That's when we noticed the number of MacDonald's outlets. And these outlets were quite big too..

Choo Choo...

From right out of a scene in a Hollywood movie on China Town..


I wonder what if it rains.. He'll prolly be soaked and shivering(weather was around 19ºC when sunny) by the time he wakes up.

Adult Shop!! Heh heh..

Rust can put out fires!

We left the place soon after to break for Lunch. We had lunch at this place not unlike a dimly light backroom in a club just like in the movies. The food was not too bad and when we were leaving the place, we saw a famous Hong Kong actor getting into his limo not too far away.

Next on the itenary was this house that was converted to a "shophouse" selling "Genuine Imitations". I don't need to tell you why I didn't take any photos eh? heh heh.


Next up was Xiang Yang Lu(Road). It's a maze of over 100 stalls selling all kinds of imitation goods.

I managed to get socks at 6RMB per pair or S$1.20. And T-Shirts at around 30RMB i.e. S$6.00.
Even managed to get a few bags at around that price.

I also bought a pair of shoes that looked real nice and costed around 100RMB.

Open Butt Phenomena!	Benefits: Cool & airy. No diapers
Stuff we bought	More stuff

I had a lot of fun bargaining esp when their opening price starts so high. lol...

Those T-Shirts I was talking about earlier had a starting price of 120 RMB!

Then there was also this boy who refused to sell his shoes for anything less thatn 120RMB even though we were buying 2 pairs so we walked off while he slowly lowered his price. But by the time we were out of earshot, his price was still too high so we lost a deal.

Anywayz, when you finally reach a "reasonable" price, the sales person will pretend to be annoyed that the price is so low. If she is adamant that the price is too low, just walk off and they will suddenly agree but will continue to act annoyed.... till you give them the money which is when they'll suddenly smile and say Thank You! LOL.

Some of them though genuinely do get irritated esp the younger ones who want to sell their stuff at a higher profit. Again, the T-Shirts I was talking about earlier... The young sales person was very very stubborn and we nearly lost the deal when walking away but then her mother said "let them have it" and just before we were out of earshot, we heard the glorious, "Ok! Ok! Ok!"

We bought a lot of stuff there but it was something you were happy to spend your money on. Cheap stuff!

Sign outside Xiang Yang Lu.

It's also especially fun to see those Ang Mohs(Europeans) "bargaining" to prices about 3 times above the prices that we get and being satisfied. LOL

Street Hawker

Later on though, we found out that there was this one shop that was selling all it's goods at a flat fee of 30RMB. If only we had known about it earlier, it would've been really good cuz I would've ransacked the whole place. We didn't have much time to "shop" but we sure bought our money's worth.


The beggars there follow you right up to the bus steps.


Dinner was paid by Shell today and the Fresh Mang Juice wasn't too bad.. Though the second jug did taste a tad extra sour presumably because they used up all their good mangoes on our first jug.

Thick Mango Juice

KEDI Convenience Store

KEDI is the Malay word for Faggot! LOL!!!!

As usual, the "elders" placed bets on how much they believed the food costed. Which is also when we found out that the tissues were chargeable too.

Next up.. Was a ride up the "TV Tower" in China.. It's like a very tall building with giant lifts and bored lift attendants.

The kind of service they provide is horrible. Dull and soft voices. Mumbling here and there. Looking down and rolling their eyes.

Le Tower

Taking pictures from within the tower because for one, their glass was really dirty. Secondly, the amount of reflection in the darkened observatory was absolutely detrimental to photographers. I ended up using my clip-on sunglasses which was polarised to try and remove some of the glare.

View From The Tower

View of the Waterfront	View of the Waterfront
View of the City	View of the City
View of the Waterfront	Each pane of glass has info telling you where a city is.
Familiar? MI3	The City

Here are some pictures that I took of the lift in the tower. The tower has 2 types of lifts. One for going up, and another for going down. There are a few of each type. Here's the one for going down.

Elevator Shaft

View from Elevator

View from Elevator

Next up was a boat ride(apparently the last one) on the Shanghai Waterfront at night which made the photos really cool. I took about 250 photos. :D

I did have some problems at first because some of the buildings came out blur which is when another dude next to me reminded me about changing the ISO Speeds. So I did.. So for those photos that I took using high ISO Speeds, the picture was crisp but grainy.

Allow me to proceed to dump a number of my photos here.. :D

Waterfront - Cityline	Waterfront - Cityline
Go JAPAN! heh	Waterfront - Cityline
Waterfront - Kodak Again	Waterfront - Cityline
Waterfront - Cityline	Waterfront - Le Tower

Ok. Breathe...
Release your middle finger from the scroller and stretch. If you're a MAC user using the "nipple" on the new mouse, go and take a 30 minute break. heh heh.. Don worry.. I'm just kidding. You're halfway there. -ish..

Waterfront - Cityline	Waterfront -Le Tower
Waterfront - Cityline	Waterfront - SkyScrapers
Waterfront - Le Tower & ??	Waterfront - Cool Building
Waterfront	Waterfront - ??
Waterfront - Cityline	Dancing & Singing Rural Women

Some of the "rural" women began singing and dancing on the boat. Some of "our group" joined in later on.. much to our amusement.. :D

Le Tower (Needs Lightning)	Waterfront - Cluster
Waterfront - Huge Display	Waterfront - Le Tower (again)

There are a lot of photos of the tower eh? lol.. I was trying to get the different colours that the building displays. See 2 different colours below.

Le Tower - Colour A

Le Tower - Colour B

See the Ricoh sign change too?

Ricoh (Chinese)

Ricoh (English)

All these buildings would be a landmark from the sky. So bright and beautiful....

Cool Building	Cool Building
Ricoh

Cue: Starwars music..

That's a big Lightsaber Luke!	Light up the clouds
In space, no one can hear...	Change the battery Luke!
Good Luke.	Luke!!!!

We alighted from the boat only to find that they had another boat about to leave. Bastards made us rush for nothing. LOL.. Anywayz, we met this drunken man who was singing and shouting in the streets just like in the movies. I took some photos of the place where our bus was waiting for us. Here they are.

Screech... BANG!	Great Wall IN China
A lone soul walks along...	Abandoned Streets

We went back to our hotel soon after. We were due back in Singapore the next day so we all spent the rest of the night packing up our stuff. I actually wanted to go to "Mister Donut's" which was at a "mall" just outside our hotel to sample the "quality" of Chinese Donuts but by the time we arrived at the hotel, it was closed. (11pm China Time - [Singapore time too!])

View from the "corridor window".

This time, the day ended with be jumping and sitting on my suitcase and trying to close it. Not unlike in the movies.. again.. heh heh..

Part 6 of 7.