Day 5 - Shell China Trip

Day 5
The hotel we were staying was a little better than the rest. The layout and design and quality of the room was better (see previous post).

The breakfast was better too.. They even had Ta-Huey (Soya Bean Curd - Not the drink), albeit with no syrup. There was fresh fruit and wanton soup and "the egg service" being provided by chefs. There was better quality milk with breakfast cereals. Then there was the good ole bread and butter which the other hotels didn't seem to have.


Our hotel also had a outdoor carpark, an underground carpark....

.... and a "multi-storey" carpark.

Just outside our hotel

Our first stop today was yet another water garden. I managed to get a snapshot to show you how the pedestrian-vehicle relationship in China is. The vehicles in this photo that you see in the junction box are moving. As are the people.


Anyway, when we reached the place, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised that the "garden" wasn't at all like the one we'd been to a few days back. It really was a garden and not just some pond in a dude's mansion in a moat.

He did have a lake out back though. lol.

As the place is considered a public area, many people regularly go there to "talk cock and sing song" (sic). The public cleaners also clean up the area. Above we see one just outside the gates. We also discovered that the directions to the toilets required us to go back to the main entrance and take another path to reach it. That's when we found out that both the roads curved back in so we could've just walked a few metres from where we were to reach it.


Anywayz... We left that place and headed off for our next stop, the Jade Factory cum Antiques Museum. Our guide explained how it was important that no gold surround any bit of jade jewelry lest it negate its "power". There were many "sub-museums" on the whole building. Museum of Jade lah, Museum of Silk lah, etc...

There was full body armor made of jade, pieces of jade buried in the sand like a skeleton, and other small trinkets and big items. Some of the funny ones were the pure gold replica of a bug and the display where they arranged some pieces of jade that they found, into a smiley face.


There was this tour guide who had hair like the powderpuff girls. Also, the fact that this museum had it's own store selling jade was funny in itself too.

Anywayz, it was pretty boring except for the fact that my mom bought this Jade Cross(encased in Gold. *gasp*) that originally costed 1800RMB which she bargained down to 500RMB. It was for my nanny(grandmother). Something about how my nan had pawned all her jewelry away when the family was broke oh so long ago.

One of the tour buses outside the "museum"

For lunch we went to this huge restaurant that supposedly could seat 1500 people. From what I saw though, it was more of a huge building with some restaurants in it. It was like Singapore's China Square Food Centre, except instead of having stalls, they had restaurants.

Limo outside the restaurant

The best part about the building was the toilets I believe....
LCD Screens while peeing!! I ask them. "What on earth can you show that lasts a minute?" It's not like people are gonna stay there very long rite? Now if they put these in the cubicles... ah.. that would be a totally different story now wouldn't it? heehee

Personally, I would prefer not to have a man's face right in front of me while peeing. It's majorly creepy. But then again, if it were a beautiful lady's face, I might not be able to pee at all. heh heh.


A tiny pond in the building itself at the base of the building's elevators held some Koi. There were some other gigantic fish tanks too but the glass was so dirty that it was already nearly impossible to see those giant fishes with just the naked eye.


After that we went for a little shopping at yet another mall street. Most of us didn't buy much cuz it was all those original branded goods. No point going to China to get what you can get back home I guess.

Cat tied to a tree	A river runs through it
Trishaw	Poodle

I saw another baby with an open butt. If you click on the picture to get a bigger view, look for the word "Here" in orange.

Before leaving this place, we all stocked up on the essential items like food and snacks and drinks because were goign back to Shanghai which would take another 3-4 hours.

We encountered yet another toilet that had this communal urinal but this time, it had that mini wall as a separator there. Presumably to prevent backsplash.


By the time we reached Shanghai it was already very dark so we headed off for dinner instead of going straight to the hotel.
The restaurant was huge and they had cabaret dancers dancing and singing on a stage up front. They had waiters on skates rolling around. And they also had this ballet on skates performed in the center of the whole restaurant but unfortunately, no one clapped cuz everyone was busy with their food.

The chicken there was good too. It was very tasty and full juice. They also served us Mantis Shrimp which supposedly is a delicacy. I didn't try it though. lol

Outisde the restaurant there was this fountain that looked nice but was placed in the parking lot so no one could admire it properly.

A picture of the roads that are deserted late at night in Shanghai. It's really amazing how deserted the streets can be at night in China.

Above you see a picture of their interconnecting four directional bridges. I had an idea like this for Singapore when I was a little kid. I was like, "Why doesn't Singapore have overhead bridges that connect to each other instead of paths across the street? It'll solve all the traffic problems that happen while vehicles wait for pedestrians to cross the road."

Yet another picture of the deserted streets in Shanghai. In fact, save for the centre of Shanghai, everywhere else was deserted.

Right next to our Shanghai hotel was this KTF Loungue. And this big neon signed was plastered to it's entrance. KTV FOOT BATH! lol

The night transport services still operate, just like in Singapore till past 11. While taking this photo, a beggar came to pester me for money. The trick to losing them is to talk fast. They walk very slow you see. It may sound a bit cruel but the fact of the matter is, if you help them, sooner or later(by later I mean in months to come) more will come because they may think that the "tourists here are more generous". Or so my tour guide said.

The view of the city from my window.


So day 5 ended.

Part 5 of 7

Day 4 - Shell China Trip

Day 4
The breakfast on this day wasn't too bad. The soya bean was a little less watery than at the other hotels and the wantons were not bad. The meat tasted nice(r).

First up today was the Ouyuan(Lotus) Garden. What it really was, was this big mansion with some flowers and ponds and flowers in ponds here and there.

Here you can see part of the mansion. Much of the furniture was removed so if there was ever an ambience to this place, I didn't see it.


In one of the gardens, I spotted this. At first I thought it was a toilet bowl. What with the shape and it having water below it. Later on though, we found out it was a well.

One of the gardens also had it own mini rock mountain. I snapped a picture of this visitor. My batteries crapped out on me shortly after taking this photo so it took me a while to change 'em hence the lack of pictures after this.


This mansion also had it's own moat so exiting the place requird a short boat ride to reach the perimeter.

Next stop was the Silk Factory. No picture taking was allowed in the factory. They actually show you how they make silk. How they let the silkworms eat Mulberry Leaves and how they grow the trees such that the leaves that the worms munch on are of a high quality.

Then they showed us how to differentiate between real silk and the fake one. The smell of the burnt materials each produced unique smells.

They showed us the life cycle of the worm which also included it being super huge just before it turned into a pupa.

They then showed us how they separated the cocoons that had 2 larvae in them and those that had only one.

They took the single occupied ones and then by dunking them in water, the rock hard shell of the cocoon would soften up and then the edge of a strand of silk would appear. The worker hooked up this strand with a brush and tied it on to a spool that winded the entire single strand of silk that makes a cocoon.

According to the factory guide, on a good day in summer, the length of the strand in a cocoon can reach up to 1200 metres.

For the double occupied ones, they warmed them in water as well until soft. Then they ripped the cocoon open and stretched it over an inverted U metal stand. After putting a few layers of this on the stand, they moved it all to another bigger stand.

Then other workers, took this stuff and held it by four corners, and proceeded to stretch it out onto a rectangular table. Doing the same till there were a number of layers of this stretched out silk, they then sewed it all up in a bag and voila, you have a quilt.

My mom bought four of these quilts at around S$80. We got a free silk handkerchief because of our purchase.

For lunch, we headed to a restaurant about 200 metres from where the silk factory was. The lunch this time was a little better.

As always, there was always the fatty pork dish.

Our next stop was in Nanjing so we said goodbye to our local Suzhou guide and set off. It was to be a 4 hour bus ride.

This time round, they played "The Myth" on the bus' 20 inch LCD screen. Truth be told, this helped me keep my sanity. Long bus rides in a cramped space with no sound from the sleeping passengers can be conducive to losing one's sanity.

We stopped for a toilet break halfway through. There was a convenience store at the rest stop and many of us stocked up with plenty of food. My family personally bought a tube of chips and some wrapped dark chocolates and bar chocolates and OREOs and a few other odds and ends like gum.

We soon reached Nanjing where we picked up our local guide. The dude spoke very fast and loudly and had a tendency to raise his voice when ppl in the back of the bus were talking amongst themselves.

Our first stop in Nanjing was the Memorial for the Nanjing Massacre.


In my opinion, there are a number of discrepancies with this. Firstly, the official death toll was at 30, 000 ppl. But according to other reports, there were only about 10, 000 ppl in the area at that time.

Also, for a mass grave where they discovered the remains, some of the skeletons looked rather spaced out. You'd think after dumping bodies in one after another the bones would've been piled up all over each other.

Pictures are not allowed to be taken in the inner area of the museum where photos and artifacts are. Tour guides are also not allowed to narate anything there.

I can tell you this though. The descriptions below the pictures and artifacts found in the museum reek of bias. Using cleverly crafted words, if you're not wary, you can get pulled in.


We left the place soon after because it was near closing time. Our guide was clearly anti-Japanese as he explained more of the Massacre on the bus.


Next up was a bridge that was built solely by the Chinese themselves. The story goes that China wanted to build a bridge across the Yangtze River. The russians who were supposed to help them pulled out at the last minute due to strained ties and took everything, including the plans, with them.

So the Chinese decided to build their own bridge. Everyone in China contributed a dollar, the overseas Chinese sent over steel, and the workers in Nanjing sacrificed their only off day, Sunday, to work on the bridge which they completed in 8 years.

To get to the observation area at the top of one of the bridge's anchor pillars, we had to pass by a ginormous statue of Chairman Mao to take a lift up.

By now, it wasn't that cold either so I wasn't wearing a coat.

View of the bridge	View from the bridge
Model bridge	Model bridge

Within the anchor tower, there is a studio where this dude painted on the inside of glass balls. Apparently, he's the fastest on Earth.

We left for our dinner but only after a bit of waiting (James bought a S$2000 painted glass ball).


After all the poor Chinese Dishes, KK suggested that we eat somewhere else other than the place that we had booked earlier. So we went to this Western restaurant somewhere in the middle of town.

The gist of it is, the food wasn't all that great, the seasonings just weren't there. The waiter took the wrong order and then refused to change it to the proper one, even after admitting to the mistake. My dish which was to include Chicken Leg appeared with Chicken Breast.

In fact, the only nice things there were the Mango Juice which was a refreshing change, and the Ice-Cream which was absolutely divine. Sweet, tasty, flavourful, texturised. Excellent! Don't know what brand of Ice-Cream it was though.

After realising that this restaurant that we were in was in a department store that owned the entire building and had no atrium space at all, I went outside to take a few photos.


After all this photo taking and when the rest of them had finished their window shopping(nothing worth buying there), we all headed off to yet another new hotel.

The scenery surrounding our hotel was really colourful.

Waiting in Lobby for keys	Finally, a hotel with an Atrium
Internet Access	View out my window

I didn't go straight to sleep this time though. First, I checked to see if I could catch any tail end bits of the F1 Spanish Grand Prix. Then after getting nothing, I switched to American Idol which was, thankfully, in English.

Only after the show ended did I go to sleep.

End of day 4

Part 4 of 7