Shanghai: Day 1

This morning when I came to work, the virus scan software on my laptop detected 1,700+ virus!!! But everything was ok 2 weeks ago prior to my holiday... and in fact...when I used my laptop yesterday, it was all OK! Weird...

Anyway, for the past whole week, I've been on leave!!! Went on a 9-day, 7-night trip (from 16-Dec-2007 till 24-Dec-2007) to a few places in China! And nooooooo... not China AGAIN! Last year I went to Beijing, Cheng De and Tian Jin but this time round I went to Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and Hangzhou with my family. Different places in China... but yala... essentially still China and here's another one of those travel journals that I like to write after every trip I take :)

We took the night flight from KLIA and flew for about 5 hours to Pudong International Airport in Shanghai. Time was about 7-plus in the morning when we came out and boy, was it freezing cold! From the airport, we went straight to our hotel to freshen up and to change ourselves into dumplings! Why? Cos the weather was so cold that I had to wear 4 layers of clothing (1) Long John (2) Sweater (3) Another Sweater (4) Puffer Jacket...

Then we were driven to this place for lunch and was greeted by a group of Chinese fellas dressed in traditional costumes banging away at their drums!

While eating, there were dance performances on stage too... The girls were somewhat skimpily dressed... and the moves were rather obscene for a lunch crowd... hehehe...

After lunch, we were driven to "Jade Buddha" temple which was in fact a temple with statues of Buddha made in jade.

After dinner, we were dropped off at "Nanjing Road"; a famous shopping street in Shanghai... somewhat like our Bukit Bintang here in KL.

The shopping experience here is OK as in there were plenty of big nice shops to shop in, nice and cheap "bajus" to buy but after "Nanjing Road", I was totally traumatized! No, not with the shopping experience but with the TOILETS!!! Later I realized that nearly ALL the toilets are similar but anyway... I went into this shopping mall that has a banner hung at its entrance proudly announcing that it's "Shanghai's No.1 Departmental Store".

The minute I entered the damn store, it was as if I've entered a maze and it took us a few good minutes to spot the toilet sign! But when we finally found the toilet sign, it led us to Timbaktoo... cos first thing first, the entire departmental store was made out of small 10ft x 10ft stalls... Secondly, the toilets are located on selected floors only i.e. not on every floor and thirdly, the exit to the toilet is concealed within one of those small 10ft x 10ft stalls. So, at one glance, there really isn't any exit to the loo!!!

Anyway, when I finally found the loo... the "pungent" smell that greeted me at the doorway was enough to frighten normal Janes away... but I desperately needed to pee... So I went in bravely only to find SHIT stuck on the wall and on the edge of the fucking toilet bowl!!! It was so damn traumatizing! But there were only 2 cubicles and the other one has a spoilt lock... so ya... I had no choice but to use the SHITTY toilet!!! SOB SOB!!!

The sun sets at about 5pm there! So after dinner, we found ourselves bored to death in our hotel rooms. At about 9-ish... we decided to be adventurous (me, my bf, my bro n his gf) while our parents slept. We took the LRT from dunno where to "Lu Jia Zui".

First stop was the "Oriental Pearl Tower" called "Dōngfāng Míngzhūta" which was a TV tower at Lu Jia Jui (more on this later).

Then we took a taxi where the driver kindly played tour guide and took us to "Cheng Huang Temple". Since I can't read Mandarin... I was quietly wondering why my bf took us to visit a temple in the middle of the night. Only later on... I found out that contrary to its name, "Cheng Huang Temple" is not a temple (tho there is a small temple within the area) but a huge shopping place within traditional looking buildings (will post more photos later)!!! But we reached at about 10-ish... not only were the shops closed, the lights were off too... :(

Then the same cab driver took us to "Xin Tian Di"; a place with lots of pubs like our Bangsar Telawi. It was freezing cold and I was rather hungry... So we took a cab back to the hotel and on the way bought cup noodles which are by the way, called "Fang Bian Mian" in Shanghai.

That concluded our first day in Shanghai. :)