LemOn teA

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

ahh, im so lazy to update abt my china trip.

here's the link for the photos that i have taken. actually more grp photos were taken using sean kwek's camera so i need to kope them frm him 1 day =/

shall have a summary of each day. (Warning: No pictures posted here. if u mind reading lots of text, just scroll all the way down =s)

Day 1: 29 Mar, Sun
sent boarie off =( reach the airport ard 6am and he went thru the departure gates ard 8am =/ damn emotional morning. luckily i have my best buds wif me! they were damn sweet luh! firstly it was not easy to wake up so early like 4am plus. and they were well equipped wif tissues for me LOL~ bought mac breakfast for me also while i had to check in for my china trip hah. i feel so blessed! went to meet up wif my poly friends n then board the plane.. sat wif pauline! was trying hard to sleep on the plane as i only had 2 hrs of sleep previously =/ reached shanghai was greeted by the super cold wind omg. so glad that i brought my winter coat although it was so heavy! took the Maglev train which is like speed train. going ard 430km/h! u c the surroundings zooming past so quickly.. pretty interesting! after that board the coach, crapped here n there and then dinner. dinner sucked. i teared in my hotel room on the 1st night, while chatting on the phone wif boarie. because it's also his 1st night in Jinan, i felt so sorry that i couldn't acc him much. =( but i don think my room mates noticed.. nt as if i wanted them to though! lol..

Day 2: 30 Mar, Mon
had breakfast in the hotel. breakfast sucked too. the hotdog tasted like ewww. went for some compnay visits at the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP)- some logistics centre.... which was boring! went to visit the Suzhou Singapore International School and saw many cute kids! after lunch we went to places like the Tiger Hill and the Net Master's Garden. basically its for us to enjoy the nice scenery at Suzhou and learn more abt their history and culture-something that i found interesting. also went to a Silk Factory to see how silk is produced, etc. my feet suffered the whole day cause we had to wear formal wear and i was in my black formal heels T.T the guys were v gd luh! they went out to buy birthday cake for jenny while me n pauline stayed in the hotel wif her. surprised jenny near midnight haha.

Day 3: 31 Mar, Tue
the coach brought us frm Suzhou to Hangzhou. tried chou tofu finally!!! caused me to have stinky breath =/ and i think it's kinda over-rated lei. visited a beverage company called WAHAHA. =s lunch was okay but kinda disgusted by the amt of oil they used. check out the pic in picasa. the cup of oil in a plate of fish! we went on a boat cruise at the West Lake errr.. quite boring lo! nth much to see... after that went to Dragon Well Tea Village to learn more abt traditional tea making. quite interesting la. bought some grade A tea leaves (which they claimed that they don't export to other places) for my family and boarie's family. visited Hefang Street which was something like pasar malam. also watched the Song Dynasty Cultural Show which was v nice!! nice stage effects. the tour guides gave jenny another surprise as they brought out another birthday cake while we were waiting to check in.

Day 4: 1 Apr, Wed
coach brought us frm Hangzhou to Shanghai. went to Xitang Water Village. i think this place was the coldest among all the sites we have visited. =/ there's this pic that shows luke's lighter because he bth. so the guys were using his lighter to keep their hands warm =.= bt the place was v beautiful. many peach blossoms (?) ard and u can still get to c ppl living by the river, in those ancient houses.. just exactly like those gu dai shows u see in hk dramas hahaha! saw many stray animals there and the lunch sucked. v unhygenic! the girls were telling me that the fishes were alr dead in their fish tank even b4 being taken out to cook YUCKS. dead rats ard too zzz visted some engineering company. boorrrinngggg =/ dinner at shanghai ROCKED! 1st time the guys ate like 5-6 servings of rice, compared to the usual 1 serving. =s went to gaigai ard the hotel wif pauline,jenny and xiuhuan. tried their mac's shaker fries! hot pepper flavour!

Day 5: 2 Apr, Thur
visited Shanghai Volkswagen factory which reminded me much abt boarie. his love for cars.. hahah. pretty interesting to see how the diff parts of the cars were assembled. went to Shanghai Stock Exchange too. arh, finance students asking questions during the Q&A session. sorry, i don understand a single thing =s went to the Bund where we get to see the Huangpu River, followed by dinner and the Xin Tiandi. it's like SG's Clarke Quay. but i tink SG's nicer. was spotting for nice looking angmohs heh. it was drizzling and cold so the girls and i shared a cup of hot Vanilla frm starbucks. arh, just like those scenes on tv where ppl order a cup of hot coffee and hold it to keep their hands warm? hahaha. had a bad experience wif their local cab drivers because he didn't want to drive us back to our hotel, since it was a short dist away only. =/ was so paranoid in the cab because the driver didnt on the meter initially and the numbers didnt jump as fast as SG's cab.

Day 6: 3 Apr, Fri
visited Shanghai Normal University and interacted with our Chinese buddies. i felt so guilty because our grp didnt prepare a small gift for them and i still thought that it would be okie to just give them the yanyan snack that i brought frm SG =/ bt after seeing wad other groups got for their buddies, i felt so bad luh! =.= the buddies were supposed to treat us for lunch and we said we wanted to eat jap food haha. they told us that we need to fork out $$ ourselves because it would be more costly then. at the moment i was abit shocked cause i expect its like those food stall frm canteen uh. they need to gei gao till like that anot =s bt in the end is jap restaurant o.o! bt of course all of us didnt mind because we were realllyyyyy sick of chi food LOL! after lunch went to the Oriental Pearl Tower, 263 storeys high! then followed by the Shanghai Municipal History Museum. v interesting!! too bad nt given more time luh. could have benefited more by reading more of those signs which explains the exhibits. evening went to Nanjing Road. tried their xiao long baos~ yay! thanks to kangjie and tofu for queueing up for us! after dinner went to gaigai again wif pauline n jenny. managed to spot some roadside stalls selling accessories! yay! but sean kwek's face was super black because i think he felt that we girls shldn't have wandered abt ourselves =/ i abit chuah tio...

Day 7: 4 Apr, Sat
went to the Longhua fashion market. a v run down shopping centre that sells fake goods. =/ v disgusted by that place because i got cheated over there. BAHH! long story so will nt elaborate bt basically that incident turned me off and after walking in circles, the few of us went up to the coach. we were given 2.5 hrs to spend there but i tink we were up on the coach again in less than 1 hr's time =s. chatted wif the bus driver n then had our KFC lunch on the coach. interesting experience... lols.. the thought of going back to SG cheered me up and i think most of us felt the same way too. (:

BIG BIG SUMMARY OF MY CHINA TRIP:

The Dislikes..

Most of the public toilets were dirty and they stinked
Bad impression of their local cab drivers
Bad impression of their local sales ppl (nt those in shopping malls) - because the prices were so unfixed, i feel that they most probably are cheating ppl of their $$
The amt of oil and salt they use in cooking =/ tired of eating pork, veggie all the time.... i missed western and fast food!
The dirty streets with spits almost everywhere
The amt of beggars on the streets. although it was pitiful, i was abit frightened by them.. =.=
The anyhow-crossing-of-roads! WTH LUH! traffic lights and road markings majiam build for fun 1 zzz
Noisy honks on the roads.
Being seperated wif boarie, bytches, friends and family. Btw, seeing tofu and his bunch of gd friends reminded me sooooooooo much abt the bytches and our sec sch clique of guys. i seriously missed all of ur during my trip. because i imagined how much we could have go crazy crapping tgt. luckily we went hk during sec sch days eh!! =D

The Likes..

Learning more about some of China's history and culture
Our coach driver and our local tour guides
Making new friends along the way
The weather!
Some of the cheap bargains available
Making me appreciate SG and my loved ones here more.

yep, that roughly sums up the trip! YAY! finally done wif this update! phew. and past few days i have been mahjong-ing! =D skype wif boar everyday heh. i still miss u so so much! i shall look forward to every 29th. so funnnnnn! xP and i guess lots of trust is involved while we are seperated during this 6 month period. faith! i believe we can overcome this obstacle tgt and the r/s will grow so much stronger (: AJA AJA!

ciao ppl! loves!!
p/s: changed new blog song. it was playing in the backgrd when we were at the Oriental Pearl Tower i think. made the atmosphere a lil more romantic although its a sad song =/ dedicated to my boarie! heh

~~LemOn teA~~ ^___~ _{7:18 PM}