going back to sg day

hahahaha.. today is the day.. the day tt i go back to sg!! lol.. past few days was like.. packing up stuff, eating, packing up more stuff, going out eat more, eat gd food, pmt pmt pmt pmt.. then ya..more packing b4 the agent came today morning to take over the house from us..



hahaha... so yea..this day marks the end of my 5 mths++ in china.. ill still update abt the more interesting events tt happened from oct-dec in shanghai dun worry.. but of cuz in btw might have some rants abt sch and whatever here and there..



THIS BLOG IS NT DEAD EVEN WHEN I REACH SG.. SAME URL SAME PLACE, SAME CHINAMA- AH I MEAN SGMAN... =)

nanjing again.. day 1!! =D

finally after a long long long long absence, im back to the blogging scene!!! muahahhaa.. hopefully u all didnt wait too long for the update... was busy touring friends ard in shanghai and nanjing...

well so we all woke up pretty early in the morning.. well at least nt 7am or so but still early enough.. at ard 9am.. at 1st plan was to climb up 紫金山 and touring ard tt place after tt... prob is.. i think we all too garang alr.. hahah.. took bus then after tt asked the locals how to get up to 紫金山.. they say its like 3hrs of climbing to reach the top there.. wa lao..3hrs jus to reach top ah.. i tot like 紫金山 slightly taller than bukit timah only..how i know so high.. so end up..ok la.. scrap the "healthy" idea of climbing mountain and go with the "unhealthy" alternative of looking for food cum brunch at 湖南路..muahahha.. unhealthy idea always >>>>> healthy idea.. but long term wise.. aiya... nvm la..since i fat alr doesnt matter right? hehehe...

okok..rant abt myself being fat aside.. we all cabbed down to 湖南路 and prawn porridge place for lunch.. as usual ordered the ownage 活虾粥. added fish head curry stuff too.. for a really satisfying brunch....

fish head curry stuff

ownage prawn porridge
so after the really full lunch we all walked towards the 狮子桥美食街... wanted to eat the 鸡汤包 but then abit too full.. so nvm la.. next time go back nanjing tt time i eat.. haha.. so we all jus walked ard abit..like exercise the guilt away la... then wa.. end up saw a like 棉花果(aiya..i forgot the name again) smth like tt kinda food.... so ok la.. smells/looks nt bad..decide to give it a try..
ok la..nt bad one.. up stairs slightly sweet, below inside got dou sha.. nt bad.. hahahaha

but wa.. sianz.. now i realised... input>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> output.. wa lao.. eat eat eat only.. haha.. but tts what im gd at.. haha.. after walking ard the 狮子桥美食街, decided to visit 鱼花台.. cabbed striaght to tt place...

got new flowers!! muahahha.. ok la.. prob they update and change flowers/drawings formed by flowers once in a while.. pardon the chui angle.. i cant get a gd angle then without either including ppl inside..or waiting for potientially an hr to make sure there's no one in the pic if i take a frontal view..

professionnell photographer help me take when i was at 雨花台... notice how fat i became.. T.T

more shots in 雨花台!!

i think last time i got 1 pic of this b4.. but still it looks too nice..make take another..=P

green grass is still as deadly as ever in 雨花台

after walking ard abit.. we managed to check out the patriot's exihibition hall!! the 1st time i went with celest we nv see cuz too late... ahaha... though the exihibition hall well.. nt really gd to take pics la.. cuz its mainly telling ppl abt the sacrifices of the patriots against the communists+ japs.. but still some pics to share..

poem. who can read? even though i chinaman my reading of chi still chui... :X

statue of some of the early patriots.. things to note.. they were all executed/killed in 雨花台

so after quite a while of touring in the exihibition hall, we all walk until hungry alr ma.. digested the brunch today... hahaa.. so we all took bus and made our way to the 太平北路 for... teppanyaki!!!! reaching early(5pm).. there was almost no one eating.. anw.. chionged the 150rmb buffet straight away.... best part abt 150rmb buffet..besides unlimited spamming of food from the menu... free flow of alcohol!!!

chef frying up our stuff

snakes anyone?

WARNING: MOUTH WATERING FOOD PICS COMING UP.. CHINAMAN IS NT RESPONSIBLE FOR WET PANTS DUE TO OVERDRIPPAGE(GOT SUCH WORD OR NOT I OSO DUNNO) OF SALIVA FROM MOUTH DUE TO FOOD BEING TOO DELICIOUS LOOKING

appetiser:sashimi
its fish i think.... shld be..haha

oysters

sotong ling(ring)

eel

mushrooms wrapped in bacon..

fish again!
asparagus
beef cubes.. one of the best teppanyaki-ed stuff imo..aha
prawns..yummy!mushrooms
dessert

then after dinner... still got mission!! and tt is to cut hair.. hahaha... apparantly it must have been fate of smth tt enabled all our hair to be long at the same time... so celest, her father and myself after the dinner went to cut hair at a salon near celest's house.. celest got cut hair there b4.. she say zai.. the girl with the stylo stylo hairstyle say the salon is gd then must be gd la! hahaha

hairstylist ask me whether wanna cut and gel hair like the street fighter guile like tt..

celest and myself after the haircut... celest hair still her usual style style kind..mine is er... well.. supposedly normal la.. supposedly.. hahaha

after the zai haircut..its rest... till nanjing day 2!!! =D

xi'an day 3!! =D

and now we're onto xi'an day 3!!! hahaha, the last day of the xi'an tour but definately nt the last day of golden week.. muaahaha.. then was only like 3rd oct.. still early ah.. hahaa... anw we were briefed by our commander cum tour guide, cui yichen on day 3 morning activities yest night... then the next morning...

3rd OCTOBER 0730HRS

LOCATION: XI'AN

MISSION CLASSIFICATION: DAMN TOP SECRET, FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION

OPERATION: FLAG CAB AND GO TO MUSEUM, EAT BREAKFAST

waking up at 7am again was a success.. tt operation went smoothly, surprisingly, very much diff from what we planned(celest overslping....).. so after packing up, washing up and whatever, we all headed out and proceeded to flag a cab... then told the driver to bring us to the museum there.. oh yea.. think i havent mentioned b4.. cabs in shanghai has a 起步费(go in price) of 11rmb(S$2.20), xi'an has a much cheaper 起步费 of 6rmb(S$1.20)... ie, spam cabs whenever u are in xi'an...hahaha

so ard 10mins later we reached the museum.. and what greeted us was the @%^$&*@ long queue.. well.. entry to the museum is free but still there are limited tix, ard 3000 like tt... and i so i tot we were alr kiasu to wake up so early and cab down.. how i know ard 3000++(estimated value) chinese are more kiasu than us.. well still we jus queue la.. so i join in the queue while celest and her father when to have and dabao some breakfast... after a while saw cui yichen.. he oso stunnded at the super long queue.. then shortly after tt celest came with breakfast... (some kinda cake or smth close to tt i think..) and joined in the queue... while waiting, we saw a roadside stall selling steamded corn.. so decided to try 1.. and... somehow.. the steamded corn tastes differently... ya.. its smth like sticky corn... mayb its only this stall but somehow it jus doesnt taste gd leh.. so nv really finish it....

after queueing for almost 30mins and hardly any progress(yichen did plant a spy in the museum(actually one of his relatives work there), tried to help us cut queue but alas, his museum spy today on leave...) we jus decided to nt visit the museum and head for the tang shan zhang temple instead..

oh yea.. the journey to the west guy.. tang shan zhang.. he's a real person who really walked from china to india.. obviously the monkey, pig and the rake holding guy tt supposedly accompanied him is fake.. of cuz his story is known to all, walking towards the west(india) go gain scriptures and knowledge.. and he started his journey towards india in xi'an itself... right where the temple is..

entrance to the temple

when jus walked past the entrance...

really tall pagoda overseeing the temple

temple inside oso had sculptures of famous poets

anw we did hire a tour guide outside the temple to bring us ard.. the tour guide did bring us inside, like talk abt history la, what tang shan zhang did, how far he walked blabla.... some pics outside the exhibition areas

after the short tour, rmb the pagoda? haha.. we deicded to like climb it.. cuz the poster outside says..

well basically can see gd view, relics, xi'an's ancient dunno what stuff, tang shan zhang's footmark etc etc..

basically, after climbing like 4 floors and endless squeezing, the "relic" tt we saw we this...
oh yea.. going up the pagoda to see relics turns out to be going up to squeeze only.... and see stuff like... a miniture pagoda.. T.T

so after tt we exited the temple..

the most chinese looking macs u can find here in china..

after tt we cabbed down to our lunch area.. tt lunch restaurant is located near the shopping area of xi'an..

(sry after the long wait its finally updated!)

eat healthly...must eat veg..

this hamburger like stuff is the 肉夹模...

"char kuay teow"

hot and spicy noodles or smth.. hahha.. again.. v oily, but still nt bad

this is somekinda liek srimp roll like tt.. but super nice.. very very oily though

after eating.. we decided to walk abit.. and well.. as i said xi'an is nt really developed.. so really their shopping centers cant beat shanghai.. we didnt go in them.. but tt was said by cui yichen.. so we hang ard outside, walked along some small streets stalls, all the way back to our hotel(so its said to be a 3km walk.. i felt like i walked 15km..)

ah... finally can take a gd pic of the city walls.. in xi'an , the city is surrounded by walls.. abit like castle like tt..

ya.. like u all see the chi movie wall for battle those kind.. the small windows are for archers(like hx..)to shoot other ppl..

shortly after tt, cui yichen got a cab for us to xi'an airport.. and we took a flight and reached our 2nd part of the golden week holiday(nanjing).. =)

xi'an day 2 part 2! =D

ok.. so now after touring the terracotta warriors.. after the endless squeezing and walking and whatever.. we all hungry la.. hahaha... ok.. so went ard to find some food.. though jus like the main exhibition hall itself, the restaurant oso mega crowded... tried restaurant no.1-- too many ppl, tried restaurant no.2-- they wanna sell us the biang biang mian at a 特价of 68rmb.. oh yea.. very the 特man.. so 特until its super ex.. so reject... tried restaurant no.3.. ah.. got space, price resonable..ok accept..

so here are the food tt we had.. paiseh.. i v the short term memory so i cant rmb most(if nt all) the name of the food... so after thinking for v hard.. i can vaguely rmb some of the names la..vaguely.. prob might be diff from what its actually called..

面no.1

面no.2

菜no.1

soup + stuff no.1

ya...tts all i can rmb for their names.. shldnt be tt far off from what its actually called la... anw.. eat until super full.. then we all boarded cui yichen's car again and headed for the 2nd attraction of the day 华清池...

well historically this is the place where emperor tang xuan zhong had his lomance(romance) of the 3 kingdom with one of his mistresses, yang gui fei... this area is actually a hot springs, and still is, but the hot springs part is under protection so no one can really view it..

well notice the mountains behind? tt mountain is where 蒋介石 ran into after being chased by his enemies during the 1940s... dun small see the politician ok.. i think then he got more jungle survival skills than most ns guys now.. hahah

the 7 dragon pond, which has got 6 out of 7 dragon heads shown in the pic..(the last one is behind these 6 dragons).. well legend has it tt long long long ago(prob after the age of dinosaurs, and during the time when humans do know what are dragons and such) , this area(华清池) was a piece of dry land.. so after a while, the jade emporer sent 6 dragons to give this area some water.. well the 6 dragons did tt and the emperor was happy.. however as the time goes by, the dragons(like some of us modern ppl now) slacked off.. so nv pour water and this area is going back to the previous state.. the jade emperor was furious and punished the dragons such that they are pouring water into the land till this day.. so where does the 7th dragon come in? the suay suay 7th dragon was sent to oversee these 6 dragons.. its head it located behind the 6 dragons...


and after tt we walked ard...

oh yea.. some of u might be curious how yang gui fei, the lady who caused tang xuan zhong to nelect most of his duties jus to jio her, might look like.. so here's a close up to a statue of her.. u have to take note.. during the tang dynasty.. the "in" thing for girls was to be plump.. yea.. being plump was the in thing then.. so the richer girls back then had it lucky by trying to stuff themselves fatter such tt rich officals or royal families may take notice of them.. then of cuz being such a rumoured beauty, yang gui fui's looks abit plump from this statue..

after tt we walked ard and saw various sections of bathing areas for emporers, princes, mistresses

and the one explanation provided is shown...

no pushing... yea right...

for a period of time.. 蒋介石 hid here and did his dang here dang there stuff.. so his office is still preserved up till now..

and presenting... the bathroom!!


so after the tour in 华清池, we took cui yichen's car and went back to the city there, bid goodbye to micheal jordan, i mean ma jun, then went for dinner.. its ROUND 2 AT 回民街!! so walked round and round and quite a while.. to look for a v gd 牛肉/羊肉泡馍 stall.... and yea.. its really worth the walk.. the soup is fragrant, the bread soaked in the soup is gd.. all in all.. a gd dinner.. btw.. i had 牛肉泡馍

washing it all down while a cup of plum juice..

some kinda mua chee like stuff

with some sweet kinda black sauce.. nt bad....

also we tried 肉夹膜.. abit like hamburger like tt.. its like some mutton/beef in between pita bread with some veges... yea.. jus like hamburger...

so after gorging ourselves again for the 2nd night in the row.. we headed back to our hotel, waiting for xi'an day3 to come! =)