Second Day

ok i''ll try to remember the names of the places we visited, but it's difficult coz they all start to sound alike in chinese. also there's alot of my pictures and not much of the scenery (google if you want only scenery shots), you may wish to skip through!

on the bus in the morning

the day started off with really lousy breakfast buffet consisting (3star hotels are shucky)-- powered milk, very artificial syrup orange juice, chinese sausages made to look western and tastes vegetarian, very oily and dried noodles, and a whole lot of other chinese baos. needless to say, i saved my stomache for the sumptous lunch later on.


first stop was (i think) Hu Bin Street

spotted the first starbucks of the many i saw in Jiangnan.

to clarify, i spent my days in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and all these areas adds up to JiangNan 江南

the street outside where we had lunch

at the doorways of the restaurant:

how you could safe-guard and keep your umbrella

next was this very expensive shops street (again, can't remember the name) :

my dad reformated his corrupted SD card so the photos from the first part of the trip was all GONE. cries out loud! :'( this explains why my msn nick was "depressed".



cute little kids all bundled up = one of best parts of winter
luckily her smiley grandpa allowed us to snap pictures with her!


got to Suzhou industrial park, you know, that one that Singapore invested in and had alot of press on it. that place is fancy and the apartments feels like singapore condos from far.

we got down to take pictures at the bird nest of shanghai!

jump shot fail 1.

jump shot fail 2 + special effects

we were next to Golden Chicken Lake anyway.

Golden Chicken金 鸡 sounds like economics 经济 in chinese.

i hugged a tree there!

the whole tour trip consisted of ALOT of gardens. seriously! i think i have walked through 6 times chinese garden. but theyre quite beautiful so im not really complaining. just that sometimes i wish they could turn into shopping malls.

then it was to OuYuan, Lotus Garden.
it was a place that a rich couple bought decorated it really well then later donated to the government. sohipscated and educated people 文人 were thought to live in large and scenic gardens, where they get inspired and write beautiful and long poems and are cultured.
moral of story: live in a garden.

where the slaves wait for their masters to finish their visits and park the sedan

in the garden:the tour guide said pretty girls sit this way: with a arm over the railing and i guess looking into the waters or something. well, i think it's balooney.

the well at the entrance, so small!

my sister's pro camera could capture even the reflections in the well water!

thats me, not sadako

in the christmas season, look reindeer!
when i took this picture, i was missing my socialite a fair bit. haha!

eating up a boat
is no easy feat

cute rubbish bins and parody

on the way back to the bus, saw a room bursting of plants! reminds me of my house in pet society too... AWW! haha btw i have a garden room now. quite cool.

月 落 烏 啼 霜 满 天
江 楓 漁 火 對 愁 眠
姑 蘇 城 外 寒 山 寺
夜 半 鐘 聲 到 客 船

i visited the place where 張 繼 got inspired to write this poem!

night scenery was breath-taking
saw a couple taking bridal pictures :)

outside restaurant for dinner!!
countless cute children!

after dinner was burning of fats at this street where there werent much things to purchase. LOTS and LOTS of winter jackets. -__-" and boots. and pretty expensive too.

dad got us thin-crusted pizza, yum.

the day was pretty packed with things to do. but that day was quite horrid for me.

incident 1
starting half of the pictures was me wearing the fur scarf which cost me $17 in singapore but it was dropped and lost in the second shopping street we went to. the thing was i traced back my steps where i was sure i dropped it along and there were very little people in that level of department store but i couldnt find it! i was quite sure whoever picked it up pocketed it without a thought of returning it. :'(

incident 2
after dinner, i purchased a magazine from a vendor outside and he asked for 30yuan instead of the 20yuan that was stated on the cover. it was 20 （zhōng guó huò bì dān wèi míng chēng）');">元/30 港 币, meaning 30 hongkong dollars. he later apologised but i could tell he was out to cheat me initially.

incident 3
at the shopping street after dinner, i bought a pair of leggings and asked for a new pair, which was granted. but due to time constraints, when i opened the bag, i realised the lady gave me the display pair, which had runs in them and was a little furring. theyre really lazy to get me a new one even after promising me.

the end of the day left me feeling as cold as the weather and disappointed with the people i came across unfortunately.