yamapi!

♥Thursday, January 04, 2007

day 2 of orientation! today was fun too- now i know the difference between jc orientation and secondary school orientation! :D heh i'll tell you all later :D

day 6- 21st december 'o6
it was a really tiring day- we started of the day with a visit to lake taihu and it was really cold some more! but we got nice pictures (: we went to "Ray Pearl" factory after that and watched them explain to us about pearls- they even cut open a real oyster for us and took out the pearls- there were more than twenty inside! i took two home HAHA.

we shopped there and mummy bought a nice set of real pearl necklace and earrings, and i bought cultured pearls earrings. we left for suzhou after that. in suzhou, we visited the ou yuan. its this really big ancient house, all the traditional chinese stuff there, and a really big garden. they even have like a mini mountain! :D nice to take photos-

we visited han shan si after that- its a monastery. it didnt hold much interest for me and i was hoping that they'd hurry up and bring us to the next place! mummy didnt even go la. the nice part was the silk factory. they showed us real silk worms and we got to touch the cocoon of silk. if you shake it, there's a rattling sound- thats the silk worm inside! (gross!) we saw how they opened up the cocoon and took the silk out. the dead silk worms were peeled off and deposited in the dustbin! ewwwwwww- haha. it was really interesting.

daddy bought all of us silk blankets- they say that silk blankets keep us warm in cold weather, and cool in hot weather! we went for a fashion show after that, but it was less than 5 minutes and not very good- i took some pictures! but i think daddy deleted all of them hmph. we set off for shanghai next!

the food in the restaurant in shanghai was good- one of the best we had so far! and our last catered meal. we visited the oriental pearl TV tower- dong fang zhi zhu where we had a beautiful view of the night life of shanghai. shanghai is really beautiful at night- almost all the buildings have lights! its far grander and better than orchard road (oops!) the oriental pearl tower is the third tallest tower in the world- we went for a boat cruise down huangpu river and we could see somemore of the nightlife. its was good (:

but we reached the hotel back really late- we stayed at a8 hotel and personally i think its the second best, or the best hotel we stayed in during this whole trip! the room is really cheerful and quite big. and get this- the bathroom, is made of glass! so when i first went in i was like O.O- everyone can see us bathe! but there's a shower curtain for us to pull to protect our modesty HAHA.

day 7- 22nd december 'o6
my birthday! but not a very good one- we didnt do much that day! lousyyyy- we went to the shanghai urban planning exhibition first- its like the URA in singapore. its crazy la, you see their future plans for expanding shanhai. the future shanghai's gonna be super SUPER big. we went to some feng shui thing next and it was a waste of time- i almost fell asleep. i mean im not interested in feng shui, and the instructor's chinese is super chim la- i couldn't follow him sadly.

we watched the others haggle for the prices of some jade stuff and off we went again! we went to some street- i forgot the name! to eat lunch and shop. the xiaolongbao there is really famous and nice- we bullied our tourguide into queuing for us! poor thing- but actually it wasnt US who decided it; it was that family of 8. so we just followed along then *shrugs*

the lunch was lousy- the food was all cold! :/ but the xiaolongbao was really good- we each ate 4! we went to shop after that- there's lots of stuff to buy. the nicest was the copper-wired names we got. our whole family got our chinese names and i got edlyn's name for a birthday present- its super nice laaaaa! the guy is really talented- i decided! im going to take up bending copper wire as a hobby too! :D

the free foot massage after that was crap- we soaked our feet in herbs first and then they told us that those below 18 are not allowed to do the massage HMPH! so we just sat there and watched- but their main objective there is to sell things to you! once you show that you're not interested- they finish up the foot massage in like a few seconds and bye!

we had dinner at nanjing road- we ate ajisen for my birthday treat! japanese food is really cheap there, because everything is divided by 5! (: we shopped, but its mainly clothes and what season am i there at? WINTER- so what do we buy? JUMPERS- i feel so cheated! i must go back in summer again to shop for clothes! hmph- well thats the end of my long-awaited birthday. wasn't pretty much. didn't even feel like my birthday at all! ~~this was one of the worst birthdays i had.~~

day 8- 23rd december '06
HOME SWEET HOME!! :DDDDDDDD

photos below!