Ground Zero

KB warned us that Saturday and Sunday would be the coldest days in our entire trip and his weather forecast proved to be accurate. During these days, the highest temperature was 5 degrees and it dipped to as low as zero degrees in the evening. My gaaaaad, it was freezing!

As mentioned in the last post, we decided to head back to Yuyuan since we were pressed for time during our first visit. We opted to have lunch at the World Famous Dimsum Restaurant located at the center of the Market. We weren't sure if that was just a description for the restaurant or its name was written in Shanghainese. Either way, the place turned out to be a treat! They had a variety of xiao long dim sum which I thoroughly enjoyed! My dad was also very happy because he found some pork siomai and hakaw -- low end dumplings according to our english speaking server. He was so frustrated with the xiao long bao! Lagi daw siyang napapaso! Heehee.




After lunch, we all parted ways. Cousins Inc. decided to spend the afternoon at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (SSTM), Samahang No Kids went to the Urban Planning Museum while the Oldies stayed at Yuyuan to indulge in a little retail therapy. The cab ride there was long and tedious. Just entertained ourselves by taking pictures of the busy streets and the huge and imposing structures. When we get to SSTM, we have to wait another hour as KB and family decide to take the train because they don't allow 4 adults plus one child in one cab. Hello! The 'adults' were aged 12 and 8! Oversized nga lang. Heehee.



Since so much time was wasted sa 'hintayan', we opted to just watch the 430pm showing at the IMAX theater instead of going around the SSTM. We were advised that two hours would not be enough to go around the whole area and so we wouldn't get our money's worth. Pero naman, yung movie, in Mandarin! Ano yon. Oh well, we might as well go along with the plan since we went all the way there na rin. Of course this did not seem to affect my two angels who were amused regardless of the chinese audio. After the movie, we made our way back to Nanjing for our 630pm appointment with the rest of the gang.


Since this would be our last stress-free dinner in the city, we opted for the buffet in the Tatler Restaurant at the JC Mandarin Hotel. To this family, buffet means eat until you can't breathe. Which is exactly what we did! Im sure nalito sa amin yung resto because even the kids were big eaters! They had to continously refill all the stations because parang dinaanan ng bagyo.

After dinner, the four of us crossed over to Plaza 66 to look around a bit and try to work out the calories we piled on. Plaza 66 is super high-end and you can go around the whole day without buying a thing. Ang mahal kasi! After our short stroll, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The 30th would be our last day here. As usual, we started at 11:00am na. We made our way to the Shanghai Uncle Restaurant as recommended by Dondi's HS pal and Shanghai resident Candy. I first caught a glimpse of the resto's ad in the cab we were riding. It looked a bit sleazy but open heart, open mind diba.

The place turned out to be the best restaurant we had eaten in! All the dishes we ordered were wiped out! We had noodles that looked like soba with little bits of chorizo sprinkled all over. It was also my first time to taste hamonado na duck (imagine duck jerkey). My dad also took a chance on boiled/braised pork. OMG. To die for. Melt in your mouth pork liempo--hard to explain. But my favorite dish was the shrimp wrapped in dory fish in black bean sauce. I wish I was one of those foodies who could eloquently describe a dish and its taste. But Im just your regular Joe and my kindergarten explanations will have to do. But you must, must try the Shanghai Uncle Restaurant while there. You will not be disappointed!

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Westgate Mall on Nanjing Road. As mentioned, it was an extremely cold day and so we had to look for an indoor activity. This was also the only time we had to go shopping and buy something special for the kids. Believe it or not, I did not buy anything for myself. Nor did Reymond. We just bought remote control helicopters for the kids para lang masabi na may remembrance of Shanghai. It was just so cold (kahit indoors). It was difficult to enjoy the stores. Besides, hardly anything was on sale so we just saved our money. Dinner was just at the food court so that we could rush back to the hotel to pack up and catch our 12:30am flight to Manila.

To end our memorable holiday trip, KJ gets into a fistfight with a middle aged man at the airport, right before immigration. He, together with his children, my mom and her yaya get detained by the airport police. I was not around when the incident happened because I had to run to the restroom but as per the blow by blow account of the others in my group, nasingitan daw si KJ sa line and middle aged guy was talking down to him when he began to protest. Dahil bastos daw si middle aged man, binigyan daw niya. OMG. It was really a scary moment. I was so afraid to get stuck in this communist country where the term human rights is close to obsolete. Thankfully though, KJ had the sense to just swallow his pride and apologize to the parties concerned. We got delayed though for 40 minutes and everyone was giving us the evil eye when we entered the airplane. Oh well. Happy New Year nalang. What else could we say. We were just too happy to get on that plane and go home!

Ok ba? Ay naku. My family is never complete without any drama involved. So since nasa watchlist na kami sa Shanghai (heehee), I guess we'll have to settle for somewhere other than China next year. Abangan....

The Love Bus

It's not very difficult to get around the city because the taxis here are affordable and as long as you ask the concierge to write your intended destination in chinese characters, you will have no problem directing the driver to where you want to go. BUT since we were a group of 25, there was a degree of difficulty in gathering everyone and moving from one place to the next. Fortunately, our tour package comes with a half-day tour of Shanghai, complete with a nice warm bus and a very reliable tour guide in Alex.

Our first stop was the Jade Buddha Temple which is well, uhm, ahhh, ehhh --- just your regular temple. My newest discovery is that jade not only comes in green pala. Pwede rin ivory colored. They also had a reclining buddha --- but maybe just 1/100th the size of the more popular one in Bangkok. Look, look, snap, snap, struggle to get everyone back in the bus! Off to the Bund we go.



The most popular view of Shanghai you will see in all travel books and postcards is the view taken from the Bund. This area is the equivalent of our Roxas Boulevard and the Dhow Creek in Dubai. Accross the Bund, you will see the skyline of Shanghai with the Oriental Pearl Tower as its most prominent structure. Along the area, you will find restuaurants, coffee shops, benches to lounge on, people flying kites, food carts and vendors selling silly items such as the mutating pig. The toy is thrashed on the floor/wall/glass panel (dapat slippery surface) and instantly sticks like a blob. Afterwhich, it comes together again and in a few seconds, mutates from a blob back to a pig. Gets? Ay, very hard to describe but all the kids were amused! Lola Linda bought 7 mutating pigs for our 7 little rascals.

At this point, Dad is complaining that his head is already spinning due to extreme fatigue brought about by passing the lunch hour without eating. So off we go to the Tian Hao(?) Silk Worm Factory for our free lunch and tour around their premises. Its your usual tourist trap but I guess we are smarter now. You don't actually have to buy something! Lunch was not noteworthy nor was the factory and its goodies so I would rather not elaborate on it. The last stop for our tour was the Yuyuan Garden.



The Yuyuan Garden is a famous classical garden located in the Chinatown of Shanghai. Isn't that funny? Chinatown in China? Heniway, the garden was finished in 1577 by a government officer of the Ming Dynasty named Pan Yunduan. Yu in Chinese means pleasing and satisfying, and this garden was specially built for Pan's parents as a place for them to enjoy a tranquil and happy time in their old age.

The garden is located in the middle of the Yuyuan Market and it is a very busy place with hordes of people milling around. Alex was very strict with his instructions that we should stick together and that he would give us free time after the garden to explore the market. Obviously, the oldies did not listen to his plea. They were too busy negotiating with the street vendors that a trip to the garden that should've been over in 30 minutes stretched to an hour and a half. Ergo, no more free time for us.

While walking around the garden, Alessi decides to sit on a rock previously occupied by Yanna and Annika. Reymond had just put her down so he could rest his aching neck. In a blink of an eye, Alessi loses her balance and falls face first on a bed of rocks. OMG. I almost fainted when I saw the blood oozing from her lips. I was already bracing myself for the worst. Thankfully, after being checked by the 3 doctors in our group (naks), they were able to determine that her wound did not need stitches. But her lip was really swelling -- talo si Angelina. My poor baby. But then again, it could've been worse. So I'm just thankful it was nothing more than a lip wound.



Because of the deaf and disobedient oldies, we no longer had time to explore the market. Due to time constraints (the half day city tour had already stretched to 530pm!), we just decided to come back tom. to eat and explore the other side of Yuyuan.

Since we enjoyed our lunch yesterday, we opted to have dinner at the other branch of Meilongzhen along Nanjing Road. This particular branch was located in an old, authentic Chinese house so we give this resto 100 for ambiance. But the service--naku, poor! I consider myself patient compared to my parents and my brothers but even I was losing my temper with the very, very slow service. Ang bagal talaga. Duling na ang mga tao in between dishes. So my advice is, take the Meilongzhen at the Westgate Mall. Avoid the one on Nanjing Road at all costs!

We brought the kids back to the hotel and after dressing them down and depositing them to their lolas and yayas, the young ones decided to go 'templing' at Wujiang Road. This area is known for their street food and it caters more to the locals than to foreign visitors. Once again, we were demoted to pointing at food ordered by the surrounding table because NONE of the servers spoke english. Its a good thing this group is well versed in the art of sign language! Besides, Alex also provided us with a list of important words to remember (i.e. ice/cold=ping, etc.) so all we had to do was point to the food and to our list of words. We gave new meaning to the famous Filipino slang turo-turo!

After stuffing ourselves silly with food that only God knows where it came from, we made our journey back to Jin Chang. We were already dreaming of our dimsum lunch at Yuyuan tom.!

Lumpiang Shanghai

I did not find a single restaurant in this place serving my daughter's favorite lumpia. Instead I am greeted by the coldest weather I have ever experienced in my whole life! I had the bright idea of taking my family for our annual Christmas vacation to Shanghai without fully understanding the situation I was getting my entire clan into. As Maja would say, JUSKO. Shanghai was freezer temperature!

The good news is that we really got a good deal for this trip care of Cebu Pacific. Our airfare including accommodations, daily breakfast, airport transfers upon arrival and departure plus a city tour with a very able and learned tour guide cost us all but P16,000 buckeroos for each person. Beat that! If for that alone, this trip was well worth it.

We landed a little before midnight in the Paris of China. We are met by Alex -- a Shanghainese well-versed in the English language. We were so impressed by him! He brought us to the Jin Chang Hotel which would be our home for the next 5 days. Jin Chang is not 5-star! But it is clean, spacious and the staff could speak reasonably good english. In a land where hardly anyone can understand what you're saying, this is a very important consideration! Our daily breakfast though had much to be desired. If you want authentic food, then this is the hotel to go to! But if you are used to the typical omelettes, bacon, sausages, etc. then I suggest you order out the night before and then just save the meal for the next day. Heehee.










On our first day here, we head to Westgate Mall for lunch at the Meilongzhen Restaurant located at Level 6. My husband was dying of laughter because I initially told him we would be going to Gateway Mall. Ang layo naman daw ng Cubao from here! Ok, so Westgate pala! This mall is located on Nanjing Road--the equivalent of Nathan Road here. We chanced upon this restaurant while browsing thru the lonely planet book Paolo bought for Mom. We were treated to some great Shanghainese cuisine which consisted of basically your typical chinese food except it's less greasy and less prone to high blood! My newest discovery is their xiao long dim sum whose very unique feature is soup inside the dumpling. The others hated it and thought it was too messy to eat but I actually enjoyed it! Just be very careful though because the soup inside can burn! You just have to find a technique to it!


After lunch, KB directs us to their train system and we make our way to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. It is the biggest aquarium in Shanghai and reputed to be one of the most beautiful ones in the world. The Aquarium has a total built in area of 20, 500 square meters and it sits right beside the Oriental Pearl Tower. The kids had a blast! Ika nga ni Carlo, 'this is the best day of my life!' That boy is so sweet! I would recommend the SOA for anyone who will be visiting Shanghai with kids. Even a big kid like me couldn't help but be in awe of their exhibits!

But you know my family and we cannot have a vacation without any drama involved. KJ decides to hitch a ride back with us to the hotel since he got left behind looking for some USB cable wire he allegedly dropped inside the SOA. He obviously didn't find it in the 20,500 sq meter facility and so he kept muttering and cursing inside the cab for the whole ride. HASSLE. It didn't help too that we were travelling during the rush hour. What should have been a 20 minute cab ride that would typically cost 30 RMB stretched to close to an hour with double the fare! I was near tears!



We got back to the hotel barely in time to make our 630pm departure for the Chinese Acrobats show. This was a treat! Although it was at times bordering on freakish, it was entertaining nonetheless. They had the sisters with no bones, juggling hats, hoolahoop matrix, magicians, balancing on chairs, playground rollers, swinging in the air on a piece of cloth, going through hoops, etc, etc--man, these people did not stop moving for an hour and a half! The highlight of the evening was 4 crazy motorcycle riders inside a round metal cage going at each other's tail at what seemed like lightning quick speed! Grabeh! Sorry Gab, I was too busy watching the show that I forgot to press the REC button on my video cam! I'll try to see if my bro caught it on tape.

The show ended at 930pm and we were dog tired to go anywhere else. We were looking forward to our city tour tomorrow. Yipee! No more taxi cabs! At least for a day!