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!
No comments:
Post a Comment