P’s little guide to Shanghai (:

I know this post is LOOOOOONG overdue, I’ve been back for like a month. But I’ve just been busy, so here it finally is.

I seriously had an AWESOME time in Shanghai, I know that more importantly then anything it’s who you go with because let’s face it, we are completely Singaporean, and there are certain things that are not so pretty in Shangs (Note to Shanghai: PLEASE UPGRADE ALL TOILETS AND SEWAGE SYSTEMS, always carry your own tissue)

But once you learn that where the clean toilets are, you’re pretty much set to go C-R-A-Z-Y.

Firstly, let me say IT WAS COLD. Weather reports and all said that it was still fall, but once we got there, winter came 1 month early and temperatures dipped to 2 degrees – 7 degrees. Adjusting 20 degrees down is seriously no joke, it was a little too cold for me at first, but after awhile when it stopped raining and the sun came up, the weather was just perfect.

HOME. For 10 days, Eugene’s Dad was gracious enough to let us stay at his beautiful home. The estate is serene and gorgeous, srsly. Doesn’t look like its part of China, man. The cats there are plump and furry, our dog Nicole was a real sweetheart once she got to know us and we were seriously living the life. Eating, drinking, collapsing from exhaustion into bed every night, having wine at this dining table, shopping, drinking some more, trying to walk home, lol, great times.

Breakfast was a real highlight for the day, cause we made it ourselves (: we ate ALOT of eggs over the ten days – NEED THE ENERGY TO KEEP WARM.

Well, I wouldn’t be very Singaporean if I didn’t start with this. (:

Shanghainese food is rather good, they have extremely good Japanese food at super good prices too. The only complain I had was that THEY DIDN’T HAVE GOOD CHILLI. Which is really something I cannot live without, so that was a little bit upsetting. Other then that though, GOOD STUFF.

Yang’s fry dumpling is an institution. Someone told Germaine that you haven’t been to Shanghai till you’ve had these dumplings. And omg they are amazing. At S$0.20 per dumpling (mind you they are huge, 4 is enough to make you full), ITS SUPER CHEAP. The soups there are good too.

This is a dodgy little restaurant we walked into, they serve dog meat, but of course we didn’t have any, it’s actually rather common there. Gross. The street food scene in Shanghai is a very vibrant one, so depending on how strong your stomach is, choose places to eat accordingly. This is probably the dodgiest place we ate at, and I didn’t have any problems the next day, and I have a very sensitive stomach. It is rather safe to eat wherever you please.

POSH NOSH. On days/ nights when we had slightly more cash to spend we ate at slightly higher end food places. This one is called Citizen Cafe, a very quaint little restaurant in a shophouse. Great food, very cosy atmosphere, altogether very nice. They’ve won some awards for being the best Cafe/ Restaurant in Shanghai several times.

TAIKANG LU. La Boheme. This place is amazing, one of my favorites. Its actually an artist’s district, so there are many interesting people hanging around at the beautifully quaint restaurants and bars, there are art galleries all around, and also many stores selling photography. Its one of those places that I just wanted to walk around to soak in the atmosphere.

We ate at a restaurant called Kommune, which had great interiors and tags which you could take saying “kommunist”. So cute. Love the food, the big breakfast thing in the middle is SOAWESOMEOMG. Orgasmic.

THE MI:3 PLACE. None of us managed to find out the name of this place, we just know that its about 1 hr outside Shanghai and they filmed some scenes from Mission Impossible 3 here. But its such a beautiful place. Its so quiet, you can’t hear any traffic, no shouting, just miles and miles of these streams that lead to a river. We took one of those little boats, then we just walked around the dozens and dozens of shophouses.

Although it is a tourist attraction now, I’m guessing partially because of the movie, its still very serene. I just felt like parking my ass along the river in a chair somewhere and having tea by myself. Its one of those places where time really just stands still. Rather magical.

I didn’t watch MI:3 but when I googled it, I managed to dig up some movie stills from the place,

The pictures really don’t do it justice.

THE BUND, HUANGPU RIVER & THE SHANGRI-LA HOTEL. We walked along from The Bund to Huangpu river which is like THE tourist attraction in Shanghai, one can tell the government spent bucketloads of money for it to become what it is and it really is quite the spectacle. The skyline is beautifully lit up from 6-10pm and there are cruises you can take on the river to fully appreciate this. When we were there, the winter made it really foggy, so we couldn’t get any really good photos. On a clear day it would look something like this,

The tallest building in the picture is The Bund, you can go up to the taller circle to get a bird’s eye view of the place. But we decided to so something a little smarter, we found out that the Shangri-la has a bar on the 36th level that has a great view of the city as well, and there is no entry fee. You just have to pay for a slightly over priced drink, so we did just that. We dressed up a little and headed up, up, up. It was nice.

SHOP SHOP SHOP. Some notable places to shop include,

- Qi pu lu: Warehouse malls galore. Its a street with 2/3 malls where you can find really cheap stuff. Gets cheaper as you buy more.

- H&M, H&M, H&M: Singapore doesn’t have it, Shanghai has 5 outlets. Woooooot.

- Nanjing Lu: A great hugeass area with lots of malls and stuff, but there’s this underground  mall that I particularly like. Its near People’s square, called the pedestrian mall. I know what a horrible name, but its great. Its like Far east plaza but spread into a huge one level mall, and cheaper. I got a handbag for S$6, a wallet for S$12 – and it was supposedly like one of those minor designers, friends got caps, hats and some other apparel.

- Get stuff tailored: Its so cheap, about s$150 for a full suit including shirt, and its beautifully done.

I know that we didn’t shop much, but its also partially because everything on sale was winterwear, not exactly useful for us humid weather creatures. It was fun nonetheless.

DRINK TILL YOU CAN’T TELL THE TIME. Its awesome being tourists. Shanghai’s party scene is VERYVERYVERYGOOD. I would say its better then Singapore because there is no entry fees to most places, alcohol is cheaper and once you make some friends (which is chicken feet cause we are tourists), everyone will want to buy you more cheap drinks. So what do you do? YOU DRINK SOME MORE!

We drank every singly night that we were in Shanghai, it was INSANE.
10 nights in Shanghai, 7 nights clubbing/ in our little bar, the other 3 nights, we just had some wine or beer. Shiok.

Some places to club are Muse, there’s Muse I, II & III. II is the one of the clubs to be at in Shanghai, I heard celebrities go there. Not as though I care, though. There’s also Shelter, Mint (which is like a member’s only club), and many many more. There is this party guide magazine you can find all around Shanghai at like restaurants and stuff, it gives really good write ups about the clubs and where the best parties are being held. Look for it.

I LOVE SHANGHAI. This is also a bar, where every Saturday they have this free flow thing for like 3/4 hours. You just pay S$20 to enjoy free flow of housepours / S$30 to enjoy FREE FLOW of any drink in the bar.  It was insane. I loved it.

60’s BAR. This super non assuming bar became our second home. That nice guy in the 2nd last photo, runs the place and he’s like the grand-daddy of sin man. 62 years old, originally from America, huge old school rock fan, he’s a real character.  That is a Jagermeister tray in the shape of a cross in the last photo. Seriously. Not sinful at all.

Well, that more or less wraps up Shanghai. I was actually very apprehensive about going there, but I’m so glad that we did. It was soooooo much fun. If you get the chance, JUST GO OK. Tickets with M’sian airlines is only about S$400, and because we had accommodation, I only spent about S$800 over the entire trip of 10 days. I’m so glad I went.

xmas wish

DEAR Secret Santa,

My wish for this year is a very simple one! I need a black handbag (:

Specifications:

- I like animal skins, leather, patent (make sure it doesn’t look cheap though), zips, blah blah, anything also can, I’m easy!
- I want something medium sized, i.e. don’t need to be able to put anything A4 in it, slouchy slouchy also can, nothing too big.
- The handle(s) must be for shoulder carry

Ideas for brands:

- Charles & Keith, Perlini, anything of that sort is fine, just WITHOUT any large brand names please. I’m not a fan of brands on bags.

Let me show you some peektures:

Yea see, not so difficult right?? (:

Or if all else fails and you have no time you can just get me SIMS 3 for Mac.

Thanksewverymuch in advance.

oh btw ppl, I’VE COMPLETED MY FRIGGIN DEGREE! GOT MY RESULTS AND ITS ALLLLLLLLL GOOD! Woohoo.

This moment

Oh what I would give,
to bottle up this moment,
Seal it with a kiss,
and keep it forever.

Turn it into a potion,
to drink on my rainy days,
when you aren’t there
right by my side.

Oh, what I would do,
to have this love drug,
in the form of happy pills,
with little smiley faces.

For love such as this
deserves to be kept,
for the days when
we feel sad or old.

So take my kisses
and my hugs,
wrap them in paper
to keep them safe.

Use it wisely,
ration them well
that way I’ll always be the one
to get you through your days.