Day 2: Hangzhou - Shanghai

Getting Away & Around
 
The first thing we did after waking up was to go to the train station to get tickets to Shanghai. We left our luggage at the hotel reception after checking out because we planned to have our first sight-seeing after dropping by at the train station.

As the cab pulled over at the station, we saw four regrettable words - "行李寄放" (luggage storage). We should've stored our luggage here instead of at the hotel! Now we had to go back to the hotel to get them before leaving for Shanghai. What a stupid plan!

Lesson 4 : This was kind of a careless mistakes. Do better research next time. =)

Anyway, what's done was done. We proceeded to get the tickets. RMB54 each. It's the train type called "动车" (Dongche) which traveled up to 180 km/hr. We later knew that this was not the fastest type. The fastest was the bullet train called "高铁" (Gaotie) which could go as high as 350 km/hr.

 The train tickets.

We never know getting a taxi in the street of Hangzhou can be such a adventurous, dangerous, challenging task. We wanted to save time so we thought getting a taxi would be much easier. But we didn't know we had to compete with a 70-year-old man who walked as if he needed a stick, but who stood in the middle of the 2-lane-road to stop a cab. After trying for 1 hour but to no avail, we decided to have breakfast at this shop...

Tasted bad beyond hope. Enough said.

Mr. Chin seemed a little calmer after having a meal. So we decided to try the bus. As soon as we know where the bus stand was (just a minute walk from the train station), we could easily figure out how to get from one place to another. It was seriously very easy, if you can read Chinese that is. At the bus stop it was written which bus stops here, which station it goes to, how much you have to pay, how frequent is that bus... Complete information. With a map in hand, you can travel the whole Hangzhou without having to ask for directions.

雷峰塔 (Leifeng Pagoda)

After a struggle of almost 2 hours, we were finally on our way to the Leifeng Pagoda.

 

 The entrance. We needed to pay RMB40 per person.

The building was rebuilt. Thus the escalator.

 Going up.

The plan view.

The remains of the historical site.

View of West Lake from the top of the pagoda.

Mr. Chin likes this picture very much. He said very "got feel".

The supposedly touching love story around Leifeng Pagoda. It was presented in a comic style wood carvings. The details of the carvings were unbelievable.

Bai Suzhen longs for the world of mortals during the gathering of immortals. (LOL!)

In the rain, Bau Suzhen borrows an umbrella from Xu Xian.

 Bai Suzhen reverts to her original form of snake on Dragon Boat Festival. (And Xu Xian fainted it seems.)

 Bai Suzhen steals the magic herb from kunlun mountain. (For Xu Xian because he fainted, remember?)

 Bai Suzhen launches a flood battle against Fa Hai on Jinshan Temple.

 After the battle Bai Suzhen meets Xu Xian at the broken bridge.

 Bai Suzhen is imprisoned in the Leifeng Pagoda by Fa Hai.

 That's their baby. HAHAHA!

 The Leifeng Pagoda crumbles and the family reunites. (Yeay happy ending!)

 Going down.

 Leaving Leifeng Pagoda, there was a temple opposite it.

 It stated that Emperor Qianlong wrote this. We were doubtful as it wasn't preserved.

A Graceful Walk Around West Lake 西湖

 Walking around West Lake. Notice the matching jacket and umbrella. HAHA! It was drizzling whole day.

 It was freaking cold.

Can always rent a bike when you're tired of walking.
 

 柳浪闻莺 (Liulang Wenyin). Notice the 柳树 (willow trees). You'd never see this in Malaysia.

The Journey to Shanghai

 

Reaching the Hangzhou train station, we saw this in the hypermarket.

 

 Jay Chou!!! HAHAHA!!!

 And many more other Taiwanese stars.

The trains were really punctual. It left sharp at 1603. In the train they showed the speed. It went up to 180 km/hr.

Upon reaching Shanghai South train station we went to get the return train ticket. We got the 高铁 (Gaotie) type - would only take 45 minutes to reach Hangzhou. But more expensive - RMB82 per person.

Bullet train. Could go up to 350 km/hr.

Taxi from Shanghai South train station to 浦东 (Pudong) - RMB60. Upon reaching my brother's RMB4-million-worth-condominium (he rented it of course, RMB8k per month), what greeted me were...

 

 BED!!!

 Night view on the 2nd floor condo. The condo on the left worth RMB30 million per unit, just because it had a Huangpu River view from the balcony.

 And dinner!!! This was chicken by the way. It was a cold dish. The Chinese like to have cold dish as appetizer.

 Lotus roots with glutinous rice covered with sugar. Weird, I know.

 沸腾鱼 (Feiteng Fish). It wasn't really boiling.

This tasted the most like Malaysian food. Long beans and minced meat. Yum!
 

 Very oily!

Scallop. This was actually quite good.

The Neighbourhood - LuJiaZui 陆家嘴

After dinner we decided to walk to the Huangpu River. My brother's condo just happened to be within walking distance to the Huangpu River. Couldn't believe my luck!

On the way to Huangpu River. The streets were decorated with lights in conjunction with the World Expo.

 Night view.

 Looking over Huangpu River at the Bund.

We even walked to the city centre. In the picture below, the one on the right was the tallest building in Shanghai - The Shanghai World Financial Center. That was the place where my brother worked. The one on the left used to be the tallest in Shanghai.

 东方明珠塔 (Dongfang Mingzhu Tower) - The Pearl Tower.

That pretty much ended the first night in Shanghai. We were exhausted after walking dozens of km all in one day. When we reached home my brother and his wife were already asleep. We did too the moment our heads touched the pillows.

Day 1: Malaysia - Hangzhou

I had long heard about how impolite and impatient the Chinese (in this case when I say Chinese I meant China Chinese, not Malaysian Chinese) are, but I had never expected to witness it even before I set foot on their land.

So we were waiting in line to check-in our luggage at the counter in LCCT. It was a long queue and I bet everyone was getting impatient. In front of us there was this Caucasian couple, didn't know where they were from, couldn't catch their language; behind us was a huge group of Chinese tourists. We all know there were two types of queue with multiple counters - one queue per counter, or one queue for all counters whereby the next in line could go to whichever counter that was available. Even the blind could see that they were using the latter method. So there was this counter about to open, and the Chinese tourists behind us got really excited. We watched in amazement as one of them moved the pole that formed the queue to make way for the luggage trolley. Before they could successfully drag their luggage towards the new counter, some guy from the airport came to hold the justice. The Caucasian couple were actually clapping away, whilst the Chinese getting annoyed. Me and Mr. Chin, we were simply amused.

"你们要嘛站这儿，要嘛站那儿呀! (You either queue here, or there!)" Shouted one of the Chinese to the Caucasian couple. As if they'd understand. HAHAHA!

We were thrilled when we first set out eyes on the seats in the plane. They were spacious, comfortable, almost luxurious, and highly compatible to those of MAS. But let's face it. We're on AirAsia - the cheapest everyone-can-fly airplane. The seats we were looking at, were actually...

Yes... Premium seats.

How disappointing. As expected, AirAsia X was no better than AirAsia, despite the longer hours of flight. It was equally cramped and uncomfortable. Well, what's to complain when we only paid RM420 per person.

 

The moment we exit the airport there were hundreds of taxi drivers approaching us offering different prices for a ride. Those were not registered taxi drivers. Some guy offered us RMB120 to Nanshan Road but we decided to wait in queue at the taxi stand. We managed to get in a cab after waiting in line for 10 minutes. The driver was a friendly man – we talked about the food in Hangzhou, places to go, the people and the language. He seemed to be curious that Malaysians speak the same language as him, though with different accent.

We gave him the address as to which hotel we were heading but he didn’t know where it was. “It’s a small hotel,” he said.

I desperately looked up the map I bought. “It’s near the junction where Nanshan Road and Qinghefang Road intercept,” I said, happy with my discovery.

“But Nanshan Road and Qinghefang Road don't intercept,” the driver said.

I stared at him in disbelief, then looked at the map again. I wasn’t wrong. And later when we discovered Hangzhou it was indeed proven that the map was right. That was the problem with taxi drivers in China - they didn't really know their way around. So it was necessary to know the exact location of where you were going or give him specific significant landmarks.

Lesson 1 : The address of the hotel alone is not sufficient. Be prepared to know your way around. Get a map and get the landmark.

But we were lucky that we had met that driver. He told us to give him the hotel contact number and he called them to ask where it was. And we found it. It was close to 11:30pm and I couldn’t imagine having to carry our 7.5kg luggage walking around in the drizzle looking for the hotel. I was really grateful at his kind gesture. The meter read RMB100 as we got out of the cab.

Lesson 2 : Always get registered taxis from the taxi stand. Most of the time it will be cheaper when charged by meter.

We stayed in Starway Jingshang Hotel that night. My review? Great amenities, friendly and helpful staff, clean rooms, totally worth a RMB188 per night. We were told that we managed to get a good deal because we booked earlier. The rate was higher than RMB300 by then.

Lesson 3 : Always book your hotel in advance. You'll never know if you'd get a better deal.

This worked like Astro, only better. You can choose from a list of movies, shows, drama series to watch, just one click away from your remote control.

 No closet or cupboard. But this was fine.

 Clean washroom. I always like to have the shower compartment isolated.

That settled our first night in a foreign country. We were more tired than excited. What we didn't know was, many more tiring days were awaiting us.

Back from China

As the plane touched down on LCCT I thought, tomorrow will be back to normal. And I realized how much I've missed the familiarity (just the familiarity, not Malaysia itself) - the broken English, the slow pace as opposed to the fast speed in Shanghai, the hot and humid weather, the comparatively peaceful traffic, nasi lemak, and the thought of having a good meal at home made me smile.

I started to salute my brother, who had gotten very used to the life in Shanghai. It wasn't as easy as I had thought, to get used to a city where people walk faster than you, and some of them spit on the floor. And the food tasted so... weird. And I found it difficult to understand what the people say when they talk real fast. Well, money and self-satisfaction are some important driving forces I guess.

The plane delayed 1.5 hours so we reached Malaysia at about 9pm. We took the free shuttle bus from LCCT to Salak Tinggi station and from there depart to KL Central by the KLIA Transit.

 First time on a KLIA Transit. Totally empty.

If only the public transportation in Malaysia is as efficient, as frequent, as cheap, as reliable, as punctual, as in China, that would surely save us a lot of trouble. I mean, people in China could actually walk to the nearest subway. But in Malaysia, we have to drive to the nearest LRT station, because if we walk it'd probably take us 3 hours or more. In some places, public transportation was not accessible at all. This is just so stupid.

Reaching home at 11pm with an empty stomach was not a good feeling. After dinner and TV I went straight to bed and fell soundly asleep without a single dream...

P.S. My next few posts will be about my trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou. Looking forward to it. ;)