First day in Shanghai was quite normal. Mild traffic obstruction on the way to the hotel but otherwise as smooth as my previous visits.
Except this was the first time I arrived in Shanghai during the busier hours of the night, so I was able to see the city in a more vibrant atmosphere.
That's when I realised there's that whole road of malls just 500m south of my hotel.
I've never looked there because my previous visits were more focused on the north and I never had the time and energy to look anywhere else.
Not this time. I had booked this trip half a year ago in anticipation of end-of-season sales but did not expect to have that much stuff in my office by this time of the year due to my own misjudgement.
Now I have plenty of time to shop around.
The most interesting thing I saw was the pork moon cakes. Most vendors wasn't having a lot of business except for one that had a relatively ridiculous queue despite not having ridiculous prices - they were 3.50 yuans each.
The next most interesting thing was the preserved thing I believe is octopus slices which were individually packed.
Third was the Crocodile clearance sale where the discounts were as low as 90%. Yes, it was PACKED. I didn't even bother to look at the clothes after a glance at the crowd at the entrance.
Anyways, this trip was not completely problem-free. Again, I had forgotten something significant but not highly important. The last time, it was the router. Now, I had neglected to bring its charging cable.
Fortunately, I had long developed the habit of keeping it fully charged whenever I can remember to do so, hence I have roughly 3.5 hours of Internet time to last my week of travel, although hopefully the Internet access will be wireless at the HK hotel so that I won't have to worry about not having enough battery to check in for the final flight online.
I can, of course, just use the free wireless access at the lobby but I don't like to occupy the sofa for too long. Moreover, I don't like to have people walking behind me when I'm online.
So this is why I'm again blogging on the Notes app.
BBC just reported that a recent study estimated that half of the food produced in the world each year is wasted.
OMFG!
So BBC is still talking about the rapes in India. Apparently, it's actually a valid argument in India to question why that girl was out so late that night.
That's how the rapists' lawyer is defending them.
Tbh the journey here was pretty good. The first flight from SG to Pudong was on a 747, probably my first in a very long while. I didn't even know until I checked my itinerary from Expedia after I noticed how nice the flight was.
First, the seat slides forward instead of simply having the back tilt backwards.
Second, there was a good amount of leg space which I later realised was to compensate for the forward-sliding seat.
Third, it had that nice personal entertainment system that I remembered fondly from a long time ago.
There were also a few things I liked that had nothing to do with the plane itself.
The meal was pretty nice; they used short-grained rice instead of the usual stuff.
The other thing was that the flight wasn't crowded at all. In fact, I did not have to share my armrests with anyone throughout both flights, also a first... Probably since forever.
Then at Pudong, despite my fatigue I remembered to get dinner which I purchased at the Burger King. For less than 60 yuans, I got a double whopper, a fish burger and a tender grill.
60 yuan = 12 SGD
The taxi trip was the smoothest ever. I knew where to go and the driver knew almost exactly where it was when I said the name so that I only have to correct the block number after he tried to confirm the address with me.
At the hotel, I had a tiny problem when I underestimated the deposit required which forced me to take out my CNY stash in an envelope in my bag which I really didn't want to reveal in public.
After I was getting ready to leave the check-in counter for my room, the man told me I was given a free upgrade but I was not allowed to get a last-minute extension.
It was not as great as it was supposed to be.
The pros:
- two single-plus beds combined
- the room is even more spacious
- corner room, so less neighbours and more windows.
- 50% bigger wardrobe
- a stand for the luggage
- a bathtub!
The cons:
- the condition of the room is the worst I have ever seen in my three stays here.
First, the wall around the luggage stand was filled was black scrape stains. Next, the wooden wall next to the kettle had a huge white stained that's clearly caused by steam from the kettle. Third, the Internet cable was faulty although I managed to use the one that connected the TV's router to its modem. Fourth, one of the standing lamps was faulty. Fifth, the shade of one of the bedside lamps was crooked. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it had been broken and was hastily repaired with black tape. Sixth, the tub's tap was slightly faulty and continued to run even when the shower was in use. Seventh, the basin contained many black scrape stains.
But the bathtub compensated for all that. I haven't used a bathtub since 2010, when I shared the room with a few other people.
When I asked the guys at the counter during the check-in process if there would be any problem if I ordered food delivery, the told me I would have to collect it at the lobby.
That had never happened before. Even when the delivery company called that one time to inform me that the hotel stopped the delivery man from entering, I solved that by yelling at the front desk on the phone asking why they were stopping the food delivery.
As for tonight, the delivery man managed to get to my room without any issue again.
But now I decided not to push my luck too far. Since it was so cold, I ordered extra food so that I won't have to worry about tomorrow night. Usually the tiny size if the fridge prevents me from doing this, but now I can simply leave them at the window.
It's between 4 to 6 degrees Celsius today, so it's as cold as the fridge even when the sun is up. At night, it's 1 degree. By keeping my curtains closed, the balcony might as well be a natural freezer. I also tried to make sure all the food kept for the next meal was cold dishes because I don't have an oven here.
I do have an idea on how I could reheat food, which is to use the hot tap water, but that's troublesome and hot food can get soggy while cold food don't.
Kinda forgot to make sure I didn't order too many spicy dishes and I did not expect Hunan cuisine to be this hot. In one dish, after picking out all the red chilli, I realised a lot of the green bits were chilli too.
But the candied goose liver was awesome and only cost 18 yuan. It's supposed to be plain liver slices cooked in honey, although I believe it's more likely that they were probably just boiled in sweetened water. Still, they were good enough that I finished them despite feeling full. I think I will try this with pork liver at home.
It's so cold here, I can barely move around in my room with only one layer of clothing. The hot bath and shower really helps but this does not last throughout the night. Thank goodness I don't have the habit of taking a leak during the night. That would really suck.
Second day
Ok, the cold had done something to my pores. I felt a stinging sensation on my arm during the morning hot shower and noticed that a lot of my pores on my arms were swollen.
I have no idea what this is but I suspect I should really get body butter for times like this. I had not thought to bring this so the only moisturiser I have is for the face. Could work but not as good.
Checked in at noon for my Sunday flight to Hong Kong. Unsurprisingly, the process was plagued by lag and at least ten seats have already been taken.
Fortunately, both of my flights from this point on will be on 777s, and together with the fact that I don't expect heavy traffic now, I don't think it's going to be crowded.
I'm not sure if I have ever been on a 777 too, so I will be finding out soon.
So two experts on Bloomberg and maybe BBC have said that the American politicians don't seem to be very eager to solve the underlying issues that had caused the 2008 mortgage crisis, with one of them describing them as "becoming more European".
Basically, whatever problems exist in the American financial system, they are still there, covered, partially forgotten and still festering. The way things are going, it's not a matter of "if" but "when".
In other words, it's not a good idea to invest in the US over the medium term, regardless of what Warren Buffett has just said.
On Europe, Cyprus : the latest domino to fall in that continent. Obviously, whatever the Europeans have been doing, shit's still on the fan, yo!
As for France, apparently it's being viewed as increasingly uncompetitive. This problem is not expected to be solved as the labour system is not flexible, causing Hollande's recently proposed labour reforms to be unlikely to be passed.
Oh, and there is some risk of the UK having its ratings cut in the near future.
In China, CPI's still rising. Exacerbating the Chinese economic situation is the coldest winter in 28 years, causing food prices to rise. Apparently, China may get reluctant to let its currency rise further.
Worse, there is some evidence that MAY indicate that China has been manipulating data just like Greece before its fall.
Japan's Abe may be splurging on the economy, with a large chunk on rebuilding the north and a smaller-than-expected portion on defence despite the recent spat with China, this has been done before and never have such measures worked for the country.
Yea I've been watching a lot of Bloomberg at night over here since I did not bring enough entertainment over with me.
Right now, all these make me glad I'm Singaporean.
They say that Apple is not doing very well in China, but whenever I went past the Apple store, it's always filled compared to the much smaller Samsung and Nokia stores.
Went back to that mall-filled road south of my hotel. I'm still not sure what its called but I think it's the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street. All I know is that it ends at Xizang Middle Road.
Bought some preserved meats. I really didn't know how the system worked, so after I hung around in the crowded shop with the packets in my hand to watch them. However, I couldn't tell for sure because they were all talking in Shanghainese. In the end I watched the vendor hand a clipboard to a man who then went to a cashier whom I did not notice before.
That was strange because that vendor had a bowl of cash and I saw him taking money from some of the locals. So I watched the male customer more closely to see what was happening, and that was probably when the vendor shouted to get my attention before taking the packets off my hand, telling me the prices of each, writing the final bill on a clipboard and finally directing me to the cashier.
I paid, the cashier used his stamp on the bill which was really just a sheet of A4 paper that was reused for all customers, and I exchanged the clipboard with my purchase which the vendor had bagged for me.
I still have no idea why he handled cash for some customers.
Anyways, the meats were cheaper than I thought. I bought a 500g-pack of boneless chicken thigh, a 500g-pack of bone-in duck thighs and a pack of four meatballs with a whole salted egg yolk each.
I think it was 83 yuan for all that. I've only a vague idea of what to cook with them.
Also bought some meat moon cakes. The pork ones were 4 yuan each although there was one that was selling at 3.50 and had that very long queue.
Bought 3 pork and 3 crab ones.
Overrated. Or maybe I was full. I found the meat to be too bland for the crust.
22:08
Blackout. Wtf? Heater's gone out but I'm buried under two layers of thick blankets anyway. The only issue is that it's too quiet.
There was a bit of commotion outside my door, probably from my neighbours. I thought about calling the front desk but figured it would be swamped and that I would be overreacting. Opened the curtains for some light and saw that other buildings next to us were fine.
22:13
Everything's ok again. Still, my impression if this hotel has worsened.
Third day
Checked various maps to find the exact location of my grandmother's columbarium whose address an uncle had emailed me.
Turns out it will be a long trip via MTR and light rail to get there, but I'm glad I picked a hotel that's close to a MTR station.
One thing about this hotel that I did not expect was that its website is telling me that it's going to be cheaper to take a cab from the airport to reach it than by train. Apparently, the cab fare is estimated to be around $30 compared to the $100 an airport express ticket costs.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find my Octopus card, but then again I'm not sure it's still usable anyway after all these years. Regardless, I'm getting a new card when I get to Hong Kong.
Checked out Nanjing Pedestrian Street yet again because I have no interest in Qipu Road for my work needs anymore.
Now that I've combed the place more thoroughly, I realized that on weekdays, everyone only seems to visit the stores on the ground floor. Some of the second storeys had some traffic but anything above were practically empty.
There is only real traffic there on weekends.
If they can survive like this, they must be making some serious money down at the first floor.
As for the preserved meats shops, damn those places are packed everyday!
Same for the Apple store.
The hotel stopped my delivery guy :(
I think the only person who actually cared was the manager. I didn't actually see his tag so I don't know if he was the manager or assistant manager, but he was younger than the other guy who also seemed to be in charge and he spoke better English.
So maybe he's the manager.
And he stopped my food supply.
So I went down, asked the guy for plastic bags, and he replied that they were hard to take. Assuming he meant that they were packaged in a way that they would be hard to hold even in plastic bags, I told him I'd get him in.
The doorman was easy, but the manager stopped me immediately.
After a bit of talking during which I almost failed the mission and things almost got heated up between the manager and the deliveryman, it ended up the latter packing the containers in the plastic bag.
Yes, that was very stupid; he could have done that outside without any fuss.
Tipped him two bucks only because I didn't want the coins. My CNY wallet is already weighed down by enough of those.
Anyways, Yunnan cuisine is spicier than I thought. In one dish, after picking out all the red chilli, I discovered that a lot of the green bits were chilli too!
Ugh...
The pig's trotter was nice and the rest of the food I ordered was generally ok, but it's way too spicy for me.
Also bought some interesting convenience food from a nearby convenience store.
I did not know chicken wing tips as a form of preserved food were actually a commercially viable product but here they are. I have a feeling the packaging, shipping and preservatives cost more than the tips themselves.
Ok, I stopped blogging completely by that day. The rest I'll just type here in the comfort of my own room.
The trip to Hong Kong was easy and I had a mild surprise when I boarded the plane.
What I reserved when I checked in online:
What I saw when I sat down:
Nice!
Doesn't CX charge an extra US$25 for these seats? But due to some error, this was not a 777 and hence, 39A turned out to be this seat!
At least, I think it wasn't a 777. The seating arrangement was 2-4-2 and it's also the best explanation I can think of to explain why I got this seat for free.
Moreover, when I reserved this 39A again for my final flight back to SG, it was the one shown in the first image.
Left some stuff in the hotel in my haste. I got my timing mixed up due to not enough sleep in the morning and thought I had more time than I actually did.
My flight was at about 11am, so I had to be at the airport by 10, so I should leave the hotel by 9, so I should get up at 8.
Then in my morning confused state, I thought I had to leave by 10.
At 9am, I was done with everything and was about to relax on the chair with my coffee. That was when I looked at the time, ran through the timings again and in the process, discovered the anomaly that was the absent time slot meant for travelling from the hotel to the airport.
Fortunately all these were planned to give myself a small buffer at every step, so instead of arriving too early, I was quite punctual.
I didn't even need to be there an hour before boarding, only 45 minutes because I had already checked in online. If I didn't have any baggage to check in and had the boarding pass printed, I could even arrive 30 minutes before boarding.
In my haste to get out of the hotel, I forgot to check the fridge.
Although the front desk did ask me whether I had used anything at the minibar, the fact that I left anything there did not cross my mind.
It was only on the taxi to the airport that I recalled I had two bottles of soft drinks there. Since they only cost less than S$1.50 total, I didn't give a damn.
I only remembered about the 3 steamed buns (2 pork and a mushroom) there during the flight. Those, I gave a little bit more of a damn because the inflight lunch was so small as usual. Moreover, I had never tried them throughout the 4 days there.
Still, I'm glad I didn't leave anything important there.
HKIA felt a little strange to me. I've been there before but I had never went arrived there alone.
The week before, I had emailed an uncle to ask where my grandmother was. His wife then emailed me the address after he called and tried to get me to write down the address. During the call, he also offered to take a day off on Monday to take me there, but I managed to reduce his offer to just a dinner.
When I got my baggage at the airport, I called him for two reasons.
First, if he could get some excuse to not come out for dinner, I would just buy takeaway at the airport and spend a quiet evening in my hotel.
Second, I felt it was rude if I simply ignored him after he made the offer.
In the end, I went out for dinner with the both of them. My cousins were busy.
The dinner was just a simple one and again, I did not pay for it. I think I was too tired to come up with an argument. Moreover, it's not my nature to be generous and I am inexperienced at this sort of thing.
Just FYI, it's a custom for this side of the family to try to foot the bill of meals. Usually, it could get cause quite a ruckus as all the adults shouted at each other reasons for why the rest shouldn't pay or why they themselves should.
Without having dinner with them since I was young, I'm not well-equipped for the debate at all.
I think it's a Chinese tradition that got lost during the Westernisation of Singapore but still remains in some parts of Hong Kong and perhaps China.
Since my mother's passing, this uncle has paid for two meals with me because I have always given in to his arguments eventually. I'll need to be more insistent next time, with or without a valid reason.
At least I gave them the bottle of body butter from Vardi and Migdal. Cost me about S$60, or roughly half the price of the meal, so it's a slight consolation.
The hotel was actually less convenient than I thought after looking at the map.
Although the Central MTR station was close to Hotel Mini Central, I needed to take a long detour or take this long flight of stairs. Even the shorter routes had many short flights of stairs consisting of 2-5 steps each.
That really sucked.
Fortunately, my laziness made me take a cab from the airport, so I didn't have to lug my 19.4kg luggage (I looked when I checked in the suitcase to see if I had hit the 20kg limit) up all those stairs.
Btw I did hit the limit on my flight to SG even though I had estimated that the stuff I added in only weighed about 0.5kg. However, the scale at the check-in counter said the total weight was 20.4kg. Fortunately, they were nice enough to ignore that extra 0.4kg, although I have this feeling that if it had been 20.5kg, they might not have shown me mercy.
For CX, the charge of extra weight goes by 1.5% of a single trip ticket of the route it's going per kg.
For a trip to Hong Kong, a return trip would have been about S$250. A one-way ticket then would be about $150. The excess baggage charge would have been roughly $2.25 per kg for me.
I paid about $570 for all three tickets of this trip. The flight to Shanghai was really a flight from SG to HK followed by a flight from HK to SHA. Hence $570 was for two flights between SG and HK plus two flights between HK and SHA.
Anyways, I only found out about the inconvenience of the stairs when I left the hotel to find my way to the station. Since I have never tried to train my legs, going up really sucked.
The room itself was quite different from the last two hotels I've stayed at so far.
The glass bathroom wall I expected. I'm still surprised it's glass.
That's the only space I could find for my luggage. The walls are surprisingly thin, so I could hear the guests next door talking till midnight on the first night and them leaving in the following early morning. Hearing both male and female voices, and with the bathrooms like this, I half expected to hear kinky noises eventually, but that fortunately did not happen; the guy left for another room nearby at midnight. That would have really interrupted my sleep.
Can you imagine the view when you're taking a shit there?
This is the view when you're taking a shit there. Totally awesome if you're alone like myself or if you go as a couple. Totally awkward in any other situation. Totally bad idea to go as a family.
Toilet is tiny but clean enough. The marble and glass walls really make it a decent bathroom despite its size. I couldn't sit on it normally because the wall was too close to the throne, and I imagine anyone with longer legs might also have difficulty sitting down with the door closed.
Yea, ugly ceiling. They could have at least used a cheap ceiling instead of nothing.
Now this is really nifty. Too bad I didn't have an empty bottle. I didn't know until I checked out that they didn't check the rooms before allowing me to leave, or I would have taken the bottle inside with me.
The view outside the bathroom window behind the curtains. Also, this place was having some kind of renovation works in this area and we were all advised to keep the curtains down... except the curtains didn't cover the windows completely, so it's still quite possible for anyone out there to take a peek.
The works ended the same day I checked out though.
The next day was a tiny bit more interesting. With my aunt's email screencapped and a map in hand, I found my way to the general vicinity via MTR and light rail. An old lady tried to ask me for directions but I had to tell her I'm not a local. Moreover, I am not proficient at all at reading traditional Chinese, so I could tell which name on the map was the one she said.
Fortunately, a friendly young lady offered to check the map for her and it resulted in quite a long conversation between them during the trip as they sat behind me.
The old lady and her husband alighted only a stop before I did.
As I am still not an expert at checking maps, I walked like 500m in the wrong direction along the correct road before I finally found the street name. It turned out to be only about 50m away from the light rail station.
Once I started seeing large signs with the name of the columbarium, I followed them till I found the gate. Then I began to snap photos of everything all the way to my destination and then all the way back to the light rail station.
This is to facilitate my future visits in case I never go back for the next decade or more. Moreover, my brother or any relative who might ask me will be able to easily navigate to that place with the excessive amounts of photos I took of the entire route.
Since it was still early, I took a short walk at the nearest mall, which was a tiny place filled with the typical shops selling daily necessities. I also considered exploring some other parts of Hong Kong but somehow felt too tired for it.
I think I really was tired because I slept 12 hours that night, from 7pm till 7am when my alarm sounded.
For dinner that night, although I bought a few buns from a Maxim's confectionary in one of the MTR stations, I thought I'd just take a walk to the nearby Cafe de Coral for some hot food.
Cafe de Coral is a major fast food chain in Hong Kong specialising in mainly Chinese cuisine, although nowadays, Japanese, Korean and Western food is also served.
It's pretty much like the kopitiams in Singapore without the kopi and with a fast food restaurant system. I could also compare them with the zi char in SG but their menus are very rigid unlike the zi char where the menu is flexible and you could ask for your own custom dishes if you know what you're doing.
Anyways, it was my first time ordering food there and I had to desperately keep my mind alert to look out for hints on how things worked over there.
First, the ordering was simple - there was already a long queue at the entrance where people first checked the giant menu displayed at the entrance before queueing up.
Second, the payment. I did not know whether I had to pay before or after getting the food, so I stared at the guy in front of me as he ordered for his three friends and himself. When I saw him taking money out of his wallet, the mystery was solved.
Third, the food. At the long counter, the left side had a sign stating it was for the collection of roasted meat dishes, and there was a typical clear plastic box/cage/whatever with roasted meat and steamed chicken hanging inside. The right said "Beverages" in Chinese, and these made me very confused.
Worse, there was no queue. The group of friends in front of me were not queueing up for some reason and was just standing at one side to wait.
So what was I supposed to do with the ticket the lady who took my order handed me?
Hence I waited around and then saw the old man who was behind me walk to the beverage side.
I quickly walked behind him, but watched as he handed his ticket to the lady behind the counter who then said something into the mic.
The process was as messy as a misleading sign implied as she gave food to people who weren't in the queue. Presumably, they handed her their tickets and left the queue to wait for their food instead of waiting in the queue.
I rested my hand with the ticket on the counter and waited but she did not take it. I later realized it was because there were like 5 orders ahead even though only the old man was in front of me.
To be honest, I did not know whether I was supposed to hand her the ticket because there was the possibility that she only handled specific parts of the menu that didn't include the pork chop rice I ordered.
However, I was slightly assured by how the old lady behind me also rested a hand on the counter with the ticket between her index and middle fingers just like I did. I was probably doing it right.
Took a few minutes but she eventually snatched the ticket from my hand and said something into the mic. After a while, she told me they had ran out of pork chops and asked if I could accept fried fish fillet as replacement. Since I always prefer fish (I don't cook fish a lot at home other than salmon) when I eat out, of course I said yes.
The food, which I later ate in the hotel, was only average.
Also bought a lot of Japanese fish sausages from Okashi Land since it had outlets in all the MTR stations I went to in this trip. I found the cheapest one to be HK$14 for a packet of 5, making each sausage less than S$0.47 each.
I'm not 100% sure it's more expensive here but I am very sure it's hard to find in Singapore.
Anyways, I finished the one packet I bought at Central and 4 more at the airport. However, it cost $30 for 2 packets (presumably more if only 1 packet) at the second location. Still, HK$1 wasn't a huge difference.
The trip back to SG was pretty uneventful.
Checking in my baggage resulted only in the airline staff asking me why I'm still using the temporary card after being an Asia Miles member for months and three trips.
So after getting the boarding pass, I went to the Asia Miles counter to find out like she suggested. I've never actually bothered to ask because it's a free bonus if I ever got anything. However, since I had an hour to kill, I went to the Asia Miles counter to enquire.
The problem turned out to be that I've been travelling on discounted fares all these months and none of these accumulate points. Without earning a single point throughout, I do not get the actual membership card.
During the flight, I had an hour left after the movie I picked ended. That was when I discovered this documentary called "Undercover Boss" in which CEOs and such high level executives would disguise themselves and work with the lower level employees for a few days.
I found it intriguing because it showed me how bosses should think, something I've been trying to find out on my own.
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