Last wkend before work officially begins on 28 Jul… mom and I skipped the lousy breakfast in the hotel & took a public bus (公交车) to another popular shopping district called 湖南路(Hunan Rd). we shopped at various departmental stores and really bought lotsa stuff! Haha… enjoyed my shopping spree at esprit & adidas esp… =P at esprit, we were somewhat given royal treatment by the staff there! Probably it’s because they could tell that we were foreigners, and seemed like we would be able to afford the stuff, so they kinda gave us preferential treatment! =P haha… they seriously kept choosing many different tops & bottoms for us to try, and even while we were in the fitting rooms trying on the clothes, they would call out “小姐，这一件也很适合你，你试试看吧!” & just hang a few more pieces of clothing on the door… -_-“ just before coming out of the fitting room, I was telling my mom… what if we tell them that the clothes are all unsuitable, and we don’t intend to get anything… hahah… I wonder how they would react… probably run after us with a chopper or something… hahaha… but well, we were kind enough to buy quite a few pieces of tops & bottoms… like don’t need money lor… >_< it’s not like the esprit in china’s cheaper that singapore’s actually… but I guess we juz felt happy finally seeing stuff that suited our style, instead of some other weird local fashion which we were not accustomed to… -_-“ oh, we did so much shopping at that shopping centre until we got a vip card... hahaha... 1st vip card i got in china... =P
湖南路
苏宁环球购物中心- the shopping centre where i got a vip card... =P
After a tiring shopping session, we were walking along this food street nearby called 狮子桥美食街 in search of our lunch cum dinner… first we tried their local “snack” at this stall with quite a no. of people queueing. It sold skewered food like 海带，鸡翅，鸭肠，墨鱼，some beef stuff, etc. soaked in chilli oil or some other kind of gravy. We tried 海带 and 鸭肠, which were quite alright… I didn’t particularly fancy it, but worth a try I guess… at least you know how it tastes like… =)
狮子桥美食街
skewered 海带 and 鸭肠
anyway, that was just an appetizer… we next went into this small shop to try 鸡汁汤包, which is very similar to 小笼包 except that there’s more 汤汁in the filling… it was really nice! =) my mom especially enjoyed it coz the 鸡汁 inside the 汤包 was really sweet and fragrant… it had a very genuine taste, like it was prepared by boiling fresh chickens, instead of just adding ajinomoto to obtain that sweetness… =) The shop/restaurant didn’t sell many different dishes, so we merely wanted to sample that item since it seemed quite popular…
尹氏鸡汁汤包
we next moved on to a Chinese restaurant called 湖南路毛家饭店 to try hunan cuisine. We asked the waitress for recommendations, and she told us their specialty dish is 红烧肉, which is like fatty three-layered pork, which we were hesitant about ordering coz we were worried that it’ll be all fats and too oily for consumption… but well, since she specially recommended it, we decided to give it a try… boy did we NOT regret it!! Gosh… it was damn nice! Haha… definitely sinful coz of the fatty pork, but the taste was fantastic! Haha… the pork was very well cooked, its softness was just right, with sufficient seasoning beforehand, such that the meat fully absorbed the delicate fragrance of the gravy, which went really well with rice coz the saltiness was juz right! =P the portion was far too much for the 2 of us to finish, and it’d be far too sinful to take all the fatty skin coz we don’t want to die of clogged arteries or high blood pressure… haha… but we definitely enjoyed the dish! *yummy* oh, we also ordered a tofu dish called 家常豆腐, as recommended by the waitress as well… it was also very nice! Tofu pieces with mushrooms and chilli… all in all, a satisfying meal…=)
湖南路毛家饭店
红烧肉
家常豆腐
After dinner, we bought my following day’s breakfast from breadtalk… hello kitty cheesecake & some dunno-wat bun that I cant rmb… haha… their breadtalk is very similar to sg’s… sells similar stuff at a slightly cheaper price… glad to see that it’s quite popular among the locals as well, especially the all-time favourite floss bun… =)
hello kitty cheesecake! cute right... =P
the gd ol' bread talk... =)
Day 6 – 28 Jul 08 (Mon)
Official start of my IA!!! The company transport picked me up from the hotel lobby, and the journey to my company in the ulu industrial area to the northern end of nanjing, across chang jiang, took around 1hr 15mins. The industrial area basically reminded me of jurong island… and as expected, the air quality there was worse than the commercial areas of nanjing, which was already worse than that of jurong island... shall skip details of work coz it’s somewhat confidential… but here's a promised pic of myself... so dun kb me already k? -_-"
so anyway, after work, I took the company transport back to my hotel, where I met up with mom, and went back to 湖南路 for dinner. We ate at ajisen, shared 2 bowls of ramen and a gyoza… gd stuff! Haha… standard comparable to that of sg’s! or perhaps even better than some ajisen outlets in sg! =P price-wise, it’s definitely cheaper! 1 bowl of ramen cost around S$6…while the gyoza was only around S$1+… =P
our 2 bowls of ramen... 1 was 猪软骨拉面，the other was 火山拉面... both were nice!
gyoza...=)
Bought breakfast from the same bread talk outlet once again… isn’t it interesting how I seldom eat stuff from bread talk back in sg, but now that I’m in china, I’ve been eating it almost every day! Haha… I guess it’s because the bread at breadtalk reminds me of home, coz the taste is pretty similar, and at least I trust the quality… =)
forgot to talk abt this scary shop i saw... lotza shattered glass pieces all over the floor, the few pcs of furniture damaged and strewn all over... the shop was kinda empty... and i saw many signs pasted all over that read "打砸抢 法理何在"... scary... poor shopowner... =(
Day 7 – 29 Jul 08 (Tues)
Once again, skip details at work… after dinner, met up with mom at the hotel before taking a 公交 (public bus) to 湖南路 again, but just before the area where we visited on the last 2 days. We were finding a place to settle our dinner, and we decided to try the food at this Cantonese restaurant 粤香粥馆selling porridge and other Cantonese dishes. We saw another table of diners eating this claypot of porridge with lots of prawns, and according to the waitress, that’s their restaurant’s most popular dish, so we decided to try it as well. we waited quite long before our food came, coz the preparation of the porridge takes quite some time, as ‘warned’ by the waitress who took our order. After about 20-25mins, we were served a piping hot bowl of claypot porridge filled with many prawns! Omg… it looked so appetizing!!! And when we scooped the porridge, there were just SO MANY small prawns inside! Since there were only 2 of us, we ordered the smallest portion , less than 半斤… but there was still a lot of prawns!! they charge according to the weight of the prawns, by 斤, so ours cost around S$16. Finally, we proceeded to taste the porridge cautiously coz it was steaming hot… and W-O-W…… it was damn good!!! hahaha… really the best porridge I’ve ever tasted!!! The porridge was extremely fragrant and you could just taste the freshness of the prawns used to 熬煮the porridge! The claypot retained the taste of all the ingredients within, and contained the heat such that even as we were almost finishing the porridge, we could still see the steam coming out of the porridge… gosh, shiok! Haha… superbly satisfying meal!!! No wonder their signboard says 99% 回顾率, meaning 99% of their customers will revisit their restaurant… at first, I thought we would be part of the 1% who wont be coming back… haha… partly coz we’re tourists in the 1st place… but after trying the food, I’m SO gonna return another time! Perhaps if any friends visit, or when my family comes down later in the year, we can go back together! =P
粤香粥馆
our big pot of porridge... =P
look at all the prawns!! =P
super yummy porridge...=P
wat a satisfying meal... =)
