moving into my nanjing apartment...

Day 9 – 31 Jul 08 (Thurs)

Moved into my Nanjing apartment after work today… just my mom and i… carrying tonnes of luggage, and having to shift everything into my new place… first we had difficulties getting a cab… we wanted to hail 2 in case drivers are unwilling to let us squeeze so much stuff into their car… but the cab drivers here suck! Many didn’t even wanna stop, seeing us with so many pieces of luggage… only 1 guy stopped, supposedly to wait for us to hail a 2nd cab…but we couldn’t get a 2nd, so after much pleading, he finally relented and we juz went in 1 cab… my mom gave him more than twice the metered fare as a form of compensation & as an act of gratitude… coz otherwise we might be stranded outside the hotel for god noes how long… >_<

Have I mentioned that there’s no lift at my apt?! imagine 2 women having to lug 11 pieces of items, big & small, up 4 storeys, using dis narrow stairway… that’s wat I call exercise… we were both perspiring like mad… worse thing was that I wasn’t feeling well that day… had diarrhea (probably ate something dirty) and skipped lunch, so I got tired even more easily… =(

Anyway, we did some major cleaning up of the whole house… luckily it wasn’t that dirty coz it hasn’t been occupied since the owner did the renovations for the place…

Here’re some pics of my Nanjing apartment…

main gate to 新庄花园

exterior of the building

bedroom 1

bedroom 2



living room...



the toilet...



kitchen


dining room


opposite block...


peering out of the living room window...


small provision shop downstairs...


stage 1: combi lock to reveal keyholes...


stage 2: keyholes revealed, where're ur keys?


back of complicated front door...


stage 3: normal main door


the WONDER keys... note 2 of them with very cheem design... difficult to duplicate...


major roadworks...

stupid typhoon... lousy weather...

Day 8 – 30 Jul 08 (Wed)

Disgusting weather today… thanks to the stupid typhoon, the weather was really bad… howling winds, heavy rain… I’ve never experienced such strong winds ever… seriously, I felt like I was about to be blown away by the wind! Can u imagine…like me..?! it’s damn scary lah… you can just see the trees bending over so dangerously… my major lesson for the day is: HOW TO HOLD YOUR UMBRELLA… don’t assume that just because you have an umbrella, you wont get drenched, coz you’re so W-R-O-N-G… the strong winds cause the rain to splatter on you at awkward angles, and you’d better learn how to tilt your umbrella accordingly or you’ll be soaked to the skin, WITH or WITHOUT your umbrella… >_< moreover, the winds were so strong that they kept flipping our umbrellas upside down…so once again, the direction and angle at which you hold your umbrella is CRUCIAL!!! Otherwise, be prepared to get a new umbrella every other day! -_-“

Anyway, the day was spent searching for my Nanjing apartment… the first one we saw was near "mai gao qiao" (迈皋桥）mrt station in the city area. MGQ is 2 stations away from the railway train station where i'll have to go weekly to commute between nanjing and shanghai. the place was found by my company… initially, thought that we could just view the place, once satisfied, we could move in later that night. but in the end, the place wasnt that satisfactory. location wise was gd, interior wise clean and new BUT it was lacking in a lot of basic appliances! the apt basically looked rather empty coz it seemed that the renovation works had JUST been completed (if even completed in the first place). some furniture looked new, BUT various appliances were like old and pok. for eg. the washing machine looked so old, we were doubtful as to whether it was even in proper working condition. and yah, the whole house was very empty, didnt have much furniture. so of coz it wasnt a suitable place where we could move into immediately. the owner was saying that he would clean up the house and make everything swee swee by that night so we could move in, but obviously it was not very convincing coz the key idea was the lack of various furniture and appliances. moreover, the building itself had incomplete construction works, same for the surrounding blocks… so my mom was worried as to whether there would be lotza workers around, and whether the owner & workers will enter the apt even after i move in to supposedly continue renovation works or whatever, which would be dangerous...

sigh... lotsa trouble there... so in the end, we managed to get the agent to show us other apts for us to choose from… the 2nd apt we visited was also quite near MGQ station. Pretty nice place, well-equipped, very spacious, much bigger than necessary since I would be staying alone. But the cost was too steep... mom kept asking if there were those smaller, 1-room type of apts available, but the agent said none available for rental at the moment...

finally, we went down to the 3rd apt, about 1 or 2 bus stops from the railway train station… we were always told that it's rather unsafe near train stations coz there'll tend to be lotsa wanderers, pickpockets, etc hanging around, so the area can be quite 'messy'. but well, in this case, the location has its pros & cons coz being near the train station would mean that i can travel there conveniently when i need to commute between shanghai and nanjing. The place supposedly has some kinda security guard at the gate as well. this 3rd apt seemed quite satisfactory, with all the basic stuff, and in fact, it's been newly renovated… so yah, everything was pretty new, though the exterior of the building is chui (lousy)… but well, it's the inside that matters ultimately... (or so I thought…)

so anyway, we decided to rent the place. 1 of the main reasons why we had probs in finding a place was because this was a 6-month rental, while most landlords prefer at least 1-year rental so they wouldn't have to keep going through the hassle of finding agents to rent out their apts, and having to pay them a hefty sum as commission each time a deal is made.

After signing the deal, the owner taught us how to open/lock the door…I was thinking… how cheem can it get…don’t you just stick in the key and turn?! Boy was I wrong… it’s ULTRA CHEEM!!! Each time, when I get home, I have to fish out 4 keys! 1 for the main gate to enter the building, then when I reach my unit, I got to unlock this turning knob combi lock, which allows me to access the 2 keyholes, & after unlocking this outer door, I gotta unlock another inner door! Like omg… how troublesome can it get just to enter my house?!

Anyway, i forgot to emphasise that all this while it was raining DAMN heavily with the strong winds, and i was walking around in court shoes, and the back of my heel developed a blister so it was DAMN painful walking...argh...ultra bad mood... super sucky weather... how suay... and as we were recceeing the vicinity of my apt, we realized that the location was not THAT great after all.. to get to the train station, it's convenient, coz i can take any of the buses from the bus stop outside, BUT when coming back from the train station, the bus will stop on the opposite side of this MAJOR RD. ok, i cant even consider it a major rd, coz there're some road works going on at that junction/roundabout, which makes it SUPER dangerous & difficult to cross to the opposite side without getting knocked down by some heavy vehicle, car, motorcycle or bicycle... >_< so mom was extremely concerned about that...

sigh… basically the solution is that I’ll just cab back from the train station to my apt… the journey will only cost me around 9rmb, equiv to abt S$1.80… my mom was like… 这种钱是不能省的。。。it’s your safety that’s most important… =)

here's the end of the disgusting apt-seeking saga... let's hope our luck will get better from now...

Well, our day concluded with a dinner at a Chinese restaurant at湖南路 once again… name of the restaurant is 狮子楼. the food was ok… don’t think I’ll go there again though…

狮子楼




狮子头 - one of their signature dishes...crab meat with minced pork in soup


辣子鸡 - chicken in chilli oil... found it too oily...


清炒香菇菜心 - the mushrooms were quite nice, but the whole dish was ultra oily! >_<

settling down in nanjing...

Day 5 – 27 Jul 08 (Sun)

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... =)

weekend shopping in nanjing...

Day 4 – 26 Jul 08 (Sat)

Our day started off with a lousy breakfast at the hotel… haha… well, my mom & I tried a few dishes, just to fill our stomachs a little before we leave the hotel for an expected long day of activities...oh, the nicest dish for breakfast was… hard boiled eggs… like how wrong can it get right? Haha…

Anyway, we first went to 南京火车站 (nanjing train station) to recce coz that’s a place where I’ll frequent in the next few months… every week, I’ll be taking a train from nanjing train station to shanghai, so I’ll definitely need to familiarize myself with the place so that I wont be far too lost when I travel to & fro alone… surprisingly, the nanjing train station was much better than the shanghai one. Probably coz it was constructed in recent years, so its exterior and interior are far superior to the lousy pok station in shanghai! It was air-conditioned and brightly lit, with a glass façade, giving it a modern look…

After taking a look around briefly, we went to this shopping district called 新街口 by mrt. (oh, have I ever mentioned that you can use china’s equivalent of our ez-link card for buses, mrt & cabs! How convenient! =D ) Anyway, 新街口’s equivalent to our orchard road, with various large departmental stores, a big Walmart and many shops and restaurants.

random pic of a bossini outlet coz it reminded me of this striped top i like... =P


Mom & I did quite a lot of shopping at Walmart coz we needed to buy all the daily necessities and various appliances for my Nanjing apt, which was expected to be ready in a few days’ time. One thing I must mention… in most of the leading departmental stores or hypermarts, you can practically find almost anything you need…EXCEPT for 1 very important thing… a bolster!!! Gosh… I’ve no idea why but it seems like the Chinese here don’t use bolsters!! *argh* I couldn’t seem to find a bolster anywhere, until I entered WALMART! *woohoo* haha… sorry for my high-ness… I was just damn happy to finally see a bolster (even though it’s a shorter version of what we typically use in sg)… Guess I’ve just been feeling rather ‘empty’ without a bolster to hug at night… even though it’s not a close substitute of what I’d most like to hug… but well, MST… so yah, I immediately grabbed 1 of the few bolsters from the lowest rack & threw it into the trolley… *satisfied* haha…

LOTZA food at walmart...














delicious looking grapes...


look at how huge each bunch is!


新街口




Dinner was at this Chinese fast food chain called 口味鸭血粉丝汤 , where their specialty was, unsurprisingly, 鸭血粉丝汤 (vermicelli in soup with duck innards & blood) hahaha… gosh, the English translation sounds damn gory and unappetizing… haha… but well, it really wasn’t half as bad as it sounds! Even though I don’t usually take 鸭血 coz of the weird taste, (and moreover, it’s kinda banned in sg coz of food hygiene reasons), I must say that the 鸭血粉丝汤 here was actually not bad… I kinda avoided most of the鸭血 but the 鸭肠 (duck intestine) was still ok… tasted similar to 猪肠 (pig’s intenstines), what we eat with kway chap… and the vermicelli was really smooth, and the soup was quite fragrant… haha… sorry to those who cant stand the thought of eating innards, I must have grossed you out… oopz… =P oh, we ordered this 小排浇饭 as well that was basically like small pcs of bony pork with rice and some vege. The 小排 was seriously all bones… cheat $... quite salty also… >_<

小排浇饭


鸭血粉丝汤


After dinner, mom & I continued to walk around a little, before taking a rest at starbucks! Yay… miss my java chip frappucino… but I guess I’ll have to make do with a mocha frap in china coz they don’t have java chip… =( the starbucks is only slightly cheaper than sg’s…standard quite similar… but somehow, feel that sg’s might still be a little nicer? Hmm… probably coz they use slightly different milk…?

Our day concluded with a cab ride back to our hotel… BUT hailing a cab was damn difficult during peak hour on weekends at a crowded shopping district!! Some of the Chinese CHASE AFTER the cabs, and outrightly SNATCH the cabs!!! They don’t care who’s been waiting first… they just pretend a bit, act blur a bit, move past you along the rd such that the drivers will see them first before they even reach you! 1 word to describe – 贱！it took us around 20mins to get a cab even though there were so many cabs available coz they were all snatched by the surrounding people! *pissed*