sushi tei & 1st tkd training in china!!! =P

Day 25 – 16 Aug (Sat)

2nd day of school… full day of lessons from 830am – 430pm… gg… how to survive… =( the day didn’t start off too well, coz the beard papa cream puff that we bought last night seemed to have gone bad!! T_T we forgot to keep it in the fridge… I took a bite and found the cream slightly sour… so got rather wary… asked William if he thought it was spoilt, but he’d finished his already… -_-“ haha… so well, to be safe, I decided to throw the cream puff away… =( ate some bread instead…

we shared a cab to jiaotong uni today! The journey was quite fast… it took only about 15mins… and the cab fare was 22RMB = S$4.40, which was quite cheap, coz split among the 4 of us, each of us only had to pay around S$1+… so we decided that we shall cab to school every week in future, coz it’s just a little ex-er than taking the train (4RMB=S$0.80), but we get to save a lot more time and trouble… =)

we had a 1hr 20min lunch break frm 1150am-1:10pm, so we went out of the school, to a nearby restaurant for lunch… it was a Chinese restaurant serving hong kong/Cantonese cuisine… all of us ordered noodles, but different stuff to go with it… for eg. Mine was roasted duck, william’s was soy sauce chicken, sharnice’s was wanton, & louise’s was fishball… i liked mine quite a lot! =) the noodles were quite chewy & you can even describe it as slightly crunchy… haha… quite authentic hong kong style… the roasted duck meat was really nice too, and it came with some plum sauce that complimented the bbq taste of the duck meat really well! =P unfortunately for sharnice & louise, they didn’t enjoy their meal as much as William & i… sharnice disliked the texture of the noodles, while louise described the fishballs as ‘plastic fishballs’! >_< apparently, the china fishballs here are really different from what we typically see or eat in sg… the fishballs arent really ‘balls’, but more like rectangular blocks of fish meat mixed with lotsa flour… >_< I suddenly miss nice fishball noodles in sg!!! =( well, anyway, they had a few promotional items… one of which was this 鲍鱼鸡肉酥 (abalone and chicken meat puff), which was half priced, 12RMB instead of 24RMB for 2! =P Haha… as expected, the greedy duo, i.e. William & I, decided to order a portion to share…=) the pastry was really not bad, with a rather generous slice of abalone for its price! The chicken meat filling was also quite juicy… definitely worth ordering… =)

my roast duck noodles

鲍鱼鸡肉酥 abalone and chicken meat puff


after a hearty lunch, we headed back to to endure a few more unbearably boring hours of lessons… the thought of having tkd training later kept us going!!! =P haha… William & I were gonna join this tkd club at jiaotong uni for training later in the evening! We were so excited about finally being able to train again after such a long time!!! Our legs were getting rather itchy… hahaha… so yah, we were just looking forward to the training! =P after lessons, we went for dinner first… SUSHI TEI!!! Hahaha… I searched online and realized that there’s a sushi tei branch at metro city, which is rather near jiaotong uni! So William & I decided to check it out and satisfy our endless craving for jap food! =P anyway, most of their food items were priced slightly cheaper than sg, and their menu was rather similar to sg’s, with the addition of a whole section on hotpot items… =)

sushi tei counter

dragon roll

zaru udon (cold udon)

salmon sashimi


next, TKD TRAINING!!! Woohoo… super shiok!!! I haven’t trained in a long while, and I must say… TKD ROCKS! Hahaha… sorry… not that I haven’t realized it since ages ago… =P but well, guess I really miss having tkd as an integral part of my life… and definitely, I really miss all my tkd palsl!! really miss enduring shifu’s physically challenging trainings with all the ntu tkd pple, and miss training my beloved hc tkd juniors… =) miss hearing the thundering sound of kicking handmits, the unique shouting and noises produced by different people when kicking, the cheering for one another when everyone’s simply exhausted and lifting our leg for 1 more kick feels like lifting a 100kg dumb bell… those were the times man… haha… but well, a few more months & I’LL BE BACK! Haha… 南大跆拳道加油！=) hope everything’s going on fine back in ntu tkd & hc tkd… Keep me updated on any latest happenings in the club k… =)

oops, realized I haven’t actually talked about the training I attended here… the club trains at the 体育馆(src) of jiaotong uni, but most of the members aren’t students from the uni… they are just like any outside club in sg I guess… except that they have quite a lot of pro people here! Haha… I saw like 1 or 2 4th dan black belters, several zai black belters (not sure of their dan) & a few cool poom belters! Their warm-ups were rather similar to shifu’s training, except a less strenuous one… there were the usual stretching exercises, the jump up & knee lift or split in the air kinda drills, as well as the split on the floor kinda stretches… fun… =P there wasnt much of the pair up & do handmit kicking kinda training though… probably coz the class was quite small, about 20+ people, so we merely split into 2 rows (senior & junior belters) and there was 1 target holder in front of each row… oh, have I mentioned… I was a WHITE BELTER!!! =P hahaha… white belter with black collared dobok… coz in china, whether you’re a colour belter or black belter, the collar of your dobok’s black… unlike in s’pore, where only the black belters wear black-collared doboks… well, both William & I didn’t bring our dobok and belt from sg, so both of us bought a new set of dobok, & the coach lent us a white belt to go with it… hahaha… might as well right… we were a little too embarrassed to wear the colour of our real belt levels… hahaha… and since we were wearing white belts, we joined the junior belters for the kicking! Haha… *phew* the other side was too stressful lah… thunderous kicking… intimidating… the kicking went pretty well, guess we were both rusty, but still managed fine… =) conclusion: we’re good as white belters, but noob as our true belt levels… >_< haha… forgot to mention this highlight of the training session (to us at least)… we did lotza flying side kicks!! =S like omg… how often have we ever trained FLYING SIDE KICKS back in sg?!! The people here did it like it was some basic kick, where everyone just queued up to take turns flying here & there… -_-“ at first, this person just held a handmit out for everyone to take turns running & jumping up to do a flying side kick… later, they added an obstacle in front and we had to fly over the obstacle to kick the handmit!! *faints* hahaha… but well, it was fun lah… now that I actually survived it without breaking a knee… (almost did though… >_<) oh yah, I forgot to mention this 色小弟 who totally reminded me of 蜡笔小新 (crayonshin chan)… at first, he was sorta talking to William & i…asking where we were from… so William told him we were from sg… & guess what he said… “哦！你们新加坡的奥运很烂吧？好像没赢什么奖牌?” (Oh! Singapore’s lousy at the Olympics right? You don’t seem to have won any medals…?) -_-“ –awkward- but well, he was right… so we just sorta laughed it off… and as we continued talking a little, our beloved色小弟playfully kicked William in the butt and came over to me, mumbled something, & KICKED MY BUTT TOO! Argh… his feet were like so freaking dirty, causing some black marks on my new & white dobok! *pissed* So I quickly used my hand to sweep away the dirt on my dobok, then he came over, and SMACKED MY BUTT!!! Omg... like what the crap… bullied & taken advantage of by this stupid fat boy?!!! *argh* disgusted… after that, he still kept trying to come over to do the same thing again! I just kept evading… >_< well, William & I were both stunned by him, and both feeling tempted to smack him in the butt to let him have a taste of his own medicine… -_-“

anyway, despite that small distressing episode, all in all, we had lotza fun training! Excited to go back for more… =)

1st day of school & post-lesson feasting! =P

Day 24 – 15 Aug (Fri)

First day of school!! Had to wake up rather early… 4 of us took the train to 徐家汇 station to meet with some of the other NTU GIP students at one of the exits… William & I led the way to the school coz we’d been there to recce a week earlier… however, we’d no idea how to find the exact classroom where we were supposed to report, so we had to wait for the class rep to contact the teacher, who specially came out to receive us… apparently, our classroom’s hidden at a far corner of the jiaotong uni campus, at an international learning centre.

We started with a 中国当代电影与中国社会 lesson, which was originally supposed to be some 中国当代文学 instead of 电影, but thank goodness our teacher knew that it’d be impossible for a class of 25 to stay awake for 3 hours listening to her talk about some Chinese literature, so she decided to amend the syllabus such that we’ll mostly watch movies depicting certain aspects of the Chinese culture and present our thoughts on the movies on the subsequent lesson…

Our lessons here were 1.5hrs a period… so we had a lesson from 8:30-10am, break from 10-10:20am, then lesson from 10:20-11:50am… then YAY! Class dismissed! =P the group headed back to steak king once again for a wonderful lunch… tried another steak dish, which was not bad, but I still prefer the one that I ate previously! =)

steak king's salad


garlic bread & soup


steak... =)


After lunch, we walked around metro city for a short while, and I bumped into this NTU jap classmate at the basement food court! Hmm… I didn’t recognize her actually… she just suddenly approached me and said “hi, do I know you?” I was like… -_-“ you’re asking me whether you know me?! … so anyway, she added “are you from Singapore?” then I said yes… and she was like… “I think I know you! you look very familiar! Were you from my jap class?” I kinda thought of my moelc jap class at first… but she mentioned ntu, then I realized…ooohh… she’s this indo Chinese girl from my yr 1 sem 1 jap class… sorry, bad memory… couldn’t recall her name… just found her vaguely familiar… but it’s really quite a small world… she also just came to china after graduating from ntu, and studying Chinese at jiaotong uni!! Interesting… =)

After lunch, my housemates & i cabbed home to catch singapore’s table tennis girls in action!! It was a rather sad but expected ending… singapore’s women’s team lost to china… =( and well, seems like the whole world’s going gaga over feng tian wei… I didn’t manage to watch her match coz the gd ol’ china decided to stop showing the live telecast halfway and switched to some other dunno-wat sport instead… pissed off…

Anyway, after watching table tennis Olympics, William & I went back to our favourite 小吃街 for dinner!! =P first stop, as usual, was pudding milk tea! Woohoo… wat a great & appetizing start… but bad news.. as we left the building for the小吃街, we realized that it was raining quite heavily!! =( and our slightly blur William forgot to bring his umbrella… -_-“ hahaha… so well, luckily I brought mine, so we just shared and walked over to the 小吃街 anyway…we couldnt possibly have come all the way here & leave without the good food! =P

We braved the rain and winds to our usual bbq stall, and sat in the shop to try their 香辣小龙虾! Haha… it wasn’t my first time trying coz I’d eaten it with my family on our last china trip… but it was still a fun experience! =P there’s supposedly this supposed 3-day opening promotion for the 小龙虾: buy 2斤get 1斤 free! but well, we saw that promo a week ago, & apparently, it’s STILL ongoing… as usual, one of those OPENING or CLOSING DOWN SPECIALS that last forever… -_-“ hmm…but actually, why am I complaining… hahaha… I should be glad that this promo is still ongoing, so I can bring my friends and family there again to try the香辣小龙虾 when they visit! =P it cost 32RMB for 1斤 so we paid 64RMB = S$12.80 for 3斤! Yummy… oh, a word of caution though… be careful when you use the plastic gloves to shell the mini lobsters… the plastic gloves may tear and if you have prolonged direct contact with the shell of the mini lobsters, you may get irritation on your skin coz the 小龙虾 was cooked with various spices which may cause your skin to feel a little stingy… either that, or the sharper parts on the shell of the小龙虾 may prick your fingers if your plastic gloves are torn… while feasting on our 3斤 of 小龙虾, we truly understood the meaning of 一份耕耘，一份收获… you reap what you sow… in order to taste that fresh mini lobster meat, you gotta work hard to shell it before you can enjoy the fruits of your labour! =P

香辣小龙虾 mini lobsters (before...)


香辣小龙虾 mini lobsters (after...)


As usual, our feast will usually comprise of more than 1 course! =P we ordered the bbq scallops & oysters again (coz they were juz so yummy when we tried them the last time!), and we ordered something new… “chicken satay”… haha… but well, this was LOUSY! =( the “mutton satay” we tried previously was much better… the chicken satay was DRY and tough… and the meat was not seasoned well enough… to make up for the that, at least the scallops & oysters were FANTASTIC! =D

our bbq feast!! chicken satay, scallops & oysters! are you envious or are you envious! =P


The greedy us left the bbq shop, feeling really satisfied… but well, as mentioned, GREEDY us… so as we passed by this 锅贴 (guo tie/fried dumpling) stall, we succumbed to temptations and ordered their minced pork锅贴 coz we figured we’ve had too much prawns already…(thanks to the 香辣小龙虾)… but well, the pork锅贴 was sold out, so we ordered the shrimp one anyway… and omg… it was GOOD! Haha… really juicy… just a little too oily… my mom is so gonna love it! =P

shrimp 锅贴 guo tie


Since we still had school the following day, William & I bought cream puffs from beard papa for our breakfast… they were just slightly cheaper than sg… the usual vanilla cream puff cost 8RMB = S$1.60, while sg’s would cost S$2… =)

major shopping + makan-ing! =P

Day 23 – 14 Aug (Thurs)

Went science & tech museum mrt with William today… saw the underground shopping mall, which was really quite big… the place was rather confusing coz most of the shops sold around the same stuff… imitation clothes, watches, handbags, shoes, etc. you really gotta know how to bargain there… the people will quote you damn high for the stuff if you’re a tourist… William wanted to get this blue polo tee from a shop, and the person quoted him like 100RMB!! Gosh… I knew it was bound to be overpriced, so I reminded William that he must bargain… but the blur him also didn’t know how to start….so I purposely told William in english that I found it expensive…don’t think that it’s worth it… well, you may think that the shopkeepers here wouldn’t understand English, but that’s where you’re wrong… a lot of them know quite a bit of English in order to communicate with tourists… so my point was to intentionally let the shopkeeper know that we weren’t too keen to buy the tshirt coz it was over-priced… as expected, the shopkeeper heard & quickly interrupted, asking us to quote a price based on how much we would be willing to pay… so I was like… “hmm… at most 30RMB…” but she replied that she really couldn’t sell it for that price… and said something like “小姐，我看得出你是知道价钱的，所以我也不好骗你。一口价，50块怎么样？” I was actually still unconvinced that it should still cost 50RMB, but well, the shy & softspoken William动摇-ed quite easily and already showed that he was ready to buy… so well… nothing more I could do… already helped him to bargain to half the price so if he was alright with paying 50RMB, then so be it lor… haha… but conclusion: William, you need more training to brush up on your bargaining skills!!! Shall bring you to七浦路 another time for you to have some practical sessions!!! Your current level = -1! Haha… =P

We got sick of the sci & tech place after a while coz everywhere was selling pretty much the same old stuff, and we weren’t really interested in getting any of the stuff there… so we decided to explore another place instead… went to 陆家嘴, where the famous 东方明珠塔 is located. I pointed out the structure to William coz I’ve been up the 塔 when I came shanghai with my family previously… the panoramic night view of shanghai from the top level of东方明珠塔 was really gorgeous! take in the beautiful night scenery with the famous 黄浦江 (Huangpu River) in clear view, winding between 浦东 (Pudong) and 浦西 (Puxi)… =)

东方明珠塔


陆家嘴 has this super huge shopping mall called ‘super brand mall’, ‘正大广场’… when I say huge, I mean HUUGGGEEEE… omg… it has a total of 8 levels + 2 basement levels = 10 levels!! & each level spans across a very large area… so yah, it took us super long to cover about 50% of the entire shopping mall… >_< but it’s definitely a really nice place to shop at! =P lotza shops selling a variety of stuff… not to mention the many restaurants serving all kinds of international cuisine as well… =) William & I went to this jap restaurant called 禾绿寿司 (He Lu Sushi) for dinner to satisfy our jap food cravings! It’s a chain of jap restaurants like sakae/sushi tei, with conveyor belt sushi and ala carte orders… price-wise, some of the sushi was quite cheap, but some others with sashimi were quite ex... most of the cooked food items were quite alright… other than grabbing some delicious looking sushi from the conveyor belt, each of us also ordered a stone pot soup… mine was a beef stone pot with udon, which was pretty gd! =)

super brand mall 正大广场


禾绿寿司's sushi bar


tamago roll


ebikko sushi


california maki


salmon sashimi sushi


fusion sushi - raw egg, shrimp, seasoned octopus, cucumber


chawanmushi - quite nice but rather ex... small cup for S$2


hot pot beef udon! =P


after our very filling dinner, we went to this huge supermarket at the basement.. hmm.. wat’s with this正大广场, everything just has to be HUGE… -_-“ but well, we liked the supermart! it had lotza fresh fruits, which is rather rare… coz in china… very sadly, you may not get good fruits easily even if you have the money! Coz well, most of the better quality fruits are exported to other countries so that they can be sold at a higher price… so locally, it’s uncommon to be able to find very good fruits (even those produced locally) in supermarts… =(

back to shanghai early... =)

Day 22 – 13 Aug (Wed)

Travelled back to shanghai today… took the morning train and reached shanghai at around 10+am… decided to have brunch near the train station coz I didn’t really have breakfast… wanted to try their local Chinese fast food chain called 真功夫 but didn’t feel like eating rice… so just ordered a steamed egg which cost 6RMB = S$1.20… quite nice… reminds me of the typical simple homecooked fare of minced meat with egg 肉蛋… =)

steamed egg from 真功夫



well, obviously the egg wasn’t quite enough for lunch, so I juz went to the bk next door to get something… wanted to try something different, so ordered this wrap thingy with chicken and cheese… it was quite alright… but I wont try it again… hahaha… would still prefer the gd ol’ mushroom swiss burger… the meal only costs S$4! =P I wanted to take a proper pic of the meal, especially the wrap thingy since sg doesn’t have it… but apparently, photo-taking’s not allowed at BK! -_-“ so yah…I only managed to take a lousy & blur photo before 1 of the staff stopped me… =(

lousy shot of my bk meal


I rested alone in the shanghai apartment for the rest of the day and felt slightly better in the evening… had dinner with my housemates after they got home… sharnice cooked! Haha… pro… she’s never cooked before prior to this china trip, but now that she’s here, she’s been cooking almost daily for William, louise & herself… I’m usually not around on weekdays, so I don’t get to join them for the homecooked dinner… but well, at least today I had the chance to sample her cooking! =P it was simple but nice… =) just rice, vege, chicken meat thrown into the rice cooker altogether, along with some onions… rice was slightly soggy, but who am I to be picky? It was good enough already… haha… not everyone will cook for me for free… just glad to have homecooked food! =P well, I’m definitely looking forward to the homecooked food back in sg! Pls practise well and cook for me k! *hint hint* =P

major shifting!! >_< still sick... =(

Day 21 – 12 Aug (Tues)

Signed the lease for the new apartment in the afternoon, and went back to my old apartment to pack up… it was ultra tiring coz I had tonnes of stuff in the apartment by now… kinda settled in already… so now I had to keep everything back in the big luggage, and there was just SOOO MUUUCCCHHH stuff to pack!!! Argh… nearly died-ed… luckily there was the driver who helped me shift the stuff from the 4th level down to the car parked downstairs… there was no lift, mind you… he made so many trips up and down while I was packing… really 辛苦他了！I myself also went up & down 3 times to carry the misc stuff… for eg. My pillow, bolster and comforter… I’d rather hug them myself… hahaha…

Then we had to go to the山水大酒店 where I still had some stuff coz I’d been staying there for the past 2 nights…

Finally, the driver sent me to the new apartment at梅花山庄 and also helped me with carrying all the stuff up… this time round, it was just the 3rd floor, so it wasn’t THAT bad… though once again, there was no lift… so yah, we had to carry everything up by taking the stairs… really exhausted… >_<

By the time all my stuff was finally moved into the new apartment, I was just so shag! Supposed to clean up the house so that I could unpack and everything, but I was still feeling very unwell… had been having serious giddy spells for the whole of today as well… sigh… unpacked some of the more important stuff, and rested on the bed while talking to friends and family over my HP… finally, when I felt a little better, I unpacked a little more, and cleaned up the bed thoroughly to get ready for bed… =)

My body felt really weak and lethargic the whole day… especially unwell coz of the perpetual giddy spells and slight nausea… so I decided to go over to shanghai the following day so that I would at least have some friends there to help…

happy birthday, mom!

Day 20 – 11 Aug (Mon)

Went back to work today… had pretty bad giddy spells the entire day… I’m not sure why… thought it was perhaps just motion sickness at first… but didn’t seem that possible either coz I was feeling unwell the entire day, slight nausea and perpetual giddiness… but after work, I had some socializing event… which was quite an eye opener I must say… the dinner was good… lotza nice food… there was a very nice 田鸡 (frog meat) dish, roasted chicken, pork ribs soup, claypot fish head, char siew, sliced pork, the jap edamame beans, claypot vege, some eel dish (which i didnt like), as well as some misc vege... it was really quite a feast... =)

food was good but the beverages & air quality in the private function room were rather problematic… really gg… inconvenient to elaborate any further… but yah, think my life span has kinda been shortened by at least 5 years after that episode… >_<

Very important day today… HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!! =P

travelling back to nanjing and moving into a hotel... =)

Day 19 – 10 Aug (Sun)

Had to go back to nanjing again today… went to this noodle house near our place for lunch… I ordered this 馄饨汤 (wanton soup) &葱油面 (dry noodles)… the wanton soup was pretty gd… probably about 10 small wantons, costing only 3RMB = S$0.60, while the noodles cost 3.50RMB = S$0.70… haha… there were too many wantons, so gave some to William… as for the noodles, initially it tasted fine…but later, felt damn gelard… (not sure about the spelling?) coz the noodles were damn oily… taste wise was quite alright… anyway, I ordered a beef noodles soup for takeaway coz by the time I get back to nanjing, it’ll be around dinner time, and it’ll prob be difficult to find food, so I guess it’ll be better to just buy something back… the beef noodles was more ex, 12RMB + 1RMB for takeaway… most of the people bring their own pots or containers for takeaway, but since I didn’t have 1 of my own, I had to pay extra for the plastic container…

Reached nanjing at around 4+pm… the journey was quite alright… watched prison break on my archos player… =P anyway, as mentioned previously, I was supposed to move out of my nanjing apartment immediately… so the company driver who picked me up from the airport first sent me back to my original apartment to pack some clothes and other necessities, before sending me to a hotel… I stayed at 山水大酒店 which was a really nice 4 or 5 star hotel… very comfortable… =)

After checking in, I had my dinner in the hotel before going out again to view my new apartment… it’s at a place called 梅花山庄, environment looked much nicer…the apartment itself was also quite nice & new… apparently, the owner moved out coz her husband was posted to shanghai for his work, and she’s following him there… this new apartment might be smaller than my previous one, but the space is still more than enough, since I’m just staying alone… in fact, I prefer a smaller place, so that it’ll be a little more cozy, instead of giving me this sense of emptiness or loneliness… moreover, it’ll be easier to clean up the place as well! =P