China trip started the morning of 17th April 07 at the Singapore Changi Airport. Bro and mom came to the airport to send me off. we were early but was still surprised when the China Eastern Airlines counter had no queue! usually, there wld be a lot of china ppl queuing up and cutting queue! so after checking in, we had a nice bk breakfast before i entered the departure hall. i bought the wine for mike's parents and the United mag cos i expect the plane trip to be pretty boring. well actually, the flight was super boring! there were no movies; the place where the screen wld normally be had a chinese painting in its place! n i still thot "wah so hi-tech, later the painting will become a lcd screen?" haha..and guess what was the in-flight entertainment? it was a Q&A session abt facts on china hosted by the air stewardess!! i almost died la. what a joke. really budget man haha. the in-flight meal was qt crap too. the chicken i ordered looked like it came out of a can of dog food.(below) the whole trip was =s la, except that i had the Straits Times for company.
Arrived at Shanghai, Pudong Intl Airport ard 3plus in the afternoon. it was a rainy day in shanghai! met up with mike(our host) and det & James(they were on an earlier flight). luckily mike brought me an extra jacket cos it was qt cold that day. dun think any of our next 6 days were as cold as the first. we had "smoke" coming out of our mouth as we breathed and talked! how cool is that? we were all super excited by that. not to mention the rain that came down felt like ice water, haha. we took the Magnetic Levitation Train to a connecting train station, after which we cabbed over to mike's place. the Mag Lev train is super cool. apparently it "hovers" above the track, "binds" onto the track via magnetic force, thus cutting our friction and voilah, top speed was 431km/h! faster than the bullet train in japan i think!
Reached Mike's place(Ding xiang lu, jin xiu lu) ard late afternoon. greeted his mom, who was preparing great Jiaozi and dumplings for us! i just love his mom's jiaozi and dumplings soups! part of the reason i went man, haha! well, we settled down, awed at his house, ate the delicious food and went for a walk in his estate. it was really a big estate and the clubhse rocks la! it has almost everything! from billiard room, to private movie room, indoor swimming complex, its own library with librarian, large children's playgrd, supermarket, hair salon, badminton courts, squash courts, table tennis courts, music room, tuition room and super duper cool gym! the treadmills all have lcd TVs attached la, with cable channels like ESPN n HBO!! cool or what?
After dinner, sumptious n prepared by mike's mom, we walked over to this place called "Da Mu Zi" which literally means Big Thumb in chinese. its like a mini shopping area for the ppl in this neighbourhood. walked distance. it had restaurants, a Carrefour and a nike factory outlet. at Carrefour, we bought our fav sausages, chewing gums and snacks for our hangzhou trip the next day. wanted to check out the nike outlet but it wasnt opened yet. so we went back home. it was till raining and super cold. Back at mike's place, we had to do what we love to do..which is...Winning Eleven! haha, yes, even in shanghai china, some things nv change. we started mucking ard, playing winning, gg online and finalising our plans for hangzhou n beijing. and we anyhow took pic of mike changing..hahaha! it was just fun hanging out with ur good friends at a foreign land! lotsa mucking ard!
Mike changing..we were all laughing out loud as i was taking the pic..heh heh..