Monday, October 8, 2012

Surviving Shanghai: Day 3

It's our last day in Shanghai and our itinerary as we planned actually covered People's Square, Shanghai Museum, and West Nanjing Road (for shopping). However, we got some kind of deviation from our originally itinerary.

We're supposed to start our day early but we ended up waking up late because our beds and sheets were too comfy! haha! So we had breakfast at Mcdo, which was two blocks away from our hotel. Then we walked to Baoshan Road station, passing buy a market of surplus goods. Well it looked like Divisoria of gadgets, kitchenwares, industrial stuff, etc. There were lots of people even in the streets so we didn't bother to take a look anymore.

 Double Cheeseburger and it's cheaper there than in the P.I.


We went off at People's Square station. Then we walked a couple of blocks to get to the Shanghai Museum. The museum is open from 8am to 5pm and admission is free. It's super worth our time because we got to know China even more. I've been familiar with Chinese dynasties since high school, and it's so cool to have images and artefacts to associate with  what I've learned those days about the Chinese history.

Shanghai Grand Theater

flowers!:)


inside the museum


ancient pottery










Chinese calligraphy

bad hair day lol

please excuse the kid behind me lol


panorama shot via iOS 6


I forgot the name of this road but it's a strip of restaurants and some boutiques

After a little over an hour inside the museum, we headed to West Nanjing Road, thinking of finding a bazaar in the street but there's none. We walked towards the East Nanjing Road until we found a building which looked like the Silk Market in Beijing or 168 in Divisoria. I got to practice my bargaining skills with a cute leather bag/clutch that we bought. The initial price offered was 620 RMB, and I was like...seriously?!? That wasn't even branded! She did a demo wherein she tried to burn the bag using a lighter and it didn't show any mark. So I haggled a lot of times and whenever the saleslady wouldn't agree, we were acting as if we're leaving, then she's been stopping us every time. Until we arrived at the price of 120 RMB. Imagine that?!? Well they speak good English so you can always negotiate with them without the charades haha! But I suggest, be kind when you haggle because it gets them guilty for overpricing that's why it's easier to haggle. (wasn't able to take a photo of the building)

Shopping there wasn't enough so we headed to the Super Brand Mall, a 13-storey shopping mall in century Avenue. We didn't have much time to shop because we had to catch our flight later that night. Surprisingly, we spent about an hour in H&M on the 1st floor of the building and we had to do a 15-minute grocery shopping for "pasalubong" in the supermarket at the ground floor. After that quick shopping, we took a cab back to the hotel, fixed our things, and left the hotel. The security guard of the hotel called a cab for us and we thought they already talked about where we're headed to. But apparently, they didn't. The taxi driver couldn't understand that we wanted him to take us to the East Nanjing Road station since that's the nearest Line 2 station from the hotel, and that's the metro line headed to the Pudong International Airport. The driver was too kind and resourceful that he used hi cellphone to call the Shanghai Translator call center. He passed his phone to us then the agent on the line said, "This is the Shanghai Translator. Where do you want to go? I will translate it to your driver." It's super cool! I suggest you search its number online because it will be useful if you don't want to do charades haha!


About our departure, I'll share it on my next post. I will also include a summary of our trip, some tips and a bit of an estimated expense to help you guys on planning your trip to Shanghai.

xoxo

1 comment:

Monday, October 8, 2012

Surviving Shanghai: Day 3

It's our last day in Shanghai and our itinerary as we planned actually covered People's Square, Shanghai Museum, and West Nanjing Road (for shopping). However, we got some kind of deviation from our originally itinerary.

We're supposed to start our day early but we ended up waking up late because our beds and sheets were too comfy! haha! So we had breakfast at Mcdo, which was two blocks away from our hotel. Then we walked to Baoshan Road station, passing buy a market of surplus goods. Well it looked like Divisoria of gadgets, kitchenwares, industrial stuff, etc. There were lots of people even in the streets so we didn't bother to take a look anymore.

 Double Cheeseburger and it's cheaper there than in the P.I.


We went off at People's Square station. Then we walked a couple of blocks to get to the Shanghai Museum. The museum is open from 8am to 5pm and admission is free. It's super worth our time because we got to know China even more. I've been familiar with Chinese dynasties since high school, and it's so cool to have images and artefacts to associate with  what I've learned those days about the Chinese history.

Shanghai Grand Theater

flowers!:)


inside the museum


ancient pottery










Chinese calligraphy

bad hair day lol

please excuse the kid behind me lol


panorama shot via iOS 6


I forgot the name of this road but it's a strip of restaurants and some boutiques

After a little over an hour inside the museum, we headed to West Nanjing Road, thinking of finding a bazaar in the street but there's none. We walked towards the East Nanjing Road until we found a building which looked like the Silk Market in Beijing or 168 in Divisoria. I got to practice my bargaining skills with a cute leather bag/clutch that we bought. The initial price offered was 620 RMB, and I was like...seriously?!? That wasn't even branded! She did a demo wherein she tried to burn the bag using a lighter and it didn't show any mark. So I haggled a lot of times and whenever the saleslady wouldn't agree, we were acting as if we're leaving, then she's been stopping us every time. Until we arrived at the price of 120 RMB. Imagine that?!? Well they speak good English so you can always negotiate with them without the charades haha! But I suggest, be kind when you haggle because it gets them guilty for overpricing that's why it's easier to haggle. (wasn't able to take a photo of the building)

Shopping there wasn't enough so we headed to the Super Brand Mall, a 13-storey shopping mall in century Avenue. We didn't have much time to shop because we had to catch our flight later that night. Surprisingly, we spent about an hour in H&M on the 1st floor of the building and we had to do a 15-minute grocery shopping for "pasalubong" in the supermarket at the ground floor. After that quick shopping, we took a cab back to the hotel, fixed our things, and left the hotel. The security guard of the hotel called a cab for us and we thought they already talked about where we're headed to. But apparently, they didn't. The taxi driver couldn't understand that we wanted him to take us to the East Nanjing Road station since that's the nearest Line 2 station from the hotel, and that's the metro line headed to the Pudong International Airport. The driver was too kind and resourceful that he used hi cellphone to call the Shanghai Translator call center. He passed his phone to us then the agent on the line said, "This is the Shanghai Translator. Where do you want to go? I will translate it to your driver." It's super cool! I suggest you search its number online because it will be useful if you don't want to do charades haha!


About our departure, I'll share it on my next post. I will also include a summary of our trip, some tips and a bit of an estimated expense to help you guys on planning your trip to Shanghai.

xoxo

1 comment: