Surviving Shanghai: Day 1 (Official)

Sept. 21 (Friday)

By "official" I meant, it's the real deal...those activities we sort of planned to do.

Since we started out late, we were not able to do everything in our itinerary for this day.  First thing we did upon leaving the hotel was to find a place to eat. We walked along North Sichuan Road, until we saw a mall with signages of food stores. There we tried Happy Lemon (it's cheaper there than here in the P.I.) and a Chinese restaurant. We order a roasted duck and a set meal like that of a shabu-shabu. Then we ordered "mi fan" (rice) but we were given a black rice that tasted sweet, which we felt was a dessert haha! There, you'll have to pay your food right after the waiter has gotten your order.

cute Hello Kitty cake! I want!

So after our late lunch, we took the Metro train to the West Nanjing Road. It's a long road of lots of boutiques! Truly a shopping haven! It reminded me of Shinjuku and Harajuku wherein all the brands are on the the both sides of the road.

From Nanjing Road, we took the Metro train to Century Ave. There we were on an elevated walkway and we got a perfect view of the best buildings and structures in Shanghai, most especially the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. We originally planned to have a dinner buffet at the tower but it costs around Php 2,500 when converted. So we opted to find something else to do. We wanted to go to The Bund, so we had to cross the Huangpu River. We went through The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel wherein we rode a see-through covered cart on a rail going to the other side of the river. The ride costs 90 RMB/pax. We didn't actually pay much attention to the voice over and the effects shown inside as we were passing through the tunnel, but for sure, it's not worth 90 RMB! haha

Jin Mao Tower

 Oriental Pearl TV Tower

 BFFs and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower

 I was surprised I can take a photo this nice!

it's very evident on this photo how tired I've been from walking the whole day

 that's our ride going to the other side of the river

That's the tunnel! Kinda scary haha!

Besides the Huangpu River, we also got a nice view of the French Concession on the opposite side. And to cap our night, we headed to The Apartment where we had our late dinner and some drinks. They serve sumptuous Italian dishes and good cocktails. Just like what its name suggests, it's a 3-storey apartment with a roof deck that somehow felt like Skye. One of its rooms was for house music and it felt a bit like Relik, while the other room was playing RNB and HipHop, which felt like Republiq. There were lots of expats and tourists at the place. We headed back to the hotel at 1:30am and it only took us around 36 RMB via cab.

I used the HDR effect of my Camera 360 app on iPhone 

 The ferry ride costs 2 RMB only. We should've taken this instead on the tunnel thing.

 So funny that this looks like the Empire State Building in New York haha!

 The French Concession

Felt like Paris over here!

Price Range: 70-200 RMB (drinks at 70+, food at 100+)

 the dining area (resto part)

 Roof Deck

 Shanghai party :)

 the room for "house music"

the room for "RNB and Hiphop" music

It's so cool because we found flyers/invites for Maroon5 Shanghai concert's after-party at The Apartment scheduled on the coming week.

Tip: Download the Wow Shanghai app because it's very useful in finding the perfect places for shopping, dining, partying, and more! It's complete...with directions!:)

So that's our 1st day in Shanghai! I got more to share about our second day. Stay tuned!:)


xoxo

Cherry Blossoms at their Best

The blooming of cherry blossoms ("sakura" in Japanese) signals the transition of the season from winter to spring. The Japanese people celebrate this by doing "hanami" or having picnics/gatherings under sakura trees. 

Sakura blooms earlier in Tokyo and other warmer cities, while in Suwa (our area) which is surrounded by mountains, they bloom later 'cause of the colder weather. If the cherry blossoms bloom on the first week of April in Tokyo, they bloom between the 3rd to last week of April in the provinces. However, these cherry blossoms only stay for a week or two 'cause they fall once the weather becomes hotter. So your really need to be on perfect timing to catch them in full bloom.

At the playground of our neighborhood, there were lots of Sakura trees. So before grocery shopping, we dropped by the playground for some photo ops! haha!

My Tokyo Disneyland Adventure

A week after my visit at Tokyo Disney Sea with my friend and her family, our family decided to go to Tokyo Disneyland last April 15. It's actually my 2nd Disneyland experience, first of which was in Hong Kong.

Our first ride was the train which gave us a view of about half of Disneyland. Then we got a Fast Pass from the Big Thunder Mountain. It's such a fun and exciting ride!:)

 my cousins

 American Indians...that looked so real!

Lilo and Stitch 

 steam ship

Haunted Mansion = an interesting ride :)

Since its Easter season, the parade of the Disney characters was themed Easter Wonderland. The performers were really good and some of them were Filipinos.

Since we didn't have much time, and there were really long queues, we skipped the Splash Mountain; but I took a photo of people on the ride. haha!

Then we had 3D experience, same show as that in Hong Kong. I wanted to skip the It's a Small World ride because it wasn't that thrilling, based on my Hong Kong Disneyland experience. However, my aunt insisted so I had no choice. It was smaller than that of Hong Kong's. So funny that my aunt fell asleep while on the boat.

 Mickey's PhilHarmonic Theater

 cute dolls :)

And while my cousins were riding the go-kart, I went by myself to the Space Mountain. It was crazy! I remembered riding it when my friends and I were in Hong Kong.

And of course, the traditional castle photo...

Then we tried Captain EO since there's no queue. But we were disappointed because it wasn't fun! My family members fell asleep inside the theater haha! The last part of our day in Disneyland was shopping.

And the last part of our day was shopping! We bought a lot of chocolates and cookies plus some souvenirs like shirts and keychains. It was a tiring day, yet we still had to drive back home for 3 hours.

 nice view at night

The Disney Resort is one of the reasons why I love Tokyo!:)