After we came back from Tongli, we went home and took a short break.. but Max was restless.. cos there is a cafe called Parfait downstairs at our apartment and he has been keen to go there for a drink.. and so we decided to hang out there while waiting for Karen and family to get ready to go dinner;)
On sale in Parfait.. Hello Kitty soup bowls... so cute right?
And then we decided what to order.. As usual, Max ordered a beer... we say NACHOs written on the menu and got excited and so we ordered a set to munch on as snack since we were feeling slightly hungry by then...
They provided games to play in the cafe and so we decided on a friendly game of Jenga.. but this set had some words printed on them and I think when you picked that particular piece, you had to read what it read and do it:)
Below is Max and his beer.. he says the local beer here all diluted one.. boh larsar.. so finally can drink Erdinger!
Max is supposed to make a monkey face as a forfeit.. wahahaha
And then leh, as we played, we decided whoever lost had to do 1o pushups.. while Ace was pulling out his piece, Max accidentally hit something and the whole thing toppled!
Ace promptly went to do his 10 pushups even though it wasn't his fault.. but this sore loser cried at the sofa afterwards... hahahahaha..
Luckily got food to pacify him.. BUT.. why is our NACHOS quasedilla???? We thought they gave us the wrong order but we found out that THEY JUST HAVE LOUSY sense of wat is wat!! Cos they insisted that this is NACHOS!!!
And then everyone was ready and we took two seperate cabs to the dinner place..
Max had a lengthy discussion about China with the cab driver.. he was forthcoming about his views and what is happening in China.. hahahahaha.. very amusing conversation I must say..
Firstly, they will comment that as Singaporeans, we speak really good chinese because they think we can only speak english or broken chinese.. or accented chinese... and the uncle talked about how the laws in the country are warped...
Remember how I said that the law in china is such tat if you are a driver and you hit someone, you are always at fault.. according to the cab driver, this is because the government does not want to take charge of this and so they make this law so tat the insurance companies have to settle it as all cars are covered by insurance.. as a result though, the insurance premium is very high..
Another thing the cab driver complained about was the fact that in China, as long as you had connections.. you win big time.. if you had money, you will be able to get connections.. as a result of this, most man on the street in China live in fear of being bullied or picked on by people with connections while those who have connections are aggressive and do whatever they like with little regard for others!
Then the driver complained about why chinese people are all money minded and he asked us if we have ever tried to do business with someone chinese... He said unless they are your life long friends, if not, dun trust them and dun do business with them because in china, everyone is NOT trustworthy at all!
Then he complained that the government in China is lousy and if it they had a democratic election where a group of nobodies formed the 狗屁党, everyone will surely vote for 狗屁党.. when Max mentioned that the situation does seem not very good for the man on the street.. the Taxi uncle scolded him and said, "You are being too nice! 你太含蓄了。我们的政府就是烂！"
Hahahahaha.. I am glad we met such a colourful character.. alas we reached our destination liao so no more story already...
We went to this place which is an organic chinese vegeterian restaurant.. which made us happy cos even though vegeterian food is easily available in Dubai, we have yet visited any pure chinese vegeterian restaurant here....
The boss gave Ace a pudding to try and Ace wanted to bring it home.. Alas, the boss said cannot bring home cos she needed the bottle and so he had to finish it up:)
When I went in and saw food being displayed on the shelfs, I was quite excited but was disappointed to find nothing we could buy:(
Phoebe is feeling much better.. YEAH!
Ace finishing up his pudding..
Ace wanted to play with Phoebe and kept going to her and talking to her... i think he knows it is his last few hours with her for this trip...
This is the yummy food we ate! This is a steamed fish! And actually, it is a brinjal with cuts on it.. deep fried and then cooked in typical sauces you use to cook fish! :) Very interesting!
Mai Xiang Veg.. this one we eat often at our fav circuit road stall!
This is recommendation of the boss.. steak.. tasted great:)
Then of cos is monkeyhead mushroom.. our other fav:) nice!
And a lovely soup to go with it:)
That is Karen taking my photo.. so I take her photo to0 lor;)
Tuck in! Even Phoebe loved the food and kept making noise whenever her Popo stopped feeding her! hahahahaah
Me, my god daughter and my bestie:)
Hard to get her to smile with us too wor..
My dream board.. one son one daughter:) HEE HEE... Pray it comes true soon:)
And this was like the only time Phoebe let me carry her during this trip...
And then it was time to go home..
Ace brought his dart board to play with Gandie CK.. but Phoebe took a liking to the ball and kept holding on to it.. Ace was very worried and upset by it but did not get violent towards Phoebe... he just sulked and we had to tell him to be patient as we will slowly exchange the ball with something else...
Max asked Ace if it was tiring being a big brother as he had to give in to meimei and take care of her all the time and Ace said it was tiring but he enjoyed it and he would like a little brother now tat he has a sister!:) hahahaha
Then Ace got hungry and Godma gave him some food...
While we were at Tongli, CK and Karen bought their fav beer, Sha Pi, for Max:) So time for a good drink.. I think CK is very happy cos got pple to drink and RnR with him.. hahahah
As Ace had nothing to do, we gave him the job of previewing the animation tat Gandie's company made and tell Gandie what he liked or dun like about the show.. But I think hor, to Ace, everything as long as is cartoon or children's show is very nice one.. hahaha.. but it had him entranced for quite a while...
After ward, he got bored again and asked for paper and pen.. and he made a "get well soon" card for Phoebe...
Ace was a great brother lor.. as Phoebe was still slightly cranky as she is still not feeling very well.. everyime she cried, Ace will run and get her something to pacify her.. and it is as if he knew what she wants!:) Then he tried to read storybook for her and then it was bedtime for both kids...
The next day, we woke bright and early to take a cab to the train station. Karen gave specific instructions on how to rush out of the station and where to go to get cab cos she says if not, we would have to wait for 30-60 minutes for a cab...
The warnings about taking care of your belongings and how the crime rate is high in crowded is still fresh in my mind so i was a little worried.
Before we started on this trip, in order to manage Ace, I told him that during this trip, in order to have a good trip, he just needed to remember 4 things:
- Stay Alert
- Stay Close (to me and Max)
- Stay Healthy
- Stay Happy
I told him on this special day, because of the overwhelming crowd, another item is added to the list and it is BE FAST.
So far, the 4 rules of happy travel has worked well:) And Ace has been a pretty decent travel companion:)
That is us waiting for our train..
Ace is upset because we cannot get to sit together with daddy as our tickets were not in running numbers...
Max was seated one row diagonally behind us... before we boarded the train, Max told Ace that he is in charge of taking care of the luggage... Because we could put our small luggage on top of us but the big one had to stay behind the carriage... so at every station, we had to turn back to look at our luggage...
We found out that it is the norm to find people sitting in your seat so you got to show them your ticket.. throughout the journey, people were just playing musical chairs... all the time.. hahhaaha:)
Also, Ace complained he had nothing to do... I told him we could talk like we did when we were on the cab where we discussed about what my favourite subject was in school and made an agreement that Ace would work on his math and chinese to be good in math and chinese..
Luckily, he found this paperbag to amuse himself..
The train ride was a long one as we had to go from Suzhou back to Shanghai before going to Hangzhou.. but the 90 min is considered fast given that we were in a train that was going 300 over kilometres per hour half the time...
I found out that canola flowers were all over the place again:)
As the time passed rather slowly, I started to read mags and since I did not take a nice pic of the train we took, i just take the pic I saw in the magazine as reference lor:)
There was a part about travel and these are the MUST VISIT places according to the mag.. wish tat in my lifetime i will have a chance to visit each of these places at least ONCE:)
Then suddenly, Ace said to me, "Mummy, why is DADDY on the TV ah?" And true enough, there was Max's sleeping face on the tv;) My ah lau is a star! hahahaha
We were approaching a station and Max was asleep still.. Ace got very excited and kept shouting across the train, "Wake up.. daddy.. pst.... wake up!"
I asked Ace why he is so kan cheong and he said matter of factly, "I am in charge of the luggage.. so have to wake daddy up to check it..."
I told him since daddy is sleeping, he can take over the job of checking it then..
Excited that he can be a spy, my good son drilled a hole in the paperbag he had and started to spy on our lugguage through the hole...
He insisted tat I take this pic of him looking through this hole.. i really marvel at the ingenuity of my son!
More scenic pics taken along the way...
We are almost reaching and Ace made his paperbag into a bun and put on his head and said he is a warrior.. I guess chinese warriors always have buns on their heads:)
Anyway, our journey from the train to our taxi is indeed an unforgettable one... Thank goodness Karen gave us advance instructions and descriptions about what is going to happen and what to do... once we got out of the station.. everyone was in a mad rush to go for the gates, the amt of people at the train station gives a totally new meaning and perspective to the chinese saying "people mountain people sea..." we were just pushed along because there were so much people.. if you did not move, you will probably fall!
There was this woman standing before me who was balancing two luggage bags on a pole! No wonder no one wanted to stand near her cos I was so afraid she might hit Ace so I kept Ace close to me... while I kept looking back to look at Max who was behind us.. and because the crowd was so bad, there was no way Max could PULL the luggage on the floor and so he had to carry thirty over kg worth of luggage on his hands and walk!
Luckily we walked out quickly enough and instead of waiting for the cab for 30-60min like Karen said we might... we barely waited 5 minutes for one:)
Once I am in the cab, I can finally heave a sigh of relief!
When we reached our hotel, Ace was happy to find the elephant towel on his bed!:)
This is our room...
Everything is very nice and inside the toilet, we found some interesting items (for sale) like sanitized towels, wash set, indian miracle oil, condoms, etc... INTERESTING!
And all Ace wanted to do? WATCH CARTOON! He watched cartoon after cartoon and did not want to go out..
Where got children sulk when we say want to bring him out to play one??
Anyway, we decided to make our way to find some lunch and go to Qing He Fang and West Lake to see see look look.. More about that in the next post..
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