Friday, April 13, 2012

China Trip Pt 8: Relaxing In Suzhou

At the request of CK godpa, we set our alarm to wake up earlier so that we can have breakfast with him before he went to work. Alas, my poor god daughter was crying the whole night and so both parents did not sleep well... Even though she stopped wailing but she only slept at 4am and consequently, the two panda parents din sleep for the whole night...

When we were halfway through getting ready, godma Karen texted me and asked me to go over later... I told her not to bother.. She can go back to sleep and we can settle our own breakfast to which she replied.. "I already prepared the batter for the pancake.." And so, after resting for a while, we went over.. and boy was it cold. Even though it was almost 10am by the time we went out of our apartment and they were staying just 300 metres away, it was a mad rush over cos it was super cold!

Shivering even in the lift!!

Ace was excited though.. cos he kept trying to blow out smoke and he was more amused by this than anything else and din mind the fact that he had to wear three layers to keep warm..

Grrrr... waiting for Karen godma to come open the door to let us in...

While waiting for her to come, I noticed this interesting plant I kept seeing.. I went up close and found that it is a real plant and that it looks like the leaf on the canadian flag! I dunno if it is the same type of leaf though...

Tadah! Our ai xin breakfast.. homemade soy milk..

Pancakes with fruits and bread that we bought the day before...

Phoebe looked tired and was not as happy as yesterday.. but she was like Ace gor gor.. hungry when sick.. so she was rather sad she cannot eat the banana Ace is eating and she kept trying to reach out for it..

:( Ganma, I want to get well soon....

The upside for Max is that she is more subdued and she actually let Max carry her! This godpa was so happy.. i think he happier than win toto!:D

Despite us volunteering to explore Suzhou on our own, Karen decided to bring us out and at the same time go find this particular medication her doctor friend suggested Phoebe take.

At the bust stop, we saw more plum blossoms...

On the top, more flowers.. the pic below is the high end shopping mall where everything is super ex. They built it so tat the rich expats have somewhere to go spend their money:) hahahaha

I cannot help it, I see peach blossoms must take picture! Hahah

Below is the Shanghai flyer.. Actually I dunno wat it is called but it is the same as the Singapore flyer lah... Suzhou Industrial park is indeed like a mini singapore...

Apparently, there are not many pharmacies around in this place and even the medication they carry is limited and we couldnt find the medication we were looking for. I so appreciate dubai after this.


We found that the shopping centre (which is like Takashimaya) sells sushi and bought some for Ace as lunch..

As for us adults, we went to a Japanese curry place that Karen herself has never been to before. I tell you the Mushroom jap curry with egg is super delicious lor! I think I go buy jap curry to make this myself at home.. OISHIIII!!!

Max's asparagus one is not too bad as well but  mushroom is still th eBEST!:)

While having lunch, I was telling Karen how my friends asked me to go on the rds to look for meinu but I noticed that so far, I have not seen any... I told my friends that I am the most beautiful liao! hahahahah

Karen says there are a few reasons for this. The first reason is tat when people say suzhou has beautiful women, they are not talking about beauty in terms of features.. they are talking about beautiful translucent skin... because of the good weather and good water.. And it is true though that I saw many people with good skin:)

And then the second reason she says is because the most beautiful women wun stay here as explained to her by a rhyme that her chinese friend taught her... and it goes like this:
一等美女,飘洋过海
二等美女,北京上海
三等美女,深圳珠海
四等美女,准备跳海

That is why you wun see many pretty women when you visit Suzhou:) hahahaha...

After lunch, Karen brought us to look for this huge playground..


We found an interesting tunnel where the walls have got sensor and light up when you run past.. that is Karen and Ace running to make the walls light up;)


They have lots of unrelated designs and exhibits in the mall area as well.. But maybe cos it is a weekday.. the whole mall is like a dead town..


Finally, the playground!!!!

Ace was excited...

Only for a little while though.. cos there were no other children to play with him!

What is the merlion doing here?:P

So boh pian, the big kid Max Chua who is almost 4 times heavier has to play see saw with Ace while me and Karen godma try to find more pharmacies to get the medication she wants..



We went around but cannot find.. so leh, rest a while and camwhore lor:)

I think it has been a thousand years since we last took so many pics together!!!! In Singapore we wun really bother to do that even though we meet up once every month or so...


Kawaii neh:P

Karen says she will treat us coffee and I was so surprised to find COSTA coffee there.. I have only seen it in Dubai and thought it is an arabic brand.. apparently, it is very big in China as well...



Then Karen brought us to this lake.. it was misty and we could barely see the tower.. thank god for photoshop.. so now you can see it clearly in this picture.. hahahahaha;) The lake is super big lor.. anyway, china is like tat lah.. they have this lake called Tai Hu which is even bigger than Singapore lor:)

The below is a structure tat started building two years back and stopped for the past two years due to lack of funds... seems like Dubai is not the only hit by the crisis badly..

Then we just sat down and drank our coffee and enjoy the view a little..

Self entertain by cam whoring again!


That in the background is the "fake" bird best stadium they built to remember the olympics....

Below is a couple taking wedding photos.. we saw another couple there as well but I wonder why they are there given the bad weather.. wat sort of photos can they take.. but i guess they also dun have much choice cos it is not as if suzhou has lots of places to visit or take photos..

I was told tat the wedding gowns here are horrendous.. they are usually some obiang bright colour and Karen says she has ever seen someone wore a rainbow coloured gown! I guess we just have VERY DIFFERENT taste:)
Once you see this sort of close up shots of insects or flowers, you know tat old uncle Max has got the camera in his hands... He said when he was younger, he did not care much for flowers.. now he is just attracted to them... hahahha


Chilling out somemore...


camwhore somemore:)




Ace wants to pretend to box the building again...

In the end, we decided to go to Au Chan (that we visited the day before) because they have a pharmacy inside as well. So while we went to check out the medication, the boys went to chill out at Decathlon..

Good also cos in the end we bought alot more stuff from Dcathlon:) I bought a top and a pants tat can be converted into a skirt tat i had been eyeing on for a long time in dubai.. but i only saw the kids version and not the adult version in dubai... I also bought another long ali baba pants... Ace leh, bought a dart game and a feathre dart (for kicking one) and Max also bought shorts and t shirts and socks.

Then it was time to go home...

Max showing Ace how to play the game.. Once we were in our room, Ace immediately wanted to play the darts and so we played for a while.. but this sore loser cried when he lost! hahahaha... Max says he is happy with this purchase because this can train Ace's focus and even his math as he tabulates the scores:)

Karen went home to check on phoebe and since she is ok and asleep, we both went to the cafe downstairs for a drink.. Ace wanted to tag along and so Karen gave him a find this object sort of activity book to entertain himself..

We discovered the cafe is realy quite cosy and I really dun mind spending more time here:)

While we were enjoying though, Karen's mum was bz whipping up some mean dishes!

And here is what we had for dinner!




Yummy! I also learnt to make the chinese style minestrone soup...

That is Max looking worried cos he has plans for the stalls below later in the night.. but so much good food and so little space left in his big tummy!!!:) wahahaahhahaha

We were worried the stalls wun open as it was raining.. heng ah.. here they come!!!

While waiting for Karen and CK at the lounger, I by chance found a travel book that talks about Dubai.. I guess I have been there done it for most of the touristy staff.. only few things I have not done is the big mosque.. atlantis and also flying around dubai in a plane or hotair balloon...

Found out something I din know too.. apparently, an arabic person's house can easily cost 5 million and they can still easily afford it because they are given an interest free 20 year loan.... tsk tsk tsk.. good life leh the people here...

CK very happy he got kaki to drink and cheong and eat doi pai dong with:)


As it was cold, Karen lent Ace her shawl.. but he ended up looking like a gypsie.. wahahaha


Ace says he wants to eat boogers.. so godpa pretend to dig some for him.. hahahaha

After all the roasted veg and meat... we went supermart shopping... I found some interesting things like LEMON TEA flavoured chips.. camel meat and even rabbit meat! Eeeew....

Anyway, that so ended our relaxing day in Suzhou

The next day, we are supposed to go to Tongli water village. I pray tat Phoebe will get better soon and we can all travel there together:) More about Tongli in the next post...

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