The accumulation of all the walking and lack of sleep finally had some repercussions. As we travelled on a night flight, all three of us did not get decent rest on the night we were on the plane. The following night was no better as we had to get used to a new place and also because we reached our hotel at 11 plus. By the time we settled down and bathed, it was 12 plus and by the time we zzz, it was like 1am already... (even though to be fair, that would only be like 9, 10pm dubai time:))
Anyway, the night before we agreed we should wake early, eat breakfast and come back and rest a while before making our way to Suzhou. I assumed that Max would set an alarm and he assumed that I would set an alarm.. in the end, neither one of us did:)
I heard a strange sound in the morning.. like someone knocking on the windows (I found out later that they were washing the windows that day) but I was so tired I drifted back to sleep again. The next time I regained consciousness, it was already 10.40am... even our hotel breakfast has already ended!
But it was a blessing in disguise! Max decided to go out and buy breakfast... the breakfast he bought was cheaper than what it would have cost if we had paid for Ace's breakfast (as me and Max's breakfast was already included in the package). PLUS, the food was good!
Ace Chua however refused to wake up!!! So we started eating first!
There was soy bean milk... we found out they have salted and sweet ones.. so now we clever and we order sweet one cos if we dun specify, chances are they will give us the warm, salty one.. which is more of the norm here...
Max also bought vegetable bao.. and inside hor, is really vegetable lor!!
And he also bought this yummilicious vegeterian noodles.. dam, if we know earlier, we wun order hotel breakfast at all! hahahahaha...
Then it was time for our chauffeur to pick us up to drive us from Shanghai to Suzhou...
I noticed along the way there seems to be along of Canola fields and it is the time of the season where they are in bloom..they are EVERYWHERE!
Because Suzhou is much colder, the flowers are still in bloom... so nice to drive into lots of flowers.. you know it when you drive into the Suzhou Industrial Park area... cos it is so like Singapore.. greenery everywhere.. and even the residential buildings u see look like the condos and HDBs in Singapore! The only thing is instead of GREEN trees, you get PINK and RED trees of peach blossoms and plum blossoms!
Nice hor!
Peach blossoms everywhere!
Do you start to feel as if you are in Punggol or Sengkang:)?
This is how the roads look like with peach blossoms in bloom along the way.. breath-taking!
I can see the place we are going to stay in!
Finally we arrive! Yeah!
Very happy to find tat the condo we are staying in has a mini garden with lots of pretty flowers..
My bestie, Karen even prepared towel, hot water bottle and lots of other stuff for us to welcome us:) And after we settled down, it was time to visit my god daughter!
Ace lost no time in giving her the present we prepared for her.. it is a little bear that Ace named Little Phoebe....
Isn't she pretty??Gosh, the last time I saw her in person was during CNY.. how has she grown.. and now she can walk already! I am so glad she loves the bear we bought for her...
The thing is, I have wanted to buy her a present but din know what I can get her. I din want to get her clothes cos her mother already bought her tonnes of it:) SO next best thing is toy lor.. but her mum say dun bother if the toy is made in china... after discussion with her mother, I found out that she loves soft toys of pink or purplish colours.. and so we decided to make a bear for her!:)
Sidetrack a little about the bear workshop thingy.. After searching around, we chose this bear as it was light coloured, look friendly and most importantly, it is not the furry type. I wouldnt want hair to drop out and go into her mouth or wat.. PLUS this bear has eyes that are sewn on.. not buttons.. so excellent for young girl like her:)
Then they helped us fill up the bear to semi hardness.. and Ace is supposed to hug the bear...
Now it is time to pick a heart and then send all your warm wishes and your love into the heart of the bear and put the heart in... After that, they will help you sew up the bear and you can give the bear a bath..
Then it was time to shop for an outfit.. I liked this sporty outfit but somehow it din look very nice after the bear put it on.. and most of the outfits had sequins which are sharp...finally found a perfect t shirt.. it is pink (her fav colour) and it says Happy Birthday.. which is great cos it is supposed to be her 1 year old birthday present!)
Ace helped to dress up the bear...
Next you go type in info about the bear so that in case it is lost, they know where to find you...
Anyway, Ace is a very good brother.. he is rather patient with Phoebe and because Phoebe was not feeling very well, she was slow to warm up to everyone EXCEPT ACE:) hahahaha.. Even though we kept asking Ace not to do this or do that, he never got upset.. only time he was upset was when she took his toy and did not want to return it.. wahahahahah.. but still, he was generally patient with her and happy to see her and play with her...
Ace says if I ever do get preggy again, he wants a baby brother because he already has a sister-Phoebe:) hahahaha
Ace showing Phoebe how to dance..
Finally my turn to play with her and take photo with her:)
Then, godma Karen said she will bring us out and eat dinner outside.. she is going somewhere to do some supermart shopping and they have a huge sports shop tat Ace will enjoy.. While she was preparing, we went to take a walk in the garden and found a bamboo stretch.. Max very happy lor:)
To entertain ourselves, we tried to take a DMC panorama photo and have Max appear everywhere!:)
Then we took a bus downtown...
Love the flowers!
This is the bus routes and all the info you need.. one look at it made me headache.. dam. I dunno how I am going to survive if I have to live in China and read all these chinese words just to find out what bus to take to go to my destination!
Max and Ace huddle up in the cold while we wait for another bus that goes to the place we wanna go.. while Karen and me make a monkey face and camwhore:) Finally, the bus is here.. we found out tat the buses here only charge 1 RMB or 2RMB (depending on bus number) irregardless of distance.. SBS, SMRT.. are you reading this????? They also got IRIS like system and they are also clean and come regularly hor:)
Tadah.. reached AUCHAN Supermart and Ace's favourite Decathlon!
They actually sell zero point leh! Only, it is one piece of elastic instead of many small rubberbands looped together like those in our time... And they sold the Chinese Yoyo (diabolo).. because Ace has been bugging us for long time to buy this, we finally gave in since it is much cheaper here.. almost half price lor:)
Look at what Ace found?! We bought a few pairs of socks and a pair of white shoes and a black school bag for him to use next term in school. We compared prices and found the prices of most things are 60% of what the same item would cost in Decathlon in Dubai...
Then it was time for dinner! As we did not have lunch, we were dam hungry.. so Max ordered ALOT of food! And who told us that it is very difficult to find vegeterian food in China? It is everywhere and most of it is super yummy!!!
San bei mushrooms:)
Deepfried mushroom...
Mushroom hotpot with soup..
Country style toufu..
Custard buns!
Curry vegetable soup with noodles:)
Everyone was very happy:)
Then Karen brought us to AU Chan.. and she told us, it is a supermarket with 110 cashiers.. and on weekends, even 110 cashiers are all working, you will still have to queue!!!!!!
The supermart is interesting..they sold things like toilet paper without the hard roll.. apparently save the earth and cheaper too.. and I also saw a toilet roll with the name "Paper not from trees".. which makes us wonder where the paper is from... ahem...
And being a cheena supermart, there was even a section tat sold all the wax duck and lap cheong etc..
Chinese government is promoting being eco friendly.. so leh, everyone shops with their own bags cos you had to pay for plastic bags if you wanted them. Ace was very happy cos godma karen says he cannot dun read chinese.. worst case also have to read chinese comics and bought him three comic books of his favourite Xi Yang Yang (Pleasant Goat) comics. I must say that the one week immersion in China where everyone speaks chinese and watching the chinese cartoon has made him more willing to speak in chinese and his chinese and use of phrases have improved tremendously! Mental note to self to speak Chinese frequently when conversing with Ace...
And then we went to R n R at Karen's house. Ace immediately bugged his dad and made his dad read the comic to him:)
Now that we know what Phoebe like, we bought her a pink ball.. which she loves as well.. I am so glad we got a chance to spend more time with her and get to know her better:)
Isn't she adorable? Looking at all these pictures made me miss her very much;(
And then Ace gor gor started to play with her again.. she was not feeling well and sort of whiny and Ace seems to be the only one who can entertain her and keep her happy..
Karen said she will bring us somewhere else tomorrow.. because Ms Big Head Prawn is like me when it comes to directions (there IS a reason why we are BFFs), CK decided to give Max the directions instead even though Karen is the one who has been there before:) hahahah
Thank god there were lots of toys in Karen's house.. even though they were for Phoebe's age, Ace still found a way to entertain himself with them.. He is indeed the king of self entertainment!:)
As Phoebe was not feeling well, we decided to go back to our room earlier... And to Max, what is a holiday without his two big bottles of beer every night right? So he ventured out to reckee and see if he can find a place to buy some snacks and some beer...
Thank goodness my ang is a very adventurous person!
He came back with one chips for Ace...
One fried liang fen...
One bubble tea...
3 dan tart (okie, actually this one we bought while we went to the supermart)...
And roasted veggies tat we ate in Lijiang! LIJIANG! LIJIANG..
But our room did not come with bottle opener even though Max did manage to also buy two bottles of beer... "Thank goodness I watched on youtube 50 ways to open a beer bottle without an opener... look carefully ah.. " and he went to perform the magic!
While the veggies were good.. the liang fen was not so nice.. we decided we will eat roasted veggies again tomorrow but skip the fried liang fen to save calories;)
When we told CK and Karen the next day, they said we are very brave to try cos even though they have been living here for half a year, they have not found the chance or courage to try it... Since we din LS, they said they will join us and eat there together tomorrow night!:)
Before I end, I show this picture of a lift button because I am so amused that the basement here is usually known as "negative 1" or "minus 1". Interesting hor...
Anyway, Ace kept wanting to play with the chinese yoyo and we had to FORCE him to go to bed... It was super cold and I did not sleep well that night as I was still getting used to the place.
The next day, we actually din do much.. I was happy just to have time to hang out with Karen, CK, Phoebe and Karen's mum:) MAde me feel like I am at home you know...
More about that in the next post...
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