Hello world, I'm back from China. And I can't say I'm glad to be back, nor can I say I'm sad to be back. BUT I REALLY DO MISS THE WEATHER IN CHINA. I still haven't adjusted to the humid weather in Singapore! The weather in China averages around 21-23 degrees? Really nice :D

DAY 1 - 26th May, Saturday.
I OVERSLEPT! How typical of me hahah! I woke up at 5 and we're supposed to be at the airport at 6am! Oh wells, but I reached there on time, thankfully! Walked past BK & Ruth as well when I arrived at the airport. And that stupid woman didn't tell me until I messaged her! SAW BENNY!!!!!!!! And Dyan & Gillian! :D We're all on the same flight!

Plane took off around 8+ and omg we had to take a bus to the plane! Was pretty cool! I LOVE AIRPLANE FOOD! I think I had fish. I only remebered we had lychee pudding and it was lovely! Ruth & I kept eating hichews! Ohhh I got the window seat :D The best thing about flying SQ is the movies to watch! I watched The Holiday, Once in a Summer, a bit of Music & Lyrics. We landed around 2.30pm.


On the planeeeeee!

Took the bus to Hangzhou. The bus ride was about 2 or 3 hours! We stopped over at a rest stop and had dumplings and that was my first encounter with the Chinese. OMG they are damn loud! Like they'll be shouting across the shop and stuff! So uncouth! We arrived at Hangzhou just in time for dinner and the dinner SUCKED I tell you! Everything was so salty! The soup was full of oil! The fish had many bones! I think I only ate rice and uh... yea rice! BUT thankfully we stopped at KFC and I got popcorn chicken. Ruth ordered for me of course, I dont know how to read the menu! Haha! Reached the Xiangji Jiari Hotel at around 8pm and we slacked till bedtime.


Check out the traffic jam!


Red light district hahahaha!


In the hotel roooom!

DAY2 - 27th May, Sunday.
Our wake up call was at 6.30am but when I woke up, I got a shock! It was super bright! Cos in China, the sun rises at like 5am! Hahah. And since I am a deep sleeper, Ruth answered all the morning calls haha!

Headed to West Lake after breakfast. Apparently, it's really beautiful and it's a place for lovers but when we got there, I was like, what's so nice? It was really misty luh so couldn't see much! We took a boat cruise around the lake and I spotted dead fishes! How gross!


Check out the number of bicycles!


A boat on Westlake!

We then headed to some tea garden. Hangzhou is famous for it's longjing green tea and you can eat the tea leaves omg! Spent a bomb on tea. Seriously! Lunch after that tea garden and we went to this really nice restaurant with chandliers! So pretty! Lunch was really good, much better than the meals the day before! We ate fatty pork!! But it was nice!


Frying the tea leaves with oil.


Our tea!


OMG CHECK OUT THE FATS PEARLYNEEEEEE!

Bus ride to Tunxi, the town at the base of Mount Huangshan after lunch. It was a 3 hour long journey and Ruth & I talked throughout the whole bus ride! I think we were kinda loud, cos we were laughing too! At Tunxi, we visited this ancient street which is mainly a tourist trap! They sold Russian & Japanese dolls? Ruth was totally disturbed by that man! Hahah! And I bought Korean cup noodles, just in case.


Smelly tou fu!


Ancient streeeet!


The buildings...


More buildings...


The Jap & Russian dolls that were being sold in CHINA.

Dinner was horribleeeee! The 8 dishes, 1 soup that they served were basically the same! Fish, Duck, lotsa veggies, Celeries, Tomato & Egg oily soup! We checked into the Holiday Inn hotel after dinner. It was super nice and white and chic! Haha. We rested a while and headed to another part of the ancient street. They sold the same things! Ruth & I walked around aimlessly and in the end, we joined the teachers at some coffee place that looked really cute. The only cool shop we visited was a modern & traditional painting shop! We were really tired luh and the others still had energy to walk around! Hahha.

Went back to the hotel around 11 I think. Ruth ate her cup noodles AND SHE MADE ME MAKE THEM FOR HER! Wth right, I don't even eat cup noodles that often! We both refused to bathe but we did in the end HAHAH.


Cup noodlessssssss

DAY 3 - 28th May, Monday.
6.30am wake up call as usual. But this time, I slept right through it! HAHAH. Breakfast sucked. Everything was super super super SALTY!!! We left for Mount Huangshan after breakfast. It was a 2 hour drive. The scenery was beautiful cos we travelled along the countryside. There were rice paddy fields, cabbages.


(:

Took a cable car up. The weather was lovelyyyy! Ohhh there were many locks along the chains/railings! People would engrave their names on the locks, lock it on the chains/railings and throw the key down the mountain. Apparently, this way they cannot unlock their love. We walked to various places with scenic views and it was nice. Mist everywhere. So magical! Haha and oh omg! There are like workers carrying heavy heavy loads up & down the mountain!


Some of the many many many locks!



Lunch was good. We ate at a 5 star hotel! Then we walked for about half an hour to reach our hotel. Our hotel had no lifts!! Cos everything is handcarried by the workers! We dumped our stuff and headed out again. We walked to more places with picturesque views. Justin, Ruth & I are slackers haha, there was once, we refused to climb any higher and so just sat down and waited for the rest. But we climbed the highest peak! 1860m man! Hahha it was kinda tiring! The steps were steep, the air was thin. I think we took about 2 hours to reach the peak! And there were so many old people climbing the steps too. I salute them man! But we managed to climb down in like half and hour...





We managed to sleep a little in our rooms before dinner, which was at 5.30pm so we could watch the sunset. Dinner was alright, they served my favourite SWEET & SOUR PORK :D In the end, since it was too misty, we didn't manage to catch the sunset. So from 6.30pm onwards, it was slacking time in the room. Ruth & I are such loners, we didn't go room visiting haha! Ate cup noodles and Ruth kept whining! I can't rmb about what though...

DAY 4 - 29th May, Tuesday.
Morning call was at 4.15am omg. We were supposed to catch the sunset but when we were ready, we didn't know where to go! So we just stayed in our rooms. In the end, we fell asleep till breakfast!

After breakfast, we walked back to the cable car place! There was such a long queue omg! And the best thing was, my phone battery died so I couldn't listen to my music :( but I think I slept while queueing haha!

Took a bus to lunch and no more cool weather ): Lunch was okay, I think I was getting used to the food! But they served the same old dishes! After lunch was the very long 4-5 hours bus ride to Nanjing. We travelled along the countryside and it was nice. We also watched a super lame movie on the way haha! I laughed alot luh, but the ending was stupid!

DINNER WAS GOOD!!! Omg it was one of the best I think. We had fatty pork & potatoes! And Justin calls me jia-kan-tan (meaning eat potatoes) cos I'm not fluent in Chinese and so he kept asking me to eat more potatoes during dinner haha! And there were noodlessss! And tasty (not salty!) seaweed soup!

Drove back to the hotel, which was really nice too! Then we walked around our hotel. Omg the air is like super polluted!! It irritated my eyes, nose, throat. We went to this supermarket and I got my wangwang! During this whole trip, I think I ate like close to ten packets of wangwangxuebing! :D Back to the hotel to sleeeeeeeep!

Day 5 - 30th May, Wednesday
Visited the ming xiao ling (masoluem) It's like the tomb of some emperor. Cool buildings and stuff but I didn't really enjoy it cos my knee was hurting after climbing mount huanshan! Headed to the Purple Mountain Observatory afterward. There were interesting sundials and cool stuff from ancient times! We also saw the city of Nanjing from the peak but the city's too bloody polluted that all you see is smoke smoke smoke!


Ancient sundial....

Visited the Great Yantze river bridge after lunch. There was a statue of Mao Ze Dong! Hahhaha, the air was polluted as usual and if not, the view & the wind would have been lovely. Afterward, headed to the museum. There were many neat ancient stuff! Like jade ornaments, stoneware. It was really pretty damn cool :D


CHAIRMAN MAO!


Stoneware...

Then boarded the bus to Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Musuem. Omg Ruth was super super super high on the bus! She let me listen to her westlife songs and even sang along to some! Hahhaha. It was hilarious! :D There was some performance at the musuem thingy. Like we got to experience what it was like being a king? Like drink tea & watch the performace. Pretty funny, Julian went on stage haha!

We walked to our restaurant. Omg the traffic there is SCARY!!!! Hahah, dinner was not bad. There was an auction on paintings going on. Nobody bought anything but after the auction was over, so many of the cse trip people bought the paintings! Hahha. I think almost everyone did. I didn't. Ruth was still very high and we were arguing who would Pearlyne miss more! HAHHAHAHA.

We had free time to walk around on our own. We walked the whole of the street okay! In the end, I treated Ruth to choc ice cream from macs and we walked and talked and walked and talked. And we were the first to reach the meeting place! :D So we sat down. When everyone came, Mr Lee did a headcount and he didn't count us cos he didn't see us and omg this is super funny! He went, "Eh where is the shuanbaotai? Where are the twins Ruth & Clare? " HHAHAHAHHAHAHAH. So funny! Mr Lee, Lian & those on the cse trip calls me Clare okay. So weird!

It was back to the hotel afterward with the usual routine of talks & refusals to bathe!


Pretty nice huh!

OMG I JUST TYPED A WHOLE WHOLE DAMN DAMN LOT AND IT BLOODY DISAPPEARED ): I am damn pissed. DAMN, I have to retype and try to remember what I said about the last 3 days. Oh wells, I shall continue.

Day 6 - 31st May, Thursday
Good morning! Hahha. After breakfast, we boarded the bus to the train station! Omg, the chinese just push and shove! So uncouth!!! Cos my bag was bulky, Ruth carried my bag on her trolley bag and I helped Justin carry one of his many bags! Hahha.

Train was really nice. It was very very very nice. Like it only started opearating in May. The views were really great cos we travelled mostly by the country side. We reached Shanghai in about 2.5 hours. The weather was so cooling! :D Headed to some mini tribal village restaurant for lunch. They welcomed us with gongs and stuff. So cool. And lunch was good man. They served sweet & sour pork :D


The nice train :D

After lunch, we headed to the silk factory. And did you know, that they boil the cocoons to kill the silkworms inside to get the silk? Freaking gross luh. We shopped awhile in the shop full of silk stuff and then headed to the City God Temple. I really thought it was a temple! Turned out to be a shopping district hahah! I bought a lot of stuff man. AND RUTH GOT CHEATED AHHAHA. She bought her mao watch for 40rmb and I bought mine for 25rmb heehee!

After shopping, we headed to The Bund. That place is lovely and full of European buildings and such. So nice, and the wind was blowing and it was so cooling and nice.


THE BUND ((((:


More European buildings at The Bund!


Hahhah the wind was blowing!


What a cool boat huh!

We had dinner at Dragon Boat Restaurant. And the restaurant is really on a boat on the Huangpu River. How cool right. AND WE SAW BENNY AND DYAN AND GILLY!!! So funny and cos our table was near Dyan’s, we were talking to Dyan and Ruth & I made her choke man hahhahaha hilarious! They served xiaolongbaos :D Yay my faveeeeeeee.

We took the cruise along the huangpu river. Omg the views are amazing at night. The weather was lovely too! We took loads of pictures man!


Amazing!


Fantastic!


SHANGHAI ((((((((((:


Hahhahahah Ruth's damn vain! The wind was making her hair messy hahahah!


HAHAHAHAH JUSTIN AND MR LEE DOING A TITANIC!


Hahahha we did the same pose on Mount Huangshan too!


The wind's so niceeeeeeee

Checked into the Jintai Hotel after the cruise. It’s not the same hotel as Benny’s ): oh wells, the hotel was nice but I think the one in Tunxi was the nicest! But it was spacious. We watched Kungfu Hustle on TV and I still laugh a lot when I watch it hahah! AND RUTH WAS BEING SO GAY. She was so afraid of the light that flickered a little when it was switched on ahaha! AND SHE MADE ME CLIMB OUT OF MY BED JUST TO SWTCH ON THE BATHROOM LIGHT FOR HER. Bloody hell right.


Ruth always takes damn long to brush her teeth!

DAY 7 – 1st June, Friday.

OMG THE DAY I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO. Free day in Shanghai :D

The bus dropped us off at Nanjing Road and we went into Macs since Amanda & Natasha didn’t have their breakfast. And goodness, we saw this super weird lady there. She was like dancing with her scarf and fan and doing the catwalk man. Sheesh!

We went into this underground shopping centre and spent so much time there man! Natasha & I got a manicure & pedicure! HAHAHHAHHA DON’T LAUGH AT ME! And the manicurists were like super nice, we were having such a nice conversation and yes we spoke in Chinese! Hahha. And it was so cheap. Like in total, it only cost me S$13! How freaking cheap luh! Did more shopping, bought bags, keychains, wallets.

When everybody was done, we met up and decided to take a cab to another shopping district. Since only 4 could go in one cab, Huiling, Limin, Ruth went first. AND THEN WE HAD SO MUCH DIFFICULTY GETTING A CAB! Like I think we spent close to 2 hours trying to get a cab? The Chinese there are so uncouth. Like they push and rush and fight for the cabs okay! Before you even get out, they’re already inside the cab! Finally, Natasha, Amanda & I got into this illegal cab I think. Amanda & I felt so grown up ahhaha traveling on our own heehee :D

Met Natasha’s friend and Ruth, Limin, Huiling at this super posh Chinese restaurant in Pudong. We were actually at Puxi (across the huangpu river) After a totally traumatizing experience, I had no appetite to eat okay! Only ate what Amanda scooped onto my plate. But the food was good. The prawn was super fresh man.

We left shortly to cab back (again) to meet the teachers who were waiting for us. I was super relieved when we saw them. I think all of us were. I really thought I was lost in Shanghai! Hahha. We took the train to somewhere! Hahha the train is like the MRT in Singapore and you have to tap the card too! Hahah China’s a copycat! They even have like fake Coke & Sprite! Imagine that! Hahaha.

From that station, we cabbed (AGAIN!!) back to the hotel. Ruth & I shared a cab with Andy, the super nice guide. There was a convenience stall opposite our hotel and all of us wanted to get stuff from there. And crossing the roads in China is really terrifying man. I think I practically pulled Ruth across the street! Hahah! I bought my wangwangxuebing! Hahha when Mr Lian saw, he went like Wang Wang again?! Hahha!

Finally we went back to our rooms after a super long and mentally draining day! Hahha. Justin came into our room and he didn’t close the door so Alina, Rachel, Jason and Sean came in as well. The first time we let anybody into our rooms! Hahaha. We talked and laughed while Justin showed off his purchases, Jason showed off the nike shirts he bought, Rachel talked about the super cheap lunch they had at Ajisen!

Ruth refused to wake up after I had finished bathing! Hahhaha it was funny cos we had this like pillow fight? Hahahha and I pulled her off the bed and onto the floor! So hilarious! I think we were hitting each other too! Hhaha finally she went to bathe man!


Smelly pig!

DAY 8 – 2nd June, Saturday

Omg last day in China! I never thought I would say this but I would really miss Shanghai! Esp the weather!

Surprisingly, I manage to stuff almost everything into my newbalance bag! Ohh everyone brought along trolley bags except me! Hhaha I brought my sport bag haha!

After breakfast (which we skipped), they brought us to Qi Pu street where all the imitation goods are. We shopped for quite a bit and omg the place is super scary! Like the shopkeepers will just follow you and pull you into their shops? We were in this shop, that sold really nice tees like Guinness, Starbucks, Superman. But he was selling it for 80rmb and Rachel bought it earlier for 80rmb so he refused to sell it to us for 50rmb. So of course we refused too cos 80rmb is not cheap. So Justin helped us bargained and the shopkeeper still refused. So we walked away and when we walked back, Justin continued bargaining and in the end, Amanda, Limin & I got the shirts we wanted for 55 rmb. Not bad luh. I got a SUPERMAN tee :D

Headed to lunch afterward. Goodness! Our last 8 dishes 1 soup in China! Hahha and the food was good. Xiaolongbaos and fishes with no bones! Hahah! Headed to the Maglev Train Station after lunch. We took the train to the airport! Hhaha Maglev stands for Magnetic Levitation btw. And it’s super cool. It managed to travel at the speed of 431km/h in less than 4 mins! Cool huh.


The MAGLEV train!


Reflections!


431km/h!!!!!!!!!!!


Amanda, Limin & I were travelling at 331km/h!


Justin, Ruth, Huiling


The Airport....

We arrived late at the airport so they gave us the SQ stickers! Hahha. Talked to Benny. Dyan before boarding our plane! Ruth & I weren’t sitting tgt and I saw with Alina & Rachel. Mr Lian went like “Oh no, you’re separated from your twin!” Hahha hilarious! I LOVE AIRPLANE FOOD! I chose the fish again! Hahah and we have Magnum ice cream for dessert and I suck at opening the wrappers so when I did, the ice cream fell out and hit the stewardess’ shoe okay! Omg how embarrassing! She looked super amused and went like “Oh did you just drop your ice cream? Hahah(I think she laughed) I’ll get you a new one!” HAHAHAHHAHAHA. I watched 50 First Dates, finished watching Once in A Summer and watched abit of Troy! Damn I should have watched Troy in the first place, it was so nice luh!!!

Touched down near 8 and received a call from Pearlyne asking which belt we were at. I told her and then asked her if she was at the airport. And this stupid girl said No. HAHAHAHA. I mean, wanna lie also lie properly right? Hahhah but was super happy to see her! I gave her a big fat hug! And Ruth forced Pearlyne to say that she missed Ruth more even though Ruth didn’t get her anything and I did! Hahha hilarious. Parents came and they dropped Pearlyne off at Woodlands. Hahha it was so nice seeing her again. As a result of training everyday, that girl is super tanned and bronzed now. Hahhah sexxaaayyyeeeeeee!

I came home and was super tired but I could not sleep. Cos the weather in Singapore is simply too darn hot!

Wow, that’s done! My wrists totally hurt now ): Hahhah gotta rush rush rush! Meeting WX at KAP to do a little studying and then off to school to watch the bloody CO concert with Ruth. Mdm Hue actually called me on my cell last night to ask me to go? Whalao, that’s what I get for being the freaking Chinese rep!

Oh and you know China right, its funny when they try to translate Chinese to English. Here's why:

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA


"Wish gentlemen good evening!" AHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.

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