Dinner At Favola

Evening 2 in Shanghai, I was tired after walking for nearly the whole day. I searched internet for some Italian restaurants nearby our hotel and came across Favola at Le Royal Meridien Hotel with reasonably good reviews. So glad that everyone agreed to have Italian dinner, but then again, Italian meal is one of their favorite so convincing them is simply no brainer. We were good to go!

At The Shanghai Expo

The visitors to Shanghai Expo has surpassed the previous record held by Osaka Expo of 64million. As of yesterday, more than 68 million visitors have been recorded and they still have many days until the end of the month. Yesterday's visitor was more than 730,000 people. The day we went, they recorded of nearly 500,000 visitors. It's really OMG! No wonder people have to wait for a long time to see the display of any any countries.

I said that if everyone else wanted to go the Expo I would come along, but it's not my choice to go there. I do not like waiting in line for hours with people that do not queue and shove and I personally had lost interest in seeing the Expo. Having said that, with three other family members being eager to go and I was not willing to spend the whole day wondering in the street of Shanghai alone, I just had to go along with them.

It was raining, so there's a tiny hope that China people would be a little discouraged to go there. Of course it's wrong! China people ain't afraid of nothing. There was still plenty of people everywhere in the Expo area. It's people, people, people and more people. Whichever country we tried to go to, there was a long line formed. A line that appeared short was just a wishful thinking. It swirled and twirled and would still take at least 30-40 minutes also. Some would take hours to enter. As the day went by, there more people and longer lines. Some tried to jump the queue, pushed and behaved in such an unpleasant manner. But that seemed to be a culture among the people there and was acceptable. There were so few security personnel around too, compared to the number of visitors. I did not feel too safe there and hoped really hard for no riots or fights.

I can mention here a few places where we did not encounter lines. First was the drinking water places. Anyone can refill their bottles with drinking water for free. The toilets were reasonably good too and there were some toilets that were not too popular and we could go without waiting in line. Our lunch was a quick one too. The key is to go an expensive one. We wanted to go to Italian Cafe but were told that we needed 2-day advance booking. That's simply nuts!!!! We went to a German restaurant that served bratwurst and pork knuckles and we got ourselves a table. The dishes were served very immediately, they were all pre-cooked, I am sure of. The price is, please forgive me for saying it, Holy Cow!!! -- they were so over priced and the portion was just okay size.

After lunch and a little walking about and kept on encountering long lines everywhere, we decided to leave, that was not long after 3PM. It was rather a short visit. Goodbye to the Expo and goodbye to our RMB640++++ ticket price. Never again.

O Hazy Day!

I woke up to a cool morning after some rain during the night or maybe early morning, which was a nice change after having many hot and humid days, besides the haze that the country was experiencing. The newspaper reported that Singapore had the worst air pollution since 2006, thanks to the haze courtesy of Indonesia.

It's another hazy day too today. It's practically gray all around this afternoon.... Very gloomy and unhealthy! It is expected that we'll have this til Saturday. We'll see.

Lunch At Tang Dynasty

We found this restaurant by accident when we walked along Nanjing Xi Road, it is located by JW Marriott hotel just by the building.

It was a nice restaurant with an excellent service. We were given a room of our own and a waitress standing by nearly all the time. The menu was a thick book of maybe a hundred of pages, full of pictures of dishes they serve. I should have taken picture of the menu, unfortunately I did not.

We were hungry and excited, as you can judge by the number of dishes we ordered. Some of which, we simply wanted to try as we never saw them before elsewhere. In general, they were all good and very reasonably priced.

It was really the beginning of days of eating string beans as apparently the two kids that we had along, really loved string beans. It was sort of new news to me. DH tried to avoid them as he is avoiding problem with uric acid. I had some, moderation is the key!

It was interesting to note that the a couple of dishes were served and nicely decorated with sweets and chocolate decoration.

Staying away from Chinese dessert, we shared a glass of Tiramisu for dessert. Yum. We were very full.

Walking Along...

My two princesses strolling along Nanjing road.

Wednesday In Shanghai

It's a gray day in Shanghai. The rain was expected and it rained indeed. Our plan was to walk along that day. Our hotel was at the beginning of Nanjing Rd (East) and we actually planned to find a place to eat on Nanjing Xi Rd (West). Our lunch plan at Element Fresh was aborted after finding Tang Dynasty restaurant nearby. We then walked back to Nanjing Rd and saw people and people and more people. When we arrived at the Bund, it was again people everyone. It was so crazy packed, it was so difficult to walk or do anything. I began feeling disappointed...... Crowded place is not my cup of tea.....

Ha-ha-ha!

It's tough to be back home after going away. Unpacking is one thing, washing tons of laundry is another. There's house to clean and other things to follow up and they are not just it. I had been worrying about the plants too. I checked the weather forecast prior to leaving and was quite comfortable by the fact that there's a chance of thunderstorm on every single day I was away. When I arrived home at around 11PM, I noticed that some plants were totally dehydrated. Noticeably, my ginger plants were in sad conditions. Most others appeared to have survived well in the warm weather without extra water from me. They rain did not come as generously as I hoped for. I believed at some points, there were some light rains, but not enough ..... I started watering my poor plants at nearly midnight last night. People do nearly anything for love surely! Imagine what I would do for my own daughters (read this, kiddos!)

It was a very hot day today, it's punishing that we came from a place that was 10-15 degrees colder. In the afternoon, when the sun started to spare the city a bit, I dug out the soil and pulled out some sweet potatoes. There were some and I was pleased indeed. A nice afternoon gift for me.

One Tuesday Morning...

One Tuesday morning, merely six days ago, we flew away to have a short break. I, in particular, expected a leisure time with nothing really planned yet. I hoped to have some good meals and some relaxing times in Shanghai, a great vibrant city that I visited a few years ago and now is hosting the famous world expo. Considering the crowd and the waiting time experience by two family members that have gone before, I did not consider going there. A five-hour flight, a decent in-flight entertainment and blue sky. Things seemed wonderful. I knew I should not have spoken too soon......

Go Green!

It was another busy Friday and I had this salad with my usual favorite dressing and fried fish and shrimp on top for dinner. Two Fridays in October have passed by and we only have three more to go before we enter November. So fast.

It's 10-10-10!

I lost track of dates and was only reminded, by the Father at church, that today was 10-10-10. How special! I don't know what effect it has on me. I know that a lot of people pick this date for certain celebration in their life like marriage.

I woke up early again on another Sunday morning. Again, I did not have too, but my body was awake shortly after 5AM. I went down to the kitchen with the intention to get one thing done and ended up cleaning up some parts of the fridge and throwing away a lot of hopeless food that won't be consumed... and down in the bottom there was a moldy orange that has turned green. I was hopelessly diverted and uncontrollably turned into having OCD. Digging in further, found some ripe apples and a pear that has aged. Apple & pear sauce was made to top the fluffy pancakes for this morning breakfast. Yummy! A productive morning on 10-10-10.