Day 4 - Nanjing and Suzhou

The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was the first stop on Day 4. The bridge was the pride of the Nanjing people because it was the first double-decker and double-track highway and railway bride designed and constructed by the Chinese with no foreigner's assistance. The Nanjing Yangtze Bridge is the first bridge to be built across the Yangtze River was completed in 1968. It is 6,722 meters long and has a span of 160 meters.

At the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge visitors' centre, there stood a large statue of Mao Tse-tung. There were also pictures on how the bridge was built and the final celebration when the bridge was completed in 1968. On the top level of the centre, we were able to view the span of the bridge over the mighty Yangtze River.

The giant statue of Mao Tze-tung at the Visitors Centre

The pillars of the bridge forms a good geometrical view

The view of the bridge spanning across the Yangtze River

There was also an art centre at where painting were done a the reverse of a crystal ball or a bottle. Since it was Sunday, the actual artist who drew the magnificent art was present to endorse and take picture of the items that were bought there.



The next stop was a shopping stop at a jade outlet. There were various types of jade jewellery sold there . I was not too keen in jade but my wife bought a few pieces for the children.

After lunch, we went to Nanjing Massacre Memorial. It was gruesome to learn that the Japanese massacred 300,000 residents of Nanjing within six weeks between December 1937 to February 1938. The skeletal remains of mass grave and pictures at the memorial really touched me on how cruel the Japanese were at that period of time. The memories of the massacre still in memory of the residents in Nanjing, that is why there is no Japanese firms set up in Nanjing and Japanese tourist has avoided visit to Nanjing. After the visit to the memorial, we bid farewell to Ah Hoong because we were off to another long journey to Suzhou.

At Suzhou, we have another local guide called Mr Chang (Siu Chang). Our first stop was another temple, the Chenghuang temple.

Day 3 - Wuxi and Nanjing

Strong wind was blowing on a sunny third day of the trip. Caps and umbrellas were blown off from people's head and hand. We were off to see the famous giant Buddha statue at Mount Linshan. Apart from the giant Buddha, there was a smaller version of the statue too.

The giant Buddha statue at Mount Linshan, taken at the enterance

The giant and the smaller version of the Buddha statue

Lovely scenery and landscaping of Mount Linshan

The fountain where the baby Buddha was "born"

The highlight of the visit to Mount Linshan was the fountain show of the birth of Buddha. An enclosed lotus flower stood in a middle of a fountain. At about 10.00 a.m. when the fountain show started, water started to shoot up to the lotus flower, where out of the bloom, gave birth to a baby Buddha. The last and strongest gush water from the fountain managed to stray to all the spectators around the fountain. I was not spare of the water spray, so was my camera.




At Wuxi, there was a large lake called Taihu Lake, which is the world third largest lake. It was so hugh that you may feel that you are the ocean instead of being on a lake side. After lunch at a floating restaurant, we were taken to a pearl outlet where we learn that fresh water cultured pearls were made at the lake. There were white pearls, pink pearls and of course black pearls. Pearls not only were used for jewelry but for cosmetic and medicinal use.

Precious pearls

After the stop at the pearl outlet, it was again another long journey to Nanjing. We reached Nanjing about 4.00 p.m. where a local guide called Ah Hoong took over the guiding of the city. The first stop for Nanjing was Dr Sun Yat-sen mausoleum. Ah Hoong gave a long talk on the mausoleum on why Dr Sun who was born in Guangdong, founded Kuomintang, exile in Taiwan, buried in Nanjing, while his internal organs are still in Beijing. Too complicated for me comprehend.

At the mausoleum, we walked up 392 steps (each step representing each of his close comrades) up to his marble tomb.

The 392 steps leading up to the tomb of Dr Sun Yat-sen

After dinner, we went to night market in Nanjing where my son bought the 2008 Beijing Olympics mascost Huang Huang.

My son holding Huang Huang

KL International Motor Show 2006 - Category - Gals Set 2

This is the second set of Gals from KL International Motor Show. Bigger pictures are at my PhotoBlog.

KL International Motor Show 2006 - Category - Gals

As promised, here are some of the girls, if you want to view larger size photos, please access to my PhotoBlog.

KL International Motor Show 2006 - Category - Vehicles

Let's a take a breather from my China trip. I was at the KL International Motor Show 2006 at PWTC today. At least I managed to get back in time to go for the show to shoot the items there (cars, bikes and GIRLS). For a starter, I would like to post the photos of the vehicles that I shot today. After that I will post the photos of the lovely, sporting and non-camera shy models at the show.

Day 2 - Shanghai and Wuxi

The next morning everyone was up early. The sunrise at 5.00 a.m. in Shanghai and in terms of daylight, it is about 2 hours ahead of KL. Everyone was complaining about the hard bed that we were sleeping, my hips were not feeling too comfortable too. The tour leader said that that's the way the Chinese people like to sleep on hard bed to improved their posture.

Next stop was the Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple. Spent some time there worshipping and snapping photos. Managed to catch a glimpse of this "modern" monk toying with his PDA and a funny sign located at the low beams of the building:




After the visit to the temple, it was a long 3 hours journey to Wuxi. The first stop at Wuxi was the Three Kingdom TV studios which were built in 1993 for CCTV to film the stop epic into a series. A very nice place with good sets with nice gardens and old buildings.

We were also entertained with a show of how the battle was fought in the Three Kingdom epic with live people and horses.

Enterance to the Three Kingdom studios

The studio ground was hugh where we were transported to different sets using the internal transportation system. We even took a ride on a "battle ship" around the lake area.

After the visit to the TV studio sets, we were transported to a tea pot factory. The factory featured the world larges Chinese tea port. At the same time, we managed to see how tea port "si fu" at work too. We were taken to a room where a demonstration of what is considered a good tea pot. I was amazed by the demonstration where a good tea pot can pour out it content well without any spill from it spout. At the same time, the staff there demonstrated that the water that was poured from the tea pot was swirling in a straight line up to the tea cup. We ended buying 2 sets of tea pots while with bargaining power of our tour members, 2 sets were given free.

The world biggest Chinese tea pot

At the end of the day, we ended up a hotel which situated in the busy part of Wuxi located at the bus and train station.

The Oriental Pearl Tower

The Oriental Pearl Tower is 468 metes high, the highest TV tower in Asia and the third highest in the world.

The Oriental Pearl Tower consists of three main whole-scape sightseeing floors. Tourist can enjoy the city view at different height. The Space Module is at the height of 350 meters; the highest revolving restaurant in Asia is at 267 meters; the main sightseeing floor is at 263 meters. Tourist can also go out of the sightseeing area at 259 meters and 90 meters.

Day 1 - Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai

The whole family was up at 5.00 a.m. to get ready for our trip to the airport for the check-in at the airport. We have hired a van from a tour company to send us to the airport. The van arrived and the whole family was on the way to the airport with our luggage. We arrived at about 6.50 a.m. where we meet with the tour leader and other guest who were joining us on the trip. There were 12 other people joining us (excluding the tour leader - Ivy Teo), all couples. It was just nice to have 18 for a trip and all of us are young and eager. The oldest member being my mother-in-law and the youngest being my son.

The flight MH389 took off from KLIA at 8.30 a.m. and the flight was for about 4 hours. Nearly reaching Putong airport, the weather was raining there and the plane have to circle around for almost half and hour before we touched down.

We were greeted by the tour guide, Mr Liew, a Chinese chap who took us to the coach which was awaiting for our arrival. It was rainy and cold. We managed to board the coach by 6.24 p.m. and was on our way to Shanghai city.

Mr Liew the tour guide (a.ka. Siaw Liu as he called himself in Mandarin)

I was very impressed with the scenes along the highway on the way to Shanghai. Nice cars, nice highways, tall advertisement boards all along the way. But it was soaking wet.

When we reached Shanghai, wow, flyovers were few level high and the highest about 10 storey high near a bridge. The traffic was heavy due to the rain.

High rise flyover where many criss-cross each other and some are about ten stories high.

The tour guide spoke in Mandarin where I could only grasp a few of his word since I am not too familiar with Mandarin. The first stop was to the old market place at Xiang Yang Road. The coach stop us along a road but it was raining where were forced to buy umbrellas. It cost about RMB5 (RM2.50) for an umbrella which was not a good quality but it served its purpose of keeping our head dry.

The first thing we did at was to have our self some Dragon Dumpling at a famous and best restaurant in Shanghai, called Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant.

The best Dragon Dumpling (Siew Lung Pow) in Shanghai

According to the tour guide, if we would eat at the restaurant it will cost about RMB50 for 10 pieces of Dragon Dumplings, but we could also take away a the Dragon Dumplings for RMB20 for 10 pieces but the quality of the dumpling served at the restaurant and those taken away are different, that explained for the cost. We have also tried the steamed bun with crab ovary stuffing (see photo),

Steamed bun with crab ovary stuffing (delicious)

which cost RMB25 each, we had 4 of those. The soup require to be sucked out of the bun using a straw, streaming hot when it reach our mouth. The soup tasted delicious.

After walking around the market place (still raining heavily) for a while where there's lots of things for sale, we have to make our way back to the coach. Again, even with the umbrella in our hands, our shoes and bags were wet.

The coach took us to our dinner restaurant near the river. The restaurant was a dragon boat floating on the river banks. After dinner, we were taken a ferry ride on the river. The river separate the older Shanghai and the new Shanghai of Putong. The building were lighted up and the tour guide inform us that the lighting cost the city about RMB80,000 a night. It was cold and windy but the rain has stopped. The foggy condition did not allow me to take good photos of the city during the ferry ride.

The brightly lighted Shanghai skyline

The cold and windly ferry ride did not dampen my children's enjoyment

The view of the Pearl Tower taken during the ferry cruise

From the ferry ride, we were taken to the Pearl Tower, the world third highest tower and one of the showcase of Putong. We went up to the tower hoping for a grand night view of the city but to our disappointment, we were unable to see anything due to the fog.

At about 10.00 p.m. we were taken to check in to our accommodation for the night. Guess what, it was called Motel 168 and was situated quite a distant from the city. The most frightening thing was that the bed was hard.. it was a thin layer of cotton on a piece of plywood. We found out why was the bed so hard fro the tour guide the next morning.

The Great Eastern China Trip

Yeah, wondering why I was not posting anything material for the past eight days? Well, I was away on a long holiday to Eastern China with my family. The trip started from 25 May and I just came back late last night (1 June) and here I am again.

The journey was a long and enjoyable one. I took more than 1,000 pictures with my camera can eagerly waiting to post it up to share it. The summary of the holiday is as follows:

Day 1 - 25 May 2005 Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai

The Pearl Tower on a raining foggy night

At the Shanghai Bund

Day 2 - 26 May 2006 Shanghai to Wuxi

The famous 88 meters Linshan giant Buddha (in the background) a smaller version is in the foreground.

A teapot at the teapot factory

Day 3 - 27 May 2006 Wuxi to Nanjing

Yangtze River Bridge- the pride of the China's engineering technology

Mausoleum of Dr Sun Yat Sen

Day 4 - 28 May 2006 Nanjing to Suzhou

Hangshan Temple area at Suzhou

The leaning pagoda at Tiger Hills. The pagoda is more than 2,000 years old... older than the leaning tower of Pizza

Day 5 - 29 May 2006 Suzhou to Hangzhou

West Lake at Hangzhou

An albino peacock at West Lake gardens

Day 6 - 30 May 2006 Hangzhou

Yue Fei Memorial and Tomb

The finale of a stage show at Hangzhou Theature

Day 7 - 31 May 2006 Shanghai

Lovely scenery at Shanghai Botanical Gardens

Shanghai Acrobatic show at the Shanghai Grand Theatre

Day 8 - 1 June 2006 Shanghai back to Kuala Lumpur

The Shanghai Maglev Train which travels from Shanghai station to the Putong Airport at a maximun speed of 430 km/hr.

The train at its maximum speed of 430 km/h... eat your heart our Micheal Schumacher.. I am faster than you for once!

I would be opening a new blog to record down the day to day experience of my trip in China. The blog will help me to preserve my memories of the trip and also some of the photos that I have taken along the journey.