China Adventures - Old Town & Yuyuan Gardens

So on Day two of our China trip I'm pretty sure that our main mission was to make it across the river and visit the Yuyuan Gardens. Which wasn't as difficult as I actually thought it would be. Old town seemed to be more like the China I imagined in my head - there were a lot more people around and there seemed to be less of a Western influence.

When we arrived in the old town we read about a monastry that we would like to see, but we couldn't find it - we then spotted a sign for a nunnery - which was in fact the monastry the Lonely Planet had talked about. It was all very confusing! But the nunnery itself was pretty amazing. Here's a view taken from the "tower" which wasn't particulary high but it gives you a view of the courtyard of the nunnery.
The next task whilst in old town was lunch - we tried and failed to go to the "oldest vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai" but instead settled for a Japanese restuarant with some vegetarian options. I have to say it's pretty ironic the number of times we ate Japanese food in China!

After lunch it was finally time to visit the famouse Yuyuan gardens - firstly we checked out the front on the gardens which had a wee pond with MILLIONS of carp in it and a beautiful bridge over it, and even though it was a week day the whole area was packed.








I have to say the inside of the gardens wasn't quite as packed as the outside and it did feel like an oasis of calm from the craziness of Shanghai (even if it was much business than your average kiwi gardens).









After exploring the gardens for some time it was time for a rest - and what better way to rest than by visiting a Chinese Tea House! Just outside the gardens was a wee teahouse that we visited. The building was beautiful and the tea, whilst fairly pricey, was amazing - plus it started out as a wee bulb and turned into a pretty flower once submerged in water! We also got a variety of snacks, including some of the best tofu I have even eaten. Tasty.


Plus the view from the tea house was pretty darn cool and feeding the fish both before and after the tea was also pretty awesome!

Next it was time for my first experience of "market madness" outside the Yuyuan Gardens and also my first experience of bartering for things. I have to admit bartering is fun at first but after a week of it I was seriously over it - I prefer someone to give me a price and if I really want something I will pay it!

China - Part 1

Well China - where can I start with the whole China thing? Well firstly I have to say that Shanghai was completely amazing and I think the reason it was so amazing I think was the Chinese Culture and the Chinese people. The people were just so incredibly friendly and we were able to make it about the city with our incredibly limited Chinese (when I say incredibly limited all we could say was hello and thank you!).

We began the trip in the same way any international trip from New Zealand begins, in an airport and the airport at Shanghai was brand spanking new (well it seemed to be brand spanking new but in all likelihood it wasn't so new) and incredibly clean!

When we had made our way through customs and picked up our bags we headed to the magnetic train and headed to the city. The train was INCREDIBLY fast and after the train we were able to navigate our way through the subway and to the hostel without TOO much difficulty. I admit that the relative ease in which we arrived at our accommodation was due to Fiona and Kat - I have NO sense of direction what-so-ever!

I have to admit - when booking online back at home in New Zealand I was a little anxious about the state of the hostel in China. But I need not have feared - the hostel was fantastic and it was cheap as chips. It had it's own little pub/restaurant attached and it was super clean and generally pleasant all round!

Once we got settled in the hostel and had showers and the like we decided it was time to begin exploring some of the city.

I think my first impressions of China were firstly (and sadly) the smog - this was the first time I had been out of the Pacific and I hadn't been anywhere so dirty before. You do adjust to it after a while but it makes you realise just how clean New Zealand actually is. My second though would have to have been sheer amazement at the size of the buildings and the contrast between the small shacks and units and the huge buildings such as the Pearl Tower. Some of the large skyscrapers are SO big when you look up at them you kind of start to feel dizzy (well I do at least - maybe that's just me?)

Whilst checking out the general area near the hostel we came across this place - Super Brand Mall where we ended up spending a fair bit of time. Mostly because it was easy to find food I could actually eat at this place (as in vegetarian!).
On our first visit we came across a place called "New Age Veggie" turn out we had quite a few meals at new age veggie. It turns out that some Chinese food take on the challenge of vegetarianism by making tofu taste and look as much like meat as they possibly can - there was one night Fiona and I shared a "mock" fish meal that tasted scarily like the real thing.

Anyways - whilst having my first meal at "New Age Veggie" I had my first pot of tea on Chinese soil. It was a HUGE pot of "Star sign" tea!

Once we had finished our meal we decided to head over and visit the Pearl Tower so we could have a better view of Shanghai. I think that the Pearl Tower is one of the strangest looking buildings on the Shanghai skyline - but I guess that's why people like it so much. You would never get it confused with another building that's for sure. You also have a great view from the Pearl Tower - you can even see the barges on the Bund (I always thought some of the barges look like they could sink at any moment with all the stuff they were carrying).





But there was more to the Pearl's tower's weirdness other than it's shape! Inside we found a rather weird space exhibition - including an alien, which looked like ET, which appeared to flipping us the bird? We also had the chance to go on an indoors roller coaster in the Pearl Tower - I think it was actually designed for 10 year olds but hey - we weren't the only ones on the ride that were WELL over the age of 10.


Finally we finished off a day of our Pearl Tower adventure with a visit to the museum in the Pearl Tower - where I realised that Chinese Photo's REALLY love their photos (now here's a group of people I can TOTALLY relate to!) in the museum the Chinese people were taking photos of everything. In New Zealand if you tried to do this some museum guard would be along ASAP to tell you to delete all the photo's on your camera of the museum but not in Shanghai! The Museum itself was pretty cool - it was a bit like the history of Shanghai in told with displays, models and holograms - I liked the holograms' the best:)




We finally rounded off our first day in Shanghai with a walk along the Bund, Kat and Fiona picked up some ice creams at a McDonalds Ice Cream stand whilst we watched the sun setting on our first day in China.

Mothers Day

So it's not often my family gets together for family gatherings, plus it's been so long since I moved away from home it does seem that when family occassions do happen I up the one that has to make the effort to head up north rather than anyone coming to visit Rich & I.

So when mum decided to sort out a mothers day gathering at my place I was stoked (and to be honest, it makes more sense to have a gathering at my place with my little bro Josh and his girlfriend Renee living in Palmy).

So here's a photo on an incredibly sunny day on our deck with me, my mum and my two "little" bros.

Ross' "E True Hollywood Stories" Party

A few weeks back my good friend Ross had an "E! True Hollywood Stories" Party - most of the other girls who went took the evening as a chance to dress up super glam. I saw it as a chance to put on a nasty red mullet wig and go as Cyndi Lauper. My Mum always said that "I HAD to always be different..."

I'm Home & Safe!

So I would have written sooner - but it appears that you cannot access blogger in China:(

Just to let you all know the earthquake hit before we left for Shanghai and Shanghai seemed to be uneffected by the quake (well in a physical sense anyways), Fiona's Mum rang us after the earthquake had happened but we took off from Auckland without a hitch.

I did see a few flashes on the news in China about the earthquake and when we were leaving China the country was having 3 days of national mourning with all of the flags flying half mast.

We did have one particularly surreal moment on our last day in Shanghai when we were in a taxi and there was a moment of silence for the victims of the earthquake - all the madness of the city suddenly stopped and it was quite weird as Shanghai never really seems to stop.

Will be back with some more Shanghai adventures soon!

Shanghai Eve

So today is officially "Shanghai Eve" we don't have to even check in at the airport until after 6 so I could have technically gone to work today - the other girls did. But instead I decided to take leave, it seemed like I had so much stuff to do before going to Shanghai and the shuttle is coming in half an hour and I have to admit I still only feel 95% ready - but I think the other 5% is just nerves and the general worry associated with my bag being too heavy or alternatively I have forgotten something super important (like contact lense cleaner or ventolin) but I am sure all will be fine...

I guess seen as it's only half an hour to go I best do my last paranoid check and make sure for the about the tenth time I do have that contact lense cleaner, ventolin, camera....

Is it winter yet?

Apparently it's not officially winter until June - but last weekend it was colder than you can possibly imagine at our place (unless of course you also live in Aro then you would have been just as cold as us!).

Anyways here is a couple of photos's Rich took from our flat to show the world just how cold it was - brrr snow!

Scottish Country Dancing

So this Saturday was "International Dance Day" out at the Drama and Dance School in Newtown so Fiona and I went and checked out some dancing and participated in a "Scottish Country Dancing" work shop.

So for those of you who don't know, Scottish Country dancing is kind of like that folk dancing you did at primary school. It's intolerably geeky - but a hell of a lot of fun.

So after having a great time dancing up a storm with our partners Fi and I have decided that we should really hunt out more of this Scottish Country Dancing - so watch this space for more details of geekily good dancing times.

Comedy Festival

So I live in Wellington and it seems every week brings about another festival of some sort...this time around it's the NZ International Comedy Festival and Rich and I managed to see two shows this time round.

Firstly was "Huntly High and Low" seen as we both lived in the Waikato for years the irony of Huntly in general was not lost on us, in particular the line "In Huntly you could be whoever you wanted - Just as long as you didn't look or act different" - it's small town NZ in a nutshell really.

The second show we saw was this weekend and it was "David O' Docherty" - who is an Irish Comedian that Rich, Ross and I saw a few years back and thought was hilarious.

When Rich and I were walking to town to watch him at the San Fran Bath House we talked about how he better be funny as the wind and rain was blowing a gale and it was FREEZING! But no need to fear - he was really funny - I've never seen a funnier guy with a keyboard.

Shanghai is coming up rather quickly...

So my China trip is about a week away as of today - scary stuff really! I have though done some planning both by myself and with the girls.

The solo planning involves lots of expense unfortunately. My first huge expense was visiting the travel doctors. I have done very little travelling before - only to Australia and the Cooks and neither really require much major preparation (well lots of insect repellent in the Cooks to avoid Dengue Fever but nothing too major. But China is totally different so I wanted to have a yarn to the travel doctor and get some vaccines. I was shocked at how much it cost to see the travel doctor $80! (my normal doctor is about $30) But it was good to have a chat and sort some things out with her. I also had to get a vaccine for Hepatitis A and a tetanus booster (which is super nasty and I still have a lump on my arm from it). I also bought a "diarrhoea kit" (which I am REALLY hoping I don't need) and some of those "flight socks" (yes I realise I am an over cautious traveller).

I have also bought a big suitcase for the trip (and Fiona bought one too so we are suitcase twins!) which will come in useful as I am sure I will buy lots of useless trinkets on the trip.

With the girls we worked out a lose kind of agenda of what we want to do when we are in Shanghai and here it is

TUESDAY
Go for a general looksee
Sex China Muesuem (it's new our backpackers - We can't not go!)
Pearl Tower/Jin Mao Tower (super tall building that we can see the whole city from)
See if we can suss out a good bus tour

WEDNESDAY
Century Park/Sculpture Park

THURSDAY
"God's Temple" Markets
Old town
Yuan Gardens
Tea Ceremony
General "getting lost" in Shanghai and seeing what we can find

FRIDAY
Muesuem/art gallery
Walk along the Bund (see if we can find the very cool looking cobbler in the Lonely Planet which is off the Bund)

SATURDAY/SUNDAY
Jade Buddha Temple
West Nanjing Road

MONDAY
Canal Towns

Craft Craft Craft Craft

So last weekend - Kat and I had one of our "Tea Parties" neither of us made any sales:( But it did make me get sorted and make a whole bunch of stuff at once **phew**

I am still intending on selling this stuff - my supplier in Christchurch sounds like they may fall over:( But I do have a back up (I think) a shop in Dunedin called "Fern" which stocks Kat's stuff.

Anyways - if you fancy anything in the pictures - it's all for sale!

A whole bunch of brooches from Barbie's accessories
Earrings - I'm quite into stars at the moment and it seems I have been able to pick up a lot of stars for jewellery making - so I am stoked.
I've also recently taken to making jewellery from hardware - in this pic is a necklance made from rubber "o" rings and earrings from washers and "o" rings (By the way - the fimo's are Rich's works of art - not mine)

More of that classic barbie bling


Finally - my new favourite thing to make - flowers from stocking and wire and various other florist type things

80's Hair Metal Party

So last weekend my friend Kat had an 80's hair metal party - I must admit - I wasn't in a huge party mood seen as I was still recovering from some unplesant bug which had hit both Rich and I when the weather changed from "You can't beat Wellington on a good day" to "Oh @#$%$ it's cold!".

But then the lure of bad make up and too much jewellery called to be and I decided to head along for a while. Here's a photo of Katrina, Kat and I doing out best bogan girl looks.