Miscellaneous Picture #93 : holiday misc

There were few places that I didn't post as a  whole post since there wasn't much to mention but for the sake of my China holiday, here was the compilation of places that we visited but I didn't write.

Wuxi Studios

Story Share, a beer museum in Wuxi Studios

One of their own brewed beers

HuanHuaWan township, Wuxi

Along the road to tea village

The tea house, Hangzhou

Teresa Teng concert in Hangzhou

Teresa Teng hologram was performing

I liked the canned peach drink

That concluded my China travelogue. Thank you so much for reading and commenting, and hope everyone enjoy the posts and photographs. 

Suzhou | cold and hungry

After our Ou Garden tour, we went for our Suzhou dinner. Everyone was cold and tummies were rumbling. Tummies got hungry pretty fast in the winter. Lol. 

We took 2 tables in a room and soon our food were served on the table. 

The prawns were bigger and nicer here, compared to what we had in Wuxi. Cooked with black pepper, I had a lot of these prawns. 

Omelette was fine but the roasted pork was good. Probably we were hungry, everything tasted delicious. 

The deep fried nugget coated with white sesame seeds was a hit among the children. It was tasty, no oil smell or taste to it. 

We ate a lot of stir fried cabbages in China. Either cabbages or cauliflowers in almost every meals. 

This fish with salted mustard dish was good and everyone enjoyed it as we did not get to taste that in other places. So appetizing to go with white rice. 

On the other hand, this deep fried fish with sweet sauce was not a hit among us because it has so many small bones. Not easy to eat but the flesh was sweet and tasty. If only it did not have so many bones in it, bet everyone would enjoy it more. 

Other dishes on the table included vegetable soup and shredded cucumber. 

Another unusual dish was this. Stinky beans was our guess. Did not taste good. 

Lastly for noodle lovers, we got this noodle. Like stir fried kampua in soy sauce. 

Did we enjoy the food?? Yes we did. Probably we were cold and hungry. Lol. 

Shanghai | hot pot with different dining experience

For our final meal in Shanghai, we went to this well known hot pot restaurant for a warm meal with unique treatment and different dining experience. 

Hai Di Lao. It has many outlets all over Shanghai but we went to the one on 6th floor of a shopping mall. I don't remember the name of the mall now.

Once the lift to the restaurant opened up, we were warmingly greeted by friendly and smiling well-dressed staff at the lobby before being ushered to our tables.

We were served with warm face towel to wipe ourselves before another staff brought over the hot pot. One side was spicy Szechuan soup while another was mild mushroom based soup.

We were given aprons to wear (if you want to), they even has smaller sized aprons for children. For ladies, they would provide hair bands if you need to tie up your hair.

Soon the staff went to our table to serve us. They helped us to cook or inform us on the duration to wait for the food to be cooked.

I wasn't feeling well that day so hubby went to make me this beef porridge. So sweet of him.

For kids, they served this fried nuggets to them.

Not only that, they also gave out free toys to little kids. My boys got this car while girl got a doll.

More and more ingredients added to the hot pot.

And you could mix and match your own dipping sauce. This was made by my man.

They even served dessert like this mochi balls. I took one, not liking it. Lol.

I heard customers could get free manicure if they asked. I didn't. Should have but I wasn't well so no mood for any pampering that evening.

Our tour guide also mentioned that customers going to the restaurant would never dine alone. There was once when he went to eat by himself, a lady staff came and comfort him. Talking and making sure he had a good meal.

While we were there, we were treated to noodle making. A very young man would walk around the restaurant and do some noodle swinging on any tables that requested for handmade noodle.

And at one point, I spotted someone doing the face changing act. A short act to entertain the customers especially the foreigners.

A customer on one table was celebrating his birthday. And suddenly some of the Hai Di Lao staff went to that table, started to sing and cheer for the birthday person. That was very heart warming.

I had few glasses of this plum juice. Very refreshing although sweeter to my liking. But it went well after all the food consumption.

Did I enjoy this rather unusual dining experience?? Yes, it was kind of interesting and same time, rather good to be treated like a customer. As for the food, it was so so to me. Not many fresh ingredients, more processed food. We did not finished the whole course as we were full by then.

If you are curious, there are few Hai Di Lao chain outlets in Malaysia. Can give it a try for that exceptional and unique customer service experience.

Shanghai | 88th floor

I didn't expect to like Shanghai as much as I did. I guess the thrilling Disneyland adventure and view of the metropolitan city from a high point changed my impression of this busy concrete city.

Not for the fainted-heart, the travel all the way up to 88th floor of Jin Mao building, one of the tallest buildings in China.

Before we went to the observation deck, we challenged ourselves to take shot of the 3 tall buildings together. Trick?? Selfie mode looking up.

3 buildings standing tall next to each other, Jin Mao was the one on the top

After all the photo taking, we were ushered into the Jin Mao tower to take the lift. Alas, the long queues to the lift was challenging and painful. Many people especially Chinese tourists. They either cut queues or kept pushing and squeezing you around.

Thankfully we did not endured the queue for so long as our tour group was given access to the lift even before our turn. Probably because our group was smaller so we were to grant access to the deck.

The view on top was worth all the queue. Of course we were warned first hand of invisibility.

The trip in the lift was a great experience itself. All the way up to 88th floor in less than a minute! That was one thing!! The pressure in the ears was another thing, felt like you were climbing up a very high mountain.

We didn't spent a long time on 88th floor as each group was given time for visitation.

Foggy view from the top, everything looked blurry. But the buildings along the river scene was spectacular, I thought.

Another tall building next to Jin Mao, I believe it was Shanghai World Financial Centre

Where you pay to go skywalking

Skywalk poster

Video on Jin Mao tower

Looking down into centre of the tower (Hotel Atrium) 

How high we were