…my cuppa iced coffee…

Day 6 - Friday, 20/06/2008
Weather: Gloomy

Nothing much in terms of activities. Training as usual and back to the hotel afterwards. On the way back, my 2 friends and I took a walk along Nanjing Road to survey the prices of things. Especially souvenir items. We planned to go shopping over the weekend, so we wanted to get a feel of prices.

Before reaching the hotel, we dropped by this Muslim restaurant right next to the first one we went to last Sunday night for dinner. I didn’t realise the owner is Malaysian even though there are big posters of the Shah Alam mosque and the Putrajaya mosque on the walls. I didn’t see them the first time we went there.

We ordered beef fried rice and since I had not had chicken for a while (I like chicken), I decided to order one small chicken dish. The fried rice.. one serving was big enough for 2. Maybe 3. And the small chicken dish.. my God! 4 people can share and still have balance in the end. Man, these people’s idea of small is definitely not the same as it is back home.

We had the shock of our lives as we struggled to finish the food. Have a look at the photo below. Definitely not something you get to see everyday, huh? Hahaha.. We have fish head curry in Malaysia but chicken head curry?? Maybe it’s only in China where you can get one.

Day 7 - Saturday, 21/06/2008
Weather: Cloudy/Rainy

The weekend, finally. The plan was just shopping, shopping and more shopping. Our first stop was the Shanghai Shiliupu Varieties Centre - the place to buy cheap fabric in Shanghai. Naturally, most of us were only interested in silk since it’s quite expensive back home.

I bought this silk cloth for my friend. Not bad, huh?

In the afternoon we went to the Xinyang Market near the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum. While you can buy all sorts of things here (t-shirts, shoes, bags etc), this place is more well known for cheap electronic gadgets like mobile phones and MP4 players. All fake, of course.

There’s a Metro subway station right underneath of the Xinyang Market, so we took a train to go back to the hotel. Very convenient and very cheap too. Only RMB4 to get to our stop. Naturally, our friend Mr. Nick Lai chose the wrong station, resulting in a long walk even half way to Nanjing Road.

Dinner was on the boss at a ‘halal’ Chinese restaurant at Nanjing Road. Great food. Even though they were a bit pricey, they were definitely the best I’ve had since I set foot in Shanghai.

Day 8 - Sunday, 22/06/2008
Weather: Cloudy/Rainy

In the morning, we went to this place near Chipu Road (or Cheaper Road as these people here jokingly refer to) where we can buy really really cheap fake branded clothings. Man, the place is huge. You can get Adidas, Nike, Polo, Armani, Versace.. you name it. They even have designs the original brands do not have. If you’re a good bargainer, then this place is definitely for you.

In the afternoon, we took the bus to the Yu Garden, an old temple complex which was converted into a tourist centre. You can buy all types of souvenirs here, although at higher prices. But again if you’re a good bargainer, you can still get things very very cheap. I bought 5 medium-sized panda bears for only RMB70, all thanks to my friend Izzat.

Day 9 - Monday, 23/06/2008
Weather: Rainy

Not much in terms of activities. Training as usual from morning till afternoon. Everybody was still in the dark about the whole thing. Lunch was at a Japanese restaurant nearby the office where I had the silver cod dish set. Cheaper, actually, than in Malaysia.

After training, some of us went to the Xinyang Market at the Science Museum again for some more shopping. I wonder how these people still have money after the shopping spree over the weekend.

Day 10 - Tuesday, 24/06/2008
Weather: Sunny but cool

Training as usual. And I’m getting bored already with the whole thing. It has been more than a week now but it’s still difficult to master the skills required. For me, the problem is not knowing where to start. I just wish those people make the system simpler.

We have cut the training short by one day since most of us wanted to go back on Friday instead of Saturday.

After training, it was back to the Xinyang Market yet again. One of the girls was not satisfied since the iPhone she bought did not have a memory card.

Shanghai Science & Technology Museum

Day 11 - Wednesday, 25/06/2008
Weather: Cool and cloudy

Again, nothing much with the activities. We started with a new topic today and not surprisingly, it was just as confusing as the previous one. We had Japanese for lunch again and this time I tried the grilled eel set — the second time ever I tried eating eel.

For the third time in a row, I went to the Xinyang Market again after the class. This time one of the guys had a problem with the iPod he bought yesterday. Sigh… I’m getting tired with that place already.

Oh, if you plan to visit Shanghai and want to get good bargain on iPhone, iPod or a golf set, go to shop number J-02-2 and look for these two girls.

So now I have one more day of training to go before the flight back to Kuala Lumpur on Friday afternoon. There’s definitely no place like home.

Day 2 - Monday, 16/06/2008
Weather: Gloomy

Training the whole day. At night, spent a couple of hours after dinner walking around Nanjing Road - a tourist spot near where we stay. I’m not sure what is the main attraction of the place but there are definitely a lot of shops there. Not to mention the number of people who seem to have this morbid fascination with foreigners, offering items like watches, mobile phones, clothings, footwear etc etc. I’m a bit lucky since somehow I do look Chinese even though not by much

Nanjing Road

Day 3 - Tuesday, 17/06/2008
Weather: Gloomy, with sunshine for about 15 minutes

Training the whole day. The team was getting confused with the topics taught. It made me wonder why these people like to complicate things when there are simpler ways to do them. They probably haven’t discovered drag and drop. We then spent the whole night inside our rooms watching tv. Everybody was too lazy to go out and get dinner. Me, I only had instant noodles and biscuits.

Day 4 - Wednesday, 18/06/2008
Weather: Rain

Training the whole day. And everybody got more confused. At the end of the day, I don’t think anybody actually understood what was taught since morning.

At night, my 3 friends and I decided to go out and do some sightseeing. It was too boring staying in our rooms and do nothing. We went to Nanjing Road again and walked from one end all the way to the other end, which is where The Bund is.

The Bund (from Old Shanghai side)

The Bund is an area by the Huangpu River where you can see buildings influenced by eastern and western-style architecture. They called this side of the river the Old Shanghai and the other side where the Pearl Tower is the New Shanghai. The sight is really beautiful.

Shanghai Pearl Tower

We then walked all the way back to the hotel along Jinling Road.

Day 5 - Thursday, 19/06/2008
Weather: Hot and sunny, with a little bit of rain

Training the whole day as usual. I don’t think any of us has seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet. Hopefully it’ll get better next week.

In the evening, 5 of us went to The Bund again. This time we took an “air-conditioner ferry” to the other side (yup, that’s what written at the jetty. ). The view from this side of the river is just as beautiful as from the other side.

The Bund (from New Shanghai side)

I wanted to try the Metro train to go back to the hotel but the others preferred cabs, so I suppose I’ll have to do it some other day.

8:30 am

I am at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) right now, about to board Malaysia Airlines flight MH338 to Shanghai for my training. This is my first travel to China and I’m quite excited about it. A bit apprehensive too, to tell you the truth but I guess that’s understandable, being first timer and all.

Okay, gotta go now. Otherwise I’ll be left behind.

5:30 pm

We touched down at Pu Dong International Airport at 2:05pm - a journey of approximately 5 hours. I slept half of the time and spent the other half watching movies. Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur are in the same time zone, so I don’t have to adjust my watch. But then, I don’t have a watch, so..

Getting through the immigration and out of the airport took us about half an hour. My colleague has already arranged the transport to take us to the place where we’ll be staying till the end of the month: New Harbour Service Apartments. Took us more than an hour to get there.

From what I have seen so far, I have to say that Shanghai is a very beautiful city. The buildings are amazing.. the streets wide and clean.. there are trees and flowers everywhere.. Everything is just great. Except for one: the haze. Yup.. the air quality is really quite bad. Everything looks hazy after 500m or so.

Anyway, I’m now sitting in front of the tv, writing this while waiting for dinner time. Fortunately.. this place has broadband services inside the apartments. Unfortunately.. I have to pay if I want to use it. It’s RMB30 per hour, with a maximum of RMB70 per day. Damn! I thought it was free.

9:45 pm

We went to a Chinese Muslim restaurant not far from the apartments. The people who can speak Mandarin are non-Muslims, so they went to have their dinner somewhere else. The rest of us don’t speak Mandarin. And to make things worse, the people at the restaurant do not speak English. So the whole thing was like chicken trying to talk to ducks. It was quite funny. In the end, we managed to get our orders through.

We had chicken curry, deep fried fish, tofu in I-dunno-what red sauce, vegetable and rice. All together it came up to RMB193, which I suppose is not really that bad. It’s probably cheaper if we order the same food in Malaysia.

So tomorrow we will start our training, and it’s going to be a whole-day affair for the next 2 weeks (not counting the weekend). The flight back to Kuala Lumpur is on Saturday, 28/06/2008. I’m hoping that the training will be completed earlier so that I can go back one day early.

In the meantime, let’s just concentrate on getting through this adventure in Shanghai. Hehehehe…

I went to a Petronas petrol station in Taman Maluri this afternoon to fill up my car. I was thinking of snapping a photo of the price and compare it to the one in my previous post. Oddly enough, the price was not displayed anywhere at the pump. Not that it bothered me that much since I used my credit card and the price will be printed on the receipt.

So.. as you can see, the price at this particular station is RM2.700 per litre, and not RM2.704 like at Petronas Taman Cempaka, Ampang.

I guess I’ll have to go to more Petronas stations for better price comparisons.

Immediately after midnight, Wednesday 04/06/2008, the price of petrol increased from RM1.92 per litre to RM2.70 per litre. Prior to that, petrol stations all over the country became the most popular place to hang out. The queues were just unbelievable, causing traffic jams everywhere, even on highways.

Image courtesy of The Star Online

My fuel indicator was already amber but filling up before midnight was totally impossible. Unless there’s a petrol station somewhere that people didn’t know about. Yeah, and pigs might fly too. Coincidentally, I had a netball friendly match that night with the Selangor police team, which finished quite late, so I decided to fill up after midnight.

I went to Petronas Taman Cempaka, Ampang on my way home. Hardly anybody was there, in contrast to a few hours earlier. I think a lot of people went home disappointed, unable to get petrol at the old price.

Anyway, I noticed as I was filling up the tank that the price displayed was RM2.704 per litre. I didn’t really pay that much attention to it at that time since I thought the RM2.70 announced by the government is just a round-up (or down) figure of the RM2.704. On my mind was the fact that this was the first time ever it costed me more than RM50 for a full tank.

Over the next couple of days, I asked my friends what price is displayed at the petrol stations they visited. All of them said RM2.700. Now isn’t that odd?

I personally think this is against the law since petrol is a controlled item and the government has fixed its price at RM2.700 per litre. I have not checked other Petronas stations so I don’t know whether this is an isolated case or all of them are selling petrol at this price.

If you buy from Petronas, kindly check and let’s highlight it here. Or better still, highlight it to the people responsible for enforcing this sort of thing.