Work and day off in Shang hai

Yesterday was my third day in Shang hai . Woke up early again to had my jogging and exercise. It was very cold , about 10C outside. Then had breakfast before meeting the rest to the Hilton . The Hilton was a pretty nice hotel. It was pretty much near L'oreal China and is very tall. We had our meeting at the tallest level - level 42. Amazing , and of course the tot of going up to the tallest level for a meeting. The lift was fast ,and it was a pretty nice meeting room overseeing Shang Hai. The view was nice , with many skyscrappers around there. We even had our own area for finger food breaks and good coffee. Were then put into presentation strides by the speakers on some of the new initiatives. Had a discusssion after the talk and got into lunch soon after. Lunch in Hilton was not too great surprisingly . Of course it think the place is pretty luxury with many well healed Chinese eating there and looking snobish like us. haha. But the food was ok by some standard , and the dessert was pretty disappointing. I think the Radison does a better job in this department , at least for breakfast.

Went back to hotel and reached about 4.30 . Decided with Magdelene to walk around there , hoping for a quick shopping opportunity. Alas , we walked many miles to shops with lousy selection of clothes. Along the way , saw that it was lined up with many policemen. There are a student march in the morning , and apparently they smashed Japanese cars etc. But i think the evening ones are for a special VIP passing through. Rushed back and managed to get ready for the bus at 6.30

Had dinner at Shangri La in downtown Shanghai . And passed through many famous buildings there. ONe is the Jin Mao building , used to be the tallest building in the world b4 Petronas tower came along. And in the middle of this building , is the Grand Hyatt hotel which is super expensive. The 2nd building is the CHina Telekoms tower , which looked like 2 balls on a stick.
The food was pretty ok , better than the night before. ( super cun restaurant but with lousy food ) . And the service was much better. We had a nice , informal dinner with speaches. And then , the boss decided that we should go to the place called the Bund. It is a strech of place beside the river that has good lighting and activities. By the time we reached there , we only saw the lights for about 2 seconds because they off the light at 10.30 pm. It was still ok as all who came down went along the bund in the cold , windy night. Shiok. And lotsa beggers and people asking u to buy stuff.

A few of us then decided to go to the Karaoke , due to the 2 other guys from HK and Singapore. We got another LFD mgr and HRD from Taiwan along. Went to a place called Chatter Box. We suspect is has the same line of operation of the "x-box" business from Taiwan . In malaysia , they are called Red Box. Ronald and Calvin was great singers, i was just puttering along. haha . We had some hot drinks. The bill came out to RMB550 , but one of the directors was nice enough to sponsor. wow.

Anyway , saw on the street one guy hitting a girl and scolding . We think she was a prostititude or something. Kesian.

Went back at about 3.00 a.m. BEst thing about taxi in China is that they don't do special rate for night taxi. All the same.

Woke up at 7.00 to do jogging. After jogging , got more headache. Terrible. I somehow lied down to my bed after jogging to just get it off. Finally , got enough energy to change and take bath to go for th breakfast. Fastest breakfast i had today as 3 more people are waiting to go to this nice water village in another district. Thank God i felt better slightly and came back pretty well .
The ride was chattable as we got the big ah moh in HR corporate with us. Went throught many scenaries of SHanghai outskirt. Very pretty , with fields and ponds etc. And they have parks as well . One of them got a giant aircraft carrier and planes. We think those are fakes .
Reached there at 10.30 a.m. It is now a commercialized place with a lot of shops where houses were last time. Bought much stuff there today , but not enough time. It was very pretty . Looks like a Chinese village Venice. WEnt to some old china manors that is 400 years old. Ok la, can see some of the architecture and how they lived then. The tour guide was chatty , but long winded sometimes. hehe .
Had lunch at a top restaurant looking at the canals. Let me try to list down some weird t hings that we tried.

1. Pork knuckles - super famous here and super nice at RMB60.
2. Silver Fish - local freshwater fish
3. Some kind of fish and omelette
4. Some kind of vege that tastes like pucuk
5. Another kind of vege that tastes like asparagus , but bigger.
6. ah .. ham chai with seafood. I think the seafood taste like intestines lining , but some tot it was abalone. Dun think it was abalone.
7. Fresh water prawn - did not eat them .
8. Local beer.

Ok la .. still nobody felt sick yet. haha .
Did sit on the sampans where a girl was navigating. It costs RMM80 for a boat . Btw , to count it to RM - just divide by half. It was a pretty nice sight . I payed her extra RMB10 to sing folk songs - 3 of them . And got to drive the boat as well. U will see some photos of this as my Thai friend took his digital video recorder along.
It was about 3.30 when we start to walk back . Went to the silk quilt shop and again later at a bigger plant . Decided to buy a real authentic silk one with the chinese friends pursuding them to sell it to me at a cheaper rate. Happy with the buy. Hey , got a demo on hos the silk worm got took out from the cacoon. And got to know that they eat the worm also . Yucks. And they had even a fashion show in that building .Crazy , we think it was the clothes promoter.
Anyway , got to go as i want to sleep and woke up for dinner at 8.00 with the Thai friends. My boss go missing and so are the guys.