Hong Kong

This is long overdue but here are some shots from the trip I took to Hong Kong back in October...

Liver Porridge

Me picking the claypot clean

Conrad Ducky

Conrad Welcome Gift

Foggy Skyline

Finalized Trip to Asia

I waited and waited but it like Asiana will not be releasing any F availability on LAX-ICN...So here is my final itinerary... Not perfect but perfectly acceptable.

• SNA-SFO in United First (320)
• SFO-ICN in United First (744)
• ICN-PEK in Air China Business (738)
• PEK-HKG in Air China Business (333)
• HKG-SIN in United First (744)

• SIN-HKG in Singapore Business(772)
• HKG-IST in Turkish First(77W)
• IST-JFK in Turkish First(77W)
• JFK-LAX in United PS First(757)

Not bad for 120,000 Aeroplan miles plus $110 in taxes. I will get the opportunity to sample Turkish's wet leased 77W from Jet Airways, with its First Class Suite before they are returned to Jet. Also United PS, and United 747 First.

Shopping and Family Gathering

We had some time before dinner so my brother Tommy and I decided to check out Huaihai Rd. Huaihai Rd is another busy shopping street stretching over 5 miles. Unlike Nanjing Rd, Huaihai rd features more upscale western shops ranging from Gucci to Zara.

Typical Mall in Shanghai

Huaihai Rd

Welcome to Shanghai?

Brightly lit Highway Overpass

Are we entering the Twilight Zone? No, its Barbie World!

If 2 guys going shopping wasn't gay enough, Tommy and I decided to step inside the Barbie World. This 5 story monstrosity is filled with Barbie Dolls, Accessories and even a Cafe!

Barbie Dolls lining the spiral staircase

Woo, shinyyy

Barbies from around the world

Pink is my favorite color

Who's that girl? haha

We were even able to catch a fashion show

In typical chinese fashion, family picture in front of the dinner table.

Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao

No trip to Shanghai is complete without a visit to Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao in the Yu Gardens.(No not the fake Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao they have in Singapore or New York or other major cities around the world) If you enjoy the Xiao Long Baos from Ding Tai Fung, you will surely enjoy these even more. Why you may ask? Well...

1. Shanghai is the birth place of these Little Dragon Dumplings

2. They are filled with crab meat from the famed Shanghai crabs

3. You can stick a straw in one of Xiao Long Bao's Big Brothers Tang Bao and suck the scorching hot juice...Who doesn't enjoy burning the roof of their mouth

Entrance of Yu Gardens... Surrounding Yu Gardens is basically a bazaar filled with shops selling touristy souvenirs

Love the old Shanghai Architecture

Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao is housed in a 4 story building by the entrance of the garden. Each floor houses different dining environments from take out on the first floor to fine dining on Floors 2, 3 and 4. As you can imagine, as you make your way up the floors, the price for the buns become progressively more expensive. Our preferred floor is the 3rd floor where the dumplings are high quality and the pricing is still reasonable. The 2nd floor is restricted to offering only one type of buns while the 4th floor is restricted to a set menu. The 3rd floor is a happy medium offering a sit down restaurant environment with the ability to order as much or as little as you like.

The Xiao Long Bao crew busy at work

Our first round of Xiao Long Baos

Yummmm!

So there is an etiquette to eating these bad boys...

1. Pour some vinegar to the shredded ginger.

2. Gently pick up a Xiao Long Bao with the chopsticks and make sure that you don’t break the skin.

3. Gently dip the Xiao Long Bao in the ginger vinegar sauce.

4. Lift it up and place it on the spoon.

5. Nibble the side of the Xiao Long Bao and suck the soup/broth inside the Xiao Long Bao. (This is the best way of savoring the meaty, juicy, and flavorful broth/soup inside the dumpling. And o yeah, suck gently so you don't burn yourself!)

mhhhhh....

Our neighbors got a Tang Bao filled with soup. You use a straw to suck the soup out. Not my cup of tea but interesting idea.

Check out how much juice is in there!

Second round...

My Brother Tommy and I had a friendly competition to see who can eat more Xiao Long Baos. He had heard I ate 16 last time I was in Shanghai so we made a friendly wager on who can eat more this time around. I ended up breaking my own record with 20 while Tommy came in at 21, only because he had a sneaky fast chopstick grab that snatched the last one from me. grrrr, I'm definitely calling for a rematch next year.

Sights from the bazaar...

After a heavy breakfast at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, we decided to walk off the fats by doing some shopping. There are 2 major shopping boulevards in Shanghai, Huaihai Rd and Nanjing Rd. Nanjing Rd is a pedestrian only shopping street stretching close to 5 miles. We settled on Nanjing Rd and I took a few pics along the way...

Typical Shanghai Street

Nanjing Rd

Since cars are not allowed on Nanjing Rd, people use these mini trains to get from one end to another.

Visiting the Expo

The rain continued to fall the next morning, but luckily it subsided around lunch time. Which presented us with the perfect opportunity to visit the much publicized Shanghai Expo. Due to the rain, the weather was more bearable although the humidity was still bothersome. We heard that certain exhibits had wheelchair lines so my grandfather decided to tag along as well.

My Bro with Gramps in the holding area for the expo. This is where tickets are collected bags are searched before we catch a subway that takes us directly to the expo center. This subway line amazingly only has 3 stops, 1 for each side of Huangpu river where the Expo Halls are housed and this stop right here. As you can see the place was dead this afternoon. We expected similar showing at the expo, but we were dead wrong...

Yeah...look at the line for Japan Technology Hall, this wasn't even the real Japan Hall...

2 hour wait! outside! in the humidity! For Cisco Hall? What are we going to do? Learn about routers? not happening today!

Japan Technology Hall

Whats that in the sky? It must be Octopus Man! They sold some overpriced Takoyaki here. The line for Takoyaki was even 30min.

We decided to go to some Korean Hall because there was no line. It wasn't even the real Korea Hall. This one was sponsored by Lotte. I thought Lotte was a Japanese company. The hall was pretty boring, featuring touch screens where you can use your hands to bounce imaginary balls. Not very exciting.

Why is the Oil hall water blue?

We took the water taxi across the Huangpu river to the Pudong side where all the countries have their main halls.

A UFO?

Tommy somehow ended up in the wheelchair. What a slacker...

Don't remember what hall this was...

Your 2010 FIFA World Cup Winner...ESPANA!!!

Very colorful Serbia Hall

All the major halls had 2+ hour wait time, yes even Serbia. So we decided to visit the Monaco Hall...The hall was pretty lame. It started with a tourism video, narrated by Prince Albert(we are not talking about the piercing here. Don't blame me, you googled it yourself...ahhhh curiosity kills). We saw a few Formula One race car. Read about how Monaco is dealing with global warming. (Monoco will definitely be one of the first ones to go if the sea level rises. No wonder they are freaking out)

Formula 1 Car...Monaco hosts a yearly Formula 1 event.

Electric Race Car

Deutschland

Polska

La Suisse

Germany had 28 rows of lines...Packed with people...Wait time of 4hrs

Le Oranjeboom!

We ended going to the Austria hall since the wait time was a modest 1hr and half. By the end of the entire ordeal, I was so fed up I ended up yelling at two kids behind me. They were pushing, shoving and cutting in line the entire time. Come on, can we be more civilized here, everyone will get in! If China ever wants to play with the big boys and attract foreigners to these events, the Chinese people need to change their mentality. (99.99% of the attendees were Chinese People! It's not the World Expo no more, more like the China Expo) Also another thing that pissed me off, all these people waited in line on average for 2hrs per hall, and what did they do once they finally got into the hall? They ran through it in 2 minutes, touching a few buttons here and there, posing for pics with foreigners and then they were out of there. O yeah, they also got their "passports" stamped. Why rush through it when 2hrs were spent waiting in line? I really don't get these people...

The Austria Hall featured a live Chamber Orchestra. Finally able to get a long exposure without a tripod.

Snowballs

Rossiya

O Canada

The landmark of the Expo. China Hall. Can you believe this is the only structure they will keep after the expo? All the other halls will be torn down. What a waste.

Turkmenistan

Qatar

As a joke, we visited the Iran and North Korea Halls. Interestingly, they were right next to each other.

We thought we would never make it out alive. Very surreal experience.

Highlight of the DPR Hall.

Where is the Kim Jong Il Propaganda?

Iran Hall

Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

After 8hrs, we just couldn't take the humidity and the pushing anymore, we decided to call it a day. One quote pretty much summarizes the entire ordeal. "You regret if you don't go...but you regret it even more if you go."