Diary of a Traveling Foodie

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Day Trip to Suzhou

Suzhou is known as the Venice of the East, famous for its network of interlocking canals whose waters feed the series of renowned classical gardens that are Suzhou's pride and glory.

My maternal grandparents call Suzhou home. Last April, my grandfather passed away and we decided to spend a day to visit his final resting spot and pay our respects.

Suzhou is about 60 miles away from Shanghai. With a thriving network of high speed rail connecting Shanghai and Nanjing, what use to take 2hrs can now be completed in 40min by CRH Trains. These trains are made in China but are exact replicas of the Japanese Nozomi Shinkansen Trains. Leave it to the Chinese to copy foreign technology...

Interesting menu item at KFC...

Went to the flower market to buy some flowers for gramps

Artisitic Shot

Shanghai Station

Interesting police cart in front of the station

Shanghai Station, The white trains are the CRH Trains and the red ones are old school trains

The train traveling at its max speed of 332 km/hr

Like I said, exact replicas of the Shinkansen

Suzhou Station

My Gramp's Cemetery...very scenic

Beautiful Lily Creek

My Grandfather Dawen Li. RIP

My Great Grand Parents are buried right next to my grand father

My 100 year old Great Grandmother...Amazing lady, her mind is still clear as day and still walks around on her own!

Ate lunch at a Suzhou culinary establishment serving traditional Suzhou food in an old school setting.

Like I said...very old school

Awesome Fish

Best Xia Ren I've ever had!

The oil is still boiling on this eel dish. Yum!

After lunch, we were welcomed by this predicament...

Our original plan was to visit The Lion Grove Garden, but it was raining so hard my parents decided to stay back with my grand mother. So my brother and I ran through the thundering rain to the Lion Grove Garden next door.

Inside The Lion Grove Garden. Shizilin

Famous rock formation in Shizilin

Rain just kept falling and falling

More Rocks

More Scenes from the garden

Famous creek in Suzhou

The shikuman houses and the trees are perfect backdrops to the river

Typical Shanghai Traffic Jam

For dinner, we decided to grab some Peking Duck! Yum!

Ducks before going into the fire pit

This almost made me lose my appetite but...how can I pass up Peking Duck? Even if they release juice out of the ducks ass.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

First Day around Shanghai(Shanghai Museum)

Highlights from the first meal in Shanghai

Famous Pan Fried Mantou, Sheng Jian Bao

Fish

Awesome Prawns! Qing Chao Xia Ren

My first day in Shanghai, we visited the Shanghai Museum on the way to my Grand Mother's house.

Shanghai Museum

Some Highlights from the Museum

Why is the little man getting stomped on?

Old school flask. People back in the day knew how to have a good time!

Skyline around People's Park

Interesting Architecture, on the left is The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition

On the way to the subway we saw this exhibit showcasing Shanghai in the 1930s. Back then we were the jewel of the orient.

Hopefully Shanghai continues to restore these Shikumen houses

Humongous Iphone? Found this by the elevator at my grams place.

Lunch prepared by my grams. She is an amazing cook!

Flight to Shanghai

The trip almost didn't get off the ground. Thanks to the wonderful new Flyaway service between Irvine Metrolink Station and LAX.

Here goes my first rant of this trip report...(don't worry, there will be a couple more)

My Air Canada flight between LAX and Vancouver was scheduled for 7:00am on 8/14/10. Since I had to be up by 4:00am, I decided not to goto sleep the night before(Highly recommended, slept like a log on the plane and landed in China feeling great with no sign of jetlag) The first Flyaway bus of the day was scheduled for 4:45am. If everything went according to plan, I would be in Terminal 2 at LAX ready to check in at 5:45am. 1hr15 min before an international departure, cutting it a little close but what the hey, I had already checked in and only had to drop off my bag. Well, 4:45 rolls around...no sign of the bus. I told myself and the other passengers waiting(they had a 7am flight to New York), I would wait until 4:55 before getting in my car and driving like a mad man to LAX. Well, 4:55 rolls around, still no sign, I start making my way to my car and low and behold, the sky blue FlyAway bus makes an appearance. Well, I get on the bus and the driver tells me that we can't leave until all the payments are processed. Finally, after swiping all our credit cards, we make our way to LAX at 5:05am. I arrived at Terminal 2 at 6:00am, got yelled at by the Air Canada Customer service rep because the cut off time for baggage was 1 hr before the flight. Thank god I had Star Gold status or this would not have ended well. Security took a while and I finally made it to the gate just as they were starting the boarding process. I do not remember much from the next 2 hrs because I was passed out but the flight was pretty smooth on one of Air Canada new Embraer 190s.

My Ride to YVR

IMO, YVR(Vancouver International Airport) is the best airport in North America, modern yet homey, plenty of shopping, nice employees. Although the Maple Leaf Lounges were pretty crappy. No food or booze until after 12pm!

Sights around YVR

My Ride to Shanghai a 767-300ER. Didn't know 767s had the range to make it that far.

Thanks to project XM, Air Canada now sports awesome IFE Systems. Ended up watching Kick-Ass, it was definitely Kick Ass!

Umm, havn't had one of these since college. Now I get to enjoy it again, Thank you crappy economy class food.

After an uneventful ride, we made it to Shanghai earlier than scheduled. The airport was empty and I was past both customs and immigration 10min later. We got lucky in a sense because all the big birds from the US landed about 15min behind us.

Better City, Better Life?

After winning the bid to host the 132nd World Expo back in 2002, Shanghai invested billions of dollar in preparation for the World's biggest carnival. Now it is the year 2010, all eyes are finally on Shanghai, will it live up to the expo slogan "Better City, Better Life"? Can China be taken seriously as a world power?

Last week, I went back to my mother land to see and experience it for myself. The following is my trip report, a CBAs(Chinese Born American) perspective on China.

The Flight to Shanghai

First Day around Shanghai(Shanghai Museum)

Day Trip to Suzhou

Visiting the Expo

Nanxiang Xiao Long Bao

Shopping and Family Gathering

Grand Mother's Burial

Final Thoughts