Our First Cuti-Cuti China: Hangzhou Day 1

This is a super belated post. We took this trip in October! 

Well, we finally managed to go for our very first long-awaited, long-put-on-hold local holiday. It was a short 2D1N weekend getaway to Hangzhou...

We took a high-speed train from the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway station. This railway station looked like an airport...it was huge and modern, and the system was impressively efficient! 

Inside the train....the journey took approximately 1h30m with a maximum speed of over 300km/h

We had an early lunch immediately after reaching Hangzhou. No lunch pic (we had pick-own-ingredient noodles) except for this big tumbler of fresh fruit juice that mummy bought for me after lunch :)

We spent 2 days (our entire trip) just walking leisurely around 西湖 or West Lake, Hangzhou's main attraction.

We took a boat ride too...

The boat ride cost about RMB40 (RM20+) per person (can't really remember the actual price cos it's been 2 months since the trip :p)

This is one of the many famous scenes of the Westlake 

We hopped off at an island in the lake.... 

The name of the island is "Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon" and the whole place is a beautiful park/garden!

Built in the early 1600s, this is the largest island on the lake. When there is a full moon, candles inside the pagodas are lit, and the candle light appears as though you see the moonlight, hence the name.

Typical Chinese architectural design... Round doorway

View of the city from afar

We visited a few more gardens on the mainland

Looking at one of the remains (all nicely preserved like this) of a temporary Imperial Palace of the Qing Dynasty

We walked a lot that day, mostly along the lake side

We took a seat whenever we saw a vacant bench to rest our tired feet.

And then we just continued walking....there were just too many different sights and scenes along the lakeside...

I felt very tired from all the walking and my dear daddy piggy-backed me hehe...

And we sat down again....

Watching the sunset on a bridge with a funny name - "Lingering Snow at Broken Bridge". 

Sunset already, time to hunt for dinner!

We went to a famous local restaurant and joined a massive queue of 81 people ahead of us. Crazy!! We waited 1 hour+ to be seated @-@

After the long wait, we got so hungry that we greedily over-ordered and ended up with 6 dishes... steamed Chinese yam (山药) with berry sauce, mashed tofu, salted egg pumpkin, yam with greens, grilled brinjal and baked fish. Food was not bad and the bill came to about RMB90 (less than RM50).

After dinner, we took a short stroll at a night market near our hotel before retiring for the day.

My Summer Holidays

Post basi. Below are happenings between June and August, during my 2-month-long end of school term break, also known as the Summer Holidays.

I spent the first half of my holiday in Shanghai. Besides doing Math and BM practice at home, watching TV, getting engrossed in the Rainbow Loom, mummy and I went out quite often too...

I tagged along with mummy on her many "auntie outings" (her weekly outings with friends), mainly for grocery shopping and makan-makan...

 and jalan-jalan too...

We ate a lot of good food around the city. Sometimes we had lunch, sometimes we had afternoon tea and sometimes we had both :)

Mummy tried to fatten me up before we went back to Malaysia... but somehow, all the fat grew on her instead while I remained stick-thin haha...

On the days when we had no where to go, we went to the library. The district library is only 5 minutes' walk from home but only Chinese books were available there (in the kid's section). 

The second half of my holiday was spent in Malaysia, from 19 July to 18 Aug...

Our flight home was just 2 days after the MH17 tragedy. We flew home in fear! (I went back with mummy first... daddy joined us later) 

Back in Seremban, we went for my first buka puasa dinner in Gung-gung's friend's restaurant. 

We spent most of our days in Seremban... we explored some new places and discovered a new park in S2 Hill Park.

I love this park!

We spent a lot of time with Gung-Gung, Ah Ma and Kau-foo :)

We also took a day trip to Raub (Gung-Gung's birth place) and visited some of my grand uncles and grand aunts. My late great-grandfather had a shop here. The shop is no longer around now but long ago, mummy spent many of her school holidays staying here. This is where mummy used to play when she was a kid (at the corridor where I'm standing).

Visited the lake gardens before taking a slow drive back to PJ

I had a few play dates with cousins and friends too. With cousin Leanne here.

Play date with more cousins from KL and Singapore

With adorable little Abbygail

With cousins Hayley and Jeremy

I fell in love with Hayley jiejie's dog, Shadow :)

Swimming!

We shopped a lot too. Besides mall-hopping, we also raided the hypermarkets and accumulated more than 70kg worth of groceries (to be carted back to Shanghai!)

I celebrated my 8th birthday in Seremban and PJ. In Seremban, we had a family lunch in a restaurant of my choice and I chose the Manhattan Fish Market. Back in PJ, I only had one birthday wish - Kids E World. I wasn't interested in parties or meals or cakes or anything birthday-related so Kids E World (in IPC) it was for me...

I really had a ball of a time here and guess what, I refused to leave until 7 hours later! 7 hours in Kids E World sounds so crazy haha. Daddy and mummy took turns keeping me company here. Best birthday present ever.

Simple Mini cuppies for my birthday

More cakes in Baci, where Aunty BS and Uncle T came to celebrate with me and belanja us makan :)