Saturday Outing - Lujiazui

Lujiazui business district is the area flooded with skyscrapers that we see from across the river at The Bund. We quite like this place and have since been here twice (in Sept and Oct).  

The most prominent landmark of Shanghai... The Oriental Pearl Tower

The main attraction here is this large, circular pedestrian bridge 

Aerial view of the huge bridge. Photo taken from here

Close up of the tower from the bridge

Year of the Snake landscape

There are a few nice malls here and this is our favourite... it has all the popular shopping outlets that we like...

... including a big Toys R Us store (seen here at the entrance with Woody made of Lego)

We had afternoon snack in Hooters (daddy and mummy were curious to see China Hooter Girls hehe)

We enjoyed a dance performance by the sexy Hooter Girls halfway through our meal, after which I declared that "I love this restaurant" haha :)

Our simple and unhealthy "snack"... chicken burger

Vegetarian flatbread

And cheese sandwich

We then walked to a nearby park

Lujiazui Central Lake Park

Lots of fish in the lake

I had fun posing with these statues

Lovely flowers just outside the IFC Mall

My 3rd Harvest

I brought home a packet of organic vegetables from school again recently. This was my third harvest for my "Farm to School" project. Previously (when I was still in Grade 1), I've also harvested cherry radishes and Italian lettuce, which I brought home for Mother's Day in May.

Look what I have for you, mum! 

Organic Chinese mustard (choy sum), grown with my TLC :)

Poor veggies had more holes than leaves haha!

The tiny little culprit that shared the vege with us ;)

This is my vegetable patch in school

And this is my class plot... looking all empty after the recent harvest. I wonder what will we be planting next! ;)

Showing off our harvest!

Back to the choy sum, mummy immediately stir-fried it and this was our simple dinner for that night... Chinese "pita" bread with egg mayo and chives, purple sweet potato, raw carrot and tomato plus lots of fruits (not in pic). 

The Best Picnic Ever

Last Saturday, we woke up to a beautiful autumn morning and crept out of bed without any plans for the day. Since the weather was good (cool temperatures between 16-20C), daddy and mummy suggested we go for a picnic.

Mummy immediately packed some food and off we went, to the park opposite our home for a picnic brunch. This turned out to be our best and longest picnic ever. We actually stayed on the same spot for nearly half a day from 10am to 3pm!! This was something that we could never do back in Malaysia... imagine the midday heat! 

Beautiful clouds greeted us at our apartment entrance :)

Our picnic spot... we spent 5 hours relaxing, eating, playing, reading, chit-chatting and even napping here haha. Total bliss!!!

Our simple brunch. Later mummy even walked home for a toilet break and brought over more food! :p

Enjoying my favourite Japanese cheesecake (that mummy queued up 30 mins to buy)... yummy!

Lying down doing nothing and it felt GREAT! (esp in a good weather like this)

Playtime... I brought along my "gymnastic ribbon" and a frisbee

We had a few uninvited picnic "guests" too :)

Chinese Snacks #1 - Shou Zhua Bing

There are many interesting street snacks in Shanghai but we rarely buy them because we've read and heard too much about filthy China food, especially those made and sold in small stalls by the roadsides.

However, there's this one breakfast stall (it only opens in the morning) that we walk past very often and it always attracts our attention because it looks very much like roti canai. One fine day, curious to try it, we just ignored all our qualms and apprenshion and went ahead to buy one (self-consolation: Shanghai's watchdog on public food safety is very active and efficient anyway)... 

Chinese "roti canai" that isnt flipped and tossed with the hands

It comes with a choice of simple fillings like vege, sausage, meat, egg etc. plus 3 types of sauces - chilli, ketchup and mayo. Their freshly blended soy milk is very popular too. 

We picked veggie and egg with mayo, RMB4.50 (RM2.20).... Yummy!! It tasted very much like roti canai but tastier :)

This "roti canai" is simply called shou zhua bing, which translates to "hand-held biscuit" 

Talking about roti canai, have you seen such a big one before? This was bought in a hypermarket some time ago. Of course, this was not as nice as the freshly made one above.

Sports Day

My school's annual sports day was held last Friday on 1st Nov. It was an unusually hot and sunny day and the unexpected warmth was a nice surprise for us (weather has been rather gloomy and chilly in the past few weeks). 

Daddy took time off from work to attend this event with mummy. They reached my school very early and roamed around taking photos before the event started at 9am...

The mini "obstacle course" for the 1st and 2nd Graders. The real track and field events were for the older kids (Grades 3-6).

Eagerly waiting for my turn... I took part in an inter-class race where I had to do the following...

First, I had to kick a ball around the cones...

Followed by this "crocodile crawl"...

And then rope-skipping (which I struggled a bit cos I couldn't skip smoothly)...

And lastly, spinned around with a bat 3 times...

... and threw a frisbee into a net!

Look who's busy taking a video of me in action ;)

My class 2R emerged as champions. We won 3 goodie bags. Yay!

Daddy and I took part in a family game too

The adults/parents had balloons tied to their feet...

We, the kids, had fun stepping on them to pop them. Daddy then received a small token for participation.

Me and my friends... quite "muhibah" also, eh? :)

Daddy, Mummy and I

Mummy was wiping this photo frame recently when she noticed that the photos (of daddy and her) were taken at my current age...

These two photos were put together since their courting days!

Mummy then added my photo in and here's the three of us at about the same age (between 6-7 years old)...

Who is the cutest? ;p

Arts and Crafts Day - Jack O Lantern

Arts and crafts is an activity long forgotten since we moved to Shanghai. The last post was dated Sept 2012.... oh my, more than a year ago! Although mummy and I love arts and crafts very much, we just do not have the time for it. 

Last Sunday, mummy did pumpkin carving (this craft was more for her actually hehe). It all started when we saw this in Tesco a day earlier...

Really didn't expect to see Halloween decor in China!

That's not all. We even spotted some nicely carved Jack O Lanterns among a pile of pumpkins. Feeling somewhat "inspired", mummy quickly grabbed one without hesitation. 

She had always wanted to try making this but never got the chance to do so because these orange-coloured pumpkins are not cheap back in Malaysia. Over here, it is inexpensive and mummy got a 1.2kg one for only RMB4.70 (RM2.40). It was quite a solid one with thick flesh...

There was also a pomelo at home and it got "victimised" too ;) The pomelo was also very cheap at RMB2.60 (RM1.30). Sweet and juicy!

Mummy searched for some JOL images on the Internet and "started work" immediately. The pumpkin was quite big with enough surface to make 3 faces so mummy did just that. This was the first face that she drew and cut...

First she drew the outline of the features. Then she picked one of her kitchen knives and sharpened it really, really sharp! 

Within minutes, tadaaaa! Although this was her first attempt in pumpkin carving, she felt that it wasn't too difficult after all. 

The second face for both turned out very ugly... Lol!

And finally, the third face... all 3 of us voted this as our favourite :)

At night, we played with "fire". Yes, today's craft was all about playing with sharp knives and fire :p

We had only 1 miserable candle so the pomelo had to make do with a blue-light torchlight ;)

The next day, here is what's left of poor Mr 3-faced Jack O Lantern... he (they) landed on our dinner table haha...

Pumpkin chicken rice with raw veggies (lettuce, red capsicum and turnip). Yummy!!!

This was probably our best pumpkin purchase so far. We crafted it, played with it and ate it too. No wastage! :) 

Daddy's Home!

Daddy came back late last night from his 6-day business trip to Taiwan. This was the first time mummy and I were left alone in a foreign land... just the two of us for almost a week. While he was away, I had some "security issues" at home every night.

Obviously, I didn't feel very secure when the man of the house was not around. Every night at bedtime, I would remind mummy over and over again if she had double-locked the main door. I would check the windows to make sure they were closed too, although mummy told me that Shanghai is relatively very much safer than KL/PJ. Over here, house break-ins are very rare and snatch thefts on the streets are almost unheard of. But I still felt safer with daddy around ;)

Anyway, daddy's home and I can go to bed with peace in my mind again :) 

Video-chatted with daddy almost every night before going to bed as usual

Due to his tight schedule, he did not have time to go shopping this time but he still did not come home empty-handed. Here are the little bit of local snacks that he got from a nearby mini market (mini market also sells a wide range of Hello Kitty merchandise!). The junkie snacks were all taken from his hotel room mini bar (FOC and replenished daily) while the French chocolate on the left was a last minute purchase at the airport...

A little something for his girls :p