Happy new year! Can you guess what's my main resolution? Hint: it's staring right at you.
For 2014, I resolve to blog more often and catch up on my most recent travels. This is a MUST because the coming year has a lot of travel opportunities for me, including at least two places that I have never been. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
But for now, this post chronicles my first time in Shanghai. The downside is, I was so overwhelmed by the foreign languange that I was scared to really go anywhere. The only places I've seen were a blurry haze of malls that I didn't remember and restaurants that I couldn't find again.
One weekend morning, we had breakfast outdoors just near our hotel. Around the Shanghai area that we were in, there's really no place near to venture aimlessly.
Which is also kinda cool since I got to see the Pearl Tower, which is very visible from the IFC Mall. As far as trip evidences go, this is it. You couldn't find it anywhere else in the world.
A few minutes' train ride away (as with everywhere else), our group headed to Hershey's Chocolate World, a tourist destination in itself. Yeah, I love, love chocolates.
The following day, three of us decided that we should take tourism matters into our own hands. We will go to Shanghai zoo on our own!
And we did. We just took a cab from our hotel. The trick is to have the hotel concierge write down the address of our destination in Chinese characters, and hand it to the cab driver. Someone told me cabs in Shanghai are pretty safe and reliable.
Here we are.
It is a massive zoo, not that I had any doubts considering it is China after all. They have a lot of land.
Pink flamingoes! I thought they only existed as lawn ornaments. Yes, I am kidding.
I am not sure if this is a man-made or natural lake. That's the reason for my pensive look.
All my life, I have never wished to have bread crumbs ready as much as I did then.
More birds below! Our first stop was actually the reptilian area, but snakes give me the biggest creeps! I think I held on to my companions so tight and they had to drag me while I was closing my eyes. Most probably, they thought I was overreacting. But really, I am so freakin' scared of snakes - even on TV and in pictures.
Anyway, that above is one of the main reasons why I have lots of bird photos to compensate for the lack of scaly, slimy, slithering creatures.
Mozilla firefox. Or just the firefox. But I prefer to call him Mozilla. It's actually a kind of panda, not a fox.
And speaking of pandas, why am I in China but I have no rolly-polly panda photo to show for it? I guess the Kung Fu master is out hiding or sleeping somewhere. Boo.
Here's Simba (or more like Scar) sitting on his throne.
I call this the "Sugar We're Going Down" photo... for obvious reasons. Oh, it's not obvious?
Thanks to my friend for taking candid photos of me in action.
I think we took more pictures of ourselves than the animals. It's like we went to a park rather than a zoo. But the fact that we got around Shanghai on our own speaks a lot already. We were full-fledged tourists!
Details for the tourists:
Entrace cost is RMB 40 for adults
Address: 2381 Hongqiao Road near Hami Road
How to go here by subway: Line 10 and get off at Shanghai Zoo Station . Line 10 splits into two different directions after Longxi Road, so be sure you're taking the one going to Hongqiao Railway Station.
