1st day in Shanghai!

Yes I have arrived safely at Shanghai!! :) If you didn't know, I'm on an NTU exchange programme previously called GIP (Global Immersion Programme) work & study and currently renamed as GEM (Global Education and Mobility) Discoverer.

In a nutshell, it's been AWESOME SO FAR!! :) Loving the autonomy and friends :D Haha...Going into the nutshell...

The moment I stepped out of the airplane and onto the runway to board the shuttle bus, *WHOOOSH* came the zero degree freezing wind...It slapped my face and made me wince in discomfort.

By the time I reached the shuttle bus, which is just about a minute walk away, my teeth were already clattering...HAHA! I immediately put on my 3rd layer - my dad's coat - on top of my long sleeved shirt and fleece jacket.

The amazing thing is, some ang-mohs that got off the plane with us were simply wearing T-shirts and shorts and they were like...FINE! We were all standing there in wonder and amazement...LOL!

Anyway, here's the picture roll and from it, shall the story unfold :) Haha!

Me blowing out smoke...abit not clear...LOL

Yes, every breath we take will result in a thin white cloud billowing out of our mouths. I was actually trying to do it for Jamie's camera...but what resulted was only my meme -.-" HAHA!

Upon arrival at the airport, we waited for about an hour before Johnie and Mrs Ai Hwa and gang arrived to pick us up.

They directed us to the coaches that will be taking us to Shanghai Jiaotong University (上海交通大学) for our briefing and BREAKFAST :D

So that picture of me above tryna blow smoke out is the time when we were all waiting for the buses :D Haha!

Lemme introduce to you my roomies for the next 6 months :D They are...from left: Jamie, Zhi Sheng, Chor Seng and Soon Hwee :D

And yes, Zhi Sheng and I have almost the same chinese name just that his is Zhi and mine is Zi. And of course, we have different surnames...haha.

花木路 roomies! :D

Take 2 with my ski cap from Joyce taken away by Chor Seng...haha

Anyway, the bus ride from 浦东机场 to 上海交通大学 took around 2 hours!!! All thanks to the HORRENDOUS TRAFFIC CONDITIONS. There was an accident on some super big bridge that caused the jam....haha

Yup, had a short brief at the university and we all gobbled down our KFC burgers provided by the NTU GEM Discoverer team. :)

From there, the coaches brought us to our apartments :D We were all happy and ready to dance around in our new residential quarters until we inserted the room key...

THE KEY COULD NOT OPEN THE DOOR!! All of us took turns to try opening the door while the landlord and our senior were being phoned for help...but to no avail. :/

Chor Seng, Jamie & Zhi Sheng then proceeded to our apartment headquarters to get help and to find a locksmith. Oh, and thanks to my English-Chinese app, we all found out that locksmith in mandarin is 锁匠. LOL!

Thank God there was a locksmith nearby...whew...That old China chap came and opened our door with a massive electric screwdriver as stealthily captured by Jamie's camera below:

Locksmith at work... :D

We are all happy and relieved :) But, that was kinda short-lived...Once he was done, he hurriedly demanded a payment of 200元!!!

He barely spent 3 minutes to open the door and he's charging us TWO HUNDRED YUAN!!! Chor Seng tried to bargain it down but as you know, Chinaman have LOUD, ANGSTY VOICE.

Chor Seng went "我们全都是学生吗，可以扣到150元吗?"

And the angsty locksmith went "不可以啊！200元最少了！快点! 我要走了。我要去另一个地方做事啊!"

We didn't want trouble so we just went ahead and paid him the hefty sum of 200RMB which is around SGD$40!!

We figured that if we offended him, he can come back anytime and break into our place and steal our stuff and we'll all be sucking our thumbs...LOL!

Yup, what a way to start our trip in Shanghai :(

Nevertheless, we didn't let that dim our spirits too much...upon entering our apartment, Jamie immediately whipped out her iPhone and got us to take a group photo :D

Our 1st picture in our apartment! :)

It's really nice and spacious :D Here's a picture of our living room :D Pardon the mess we already made...HAHA!

The living room! Already cluttered with all our barang-barang...haha

After nua-ing a while and unpacking and cleaning up a bit, we all left for lunch :D As usual, photo-taking time...with me graciously offering to be the photographer..HAHA!

My roomies Soon Hwee, Zhi Sheng, Jamie & Chor Seng :D

Yes, it's really chilly there...The temperature is fluctuating about ZERO degree celsius, peaking at 7 degree celsius!! Really a big change in temperature from Singapore...haha!

And our apartment is really condo-like. It is all fenced up by walls and there's only a few entries around. And before you can enter the lift landing, you need to tap your card to open the door to the lift landing. So, it's relatively safe here. :)

Ok, back to our lunch trip...haha..We went to this roadside eatery called "阿牛嫂" which serves fantastic 木桶饭 aka wooden pot rice...LOL!

All of us with our lunch except Jamie's 招牌炒饭 which is still in the rice cooker...HAHA!

Here's a close up view of our 木桶饭dishes :) Mine's at the bottom right hand corner...It's called "老干妈炒鸡蛋木桶饭"

Our orders! :)

I really love my dish! :D HAHA! It's filled with some random vegetable which I think is capsicum or green pepper and fried eggs, fried together with the dao xi beans :D

It was a great bite! It wasn't too salty but it was pretty oily at the bottom of the wooden pot...LOL! That cost me only 10元! SGD$2! Eat till my tummy almost burst...LOL!

Yup, after that, we went to walk walk and get our wifi contract settled so that  I can post this now...LOL!

Well, on the way, we saw quite an interesting scene...大肠 hanging off a wooden stick!! So who else better to pose with a funny face with it? LOL!

My relationship with chinese sausages...haha...

And since Jamie already took out her camera to take photo...she might as well continue taking right? So she was like "Come! Take photo! :)" And I was the only other person cam-whore enough to join in...HAHA!

Me & Jamie :D

Yup, we did our grocery shopping, activated our wifi connection and I bought a pair of warmer shoes...hahaha!

And the next thing we had was a BOTTLE OPENING SESSION to welcome ourselves to Shanghai! LOL LOL!

干杯!

 And the next thing you know...

NOMNOMNOMMMMM....LOL!

The thing about China is, their beer is DIRT CHEAP. You see the 青岛啤酒 bottle 2 pictures up? It's only 3元!! That's like, SGD 60 cents for 1 whole bottle!!! HAHA!

The taste and alcohol content is very minimal la...but I like it that way :D Not too bitter and not too strong :) HAHA!

Yup, that's more or less our first day! Let's end with a nice photo of us in high spirits :D HAHA!

咱们上大陆咯！