Ok, before I go on with my sunday brunch, I think the humid level in this sunny island had reached its maximum. Its sooooooo humid nowadays *hang head*. Everyday, I just sweat even w/o doing naything. I hateeeeeeee sweating, honestly. It makes me feel so sticky and it bothers me very much. *pout*
Oh yes, sunday brunch, I sooooo miss sunday brunch. It has been ages since I go for one.
(Click to enlarge)
I went for it at Equinox, before CNY ends so that you knw how outdated this blog is.
Thanks to LN superb photo stitching skill. Click to enlarge and you will see the whole of Marina bay and lotsa ships parking (dude. you call that parking? i dunno) at our port, no wonder they were saying Singapore has the one of the most busiest port in the world.
I love the little alley way that lead to the toilet.
Didn't I tell you that my future house toilet will be like this, a pink toilet? But a bit of modification of course, with small little light bulb all over the mirror.
Is that the reason why they charge the premium? Meaning the beautiful toilets bcoz the food is just mediocre. I only have one serving of the main, nothing impressive since I patronize Equinox yrs ago. Its still the same old dishes.
And of course, the desert is the hype of the whole brunch. I have 3 servings of them!! I gotta die of diabetes some day!
I love this photo. *teehee*
I always love macaron but I remembered the last time I was at Equinox, the macaron sucks but this time a great improvement, I love it. My friend was commenting that the plate is full of brownnnnn stuffs. No choice, I love choco tooo much.
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Shanghai.
Shanghai National Museum.
We went over to the museum before they left Shanghai. Anw, I think even if museum is not your cup of tea, you shouldn't miss this one.
The exterior of the museum looks beautiful, an UFO lookalike.
All the Chinese creatures lining up outside. *teehee* I own one of them, its called qi lin (a small jade accesories... dude you think what? hehe) I think and nobody except me can touch it, if not it doesn't bring me luck anymore.
The only way of taking a group photo. Bcoz my mum being paranoid said that if I hand the camera to a passerby, he/she might run away with it. I mean its normal right, after all the poisonous milk scandal and many more...
I am doing yoga. *teehee* Me with my weird pose, waiting for my sis to finish tying her shoelace.
The interior of the museum and it consists of 6 storeys and 2 exhibition halls in each storey.
When you enter the museum, you have to go thru the security check where they x-ray your bag all that. My sis brought along a bottled water in her bag and the security told her to have a sip before going in.
Why though? Scared we might poison someone in the museum?! *muahahhaha*
The first stop we went was the ancient Chinese sculpture gallery. Its mostly on sculpture of Buddha. In different era and Chinese dynasties of China, sculpture or look of Buddha will differ bcoz of different internal or external influences.
If you cant be bothered to read, it was just saying, during the Song Dynasty, Buddhist sculptures emphasize the beauty of the human form, seem to have been modeled on the figures of real people.
An example:
This is the reclining Buddha from Song Dynasty, A.D. 960 - 1279
then its the Tang Dynasty and the five dynasties period.
Many great works of sculpture survive from Tang Dynasty and a strong element of realism is one of their leading characteristic, show a satisfying balance in the proportions of the parts of the bodies.
An example:
No no, this is not a Buddhist sculpture. This is just a normal lady, you can see some colour on her cheeks, from Tang Dynasty A.D. 618 - 907.
During the northern Wei period, Buddhist sculpture was under heavy influence from Gandara (northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan). Figures of the Buddha from this period typically have deep set eyes, strongly western facial features.
An example:
A Buddha sculpture from Northern Wei, A.D. 526. Note the big nose and deep set eyes yah.
Then we hoped over to another gallery.
If you watch HK period drama, you should know this is a wine vessel. Sorta like a wine class of the past. And I bet you wun believe that all these wine vessels were from, 15th century B.C. *Goodness* Wow! The gallery even have wine vessel that is so huge, its like the size of a half of me, that one is probably to store wine yah.
No not this. Bcoz this is a food vessel to store their food, i think its mainly for meat before it turned bad. The very talkative security told us a story of this particular food vessel; this food vessel is a gift from the Emperor of the time and to thank the emperor for giving him this huge food vessel, the commoner craved something onto the food vessel.
See the little wordings in the food vessel... That is what he craved.
They made the words even bigger for you and mount it onto the wall so you get to see the ancient Chinese writing. I cant believe our Chinese wording evolved from this, I couldn't think of any Chinese words when I saw this. Oh anw, it is mainly about thanking the emperor for giving him this food vessel.
How wonderful the Historian's job is yah. I kinda envy that they get to handle all these stuffs. I have always been fascinated by the History. I mean its so fascinating to see how they invented all these stuffs w/o all the technologies and machine, the way they used to live and survive. How wonderful!
We moved on to the Jade gallery after that.
I think of all the galleries, Jade is the one that managed to perserve its look and beauty after so many thousand of years.
I was quite inspired to get a jade so that I can pass it on to my daughter the next time *muahahahha*.
Look at how beautiful the jade is after like a few thousand years, from 106 B.C *mouth widen*. This is a food vessel and look at their artwork, can you imagine how did they do it w/o any machine?
This is a jade cicada. The carving is very pretty but the light is too strong so I couldn't take a nice picture of it. The purpose of this cicada is to put it into the mouth of the deceased upon burying. People in the Han Dynasty carved the Jade in cicada shape to express their wishes that the deceased would revive as a cicads.
We proceeded to the Money exhibition next but I shall not bored you with all the history stuffs. Stop yawning now yah!
Exiting the museum and a few steps away is the very famous people's park. This place is supposed to be very crowded, but due to CNY, most of the Chinese went back to their hometown so most of the parts of shanghai are sorta quiet. I like it this way!
Anw, my friend was saying if we nv been to people's park mean we nv been to Shanghai. Can you imagine it this is my first time after so many trips to shanghai?!
Nice and modern architecture around the area. I have to say this place had surpassed our sunny island, very beautiful place and its clean, ok maybe we can judge when its summer again yah.
More beautiful buildings from the other side and my hilarious photo. 1...2...3 jump!
Posing at the fountain which is the centre of the people's park. Looks sunny but its actually freezing my ass offffffffff.
My candid photo... Then we decided to walk to the nearby Nanjing Road. Soooo cold, I have to put my hand into the pocket bcoz there is where the heat pack is.
Walking... Walking... And walking...
Passing by the very unique samsung building. Its hard to have building like this in other countries yah.
We stopped by one of the department stores to have our lunch at this Chinese fast food restaurant, the food is ultra disgusting and I nv like Chinese food over at Shanghai.
Anw, I spotted Madame Tussuads Shanghai, was so tempted to go in but decided to give it a miss since I reckon it will have too many China Celebrities that I dun even know.
Oh. I do know Guo Jingjing ok.
Yoz yoz. Nanjing Lu. The very hip area of Shanghai. And who just said most parts of Shanghai are gotta be quiet huh??
I think Shanghainese women are very pretty, their skin are really nice and fair and they are very fashionable as well, as compared to many years ago lah. *muahahahaha* Oh yes, They are more fashionable than ladies in our sunny island.
Bcoz here, we crowned Stefanie Sun as Kate Moss of Singapore. Honestly! *stick out tongue*
We wanted to get some CNY goodies and to see what the Chinese had for CNY.
But was astonished by the amount of pple in all their stores. Seriously, how can you ever shop in sucha crowded store. I am really impressed!
Just walked in, we already gave up.
Who says I cant have Bak Kua this CNY. There was a veryyyy long queue at the shop and the Chinese bought like only 2pieces each. Why do they queue up for a long time to just have like 2 pieces. Their mouth widen when we asked for 1kg. Jon told me bcoz its sorta an extravagant for them.
And the shop manager is a Singaporean. She spotted us and chatted abit. My mum was quite puzzled why she knows we were Singaporean. So I told her bcoz we are the ugliest sort over there. Seriously! The girls there are like with delicate nose and big dolly eyes while we are small beady eyes with flat nose.
Spotted the very cute sign. You have to hold your children when you crossed the road.
Evil looking doll at one of the departmental store. Red eye balls. *eeeyerrr*
Nanjing lu has very nice architecture too, as compared to many years ago lah. Changes here are really rapid, everyday, there are like major changes everywhere.
Old Shanghai looking departmental store. Hen mei ah!
Then the road across, a very modern, pineapple looking corporate building. Also very mei!
European looking style, a sign of British colonial. You wouldn't have notice that this is not Europe if I nv say so. Oh yes Zara there is like huge and every store is squeeze with shocking amount of pple, Shanghai is full of rich pple alright. They snatched for stuffs in there ok even w/o sales.
A random modern shopping mall beside the European looking zara building. Ye shi hen mei. We had to keep going into their departmental stores to hide from the bitter coldness, especially when the night is here.
Bing tang hu lu. Loosely translated as chinese ancient candy. *muahahahaha*
I gotten one. Its just fruits coated with very sweet honey. Tasted like apple and oh not forgetting how dirty it is. Bet they didn't wash the apple-tasting fruits at all.
Wanted to get some lingerie and spotted this very funny looking mannequin. Why the small waist, dude? *hehehehehehe* Very funny!
And lastly Doreamon!!! in the zodiac costume greeting us a happy new year. Damn cute. Spot the rabbit. Its actually Doreamon for Baleno, selling tshirt with Doreamon on it.
This ended my trip to nanjing lu.
