Shanghai Tang and cheap roadside meals

After a most enjoyable stay in London where your PJWT explorers regained much of their former "glory" back (i.e. we fattened up) we made our way to Shanghai. The flight was around ten and a half hours but its amazing how quickly it goes when you have personal inflight entertainment (AND you haven't seen a few of the movies). Arriving in Shanghai we were nearly conned into paying 500RMB (around A$90 i think) for a private taxi by the information desk at the airport. That didn't seem quite right as we were pretty sure that there would be a direct train link of some kind at least. So we figured out that we could take the Mag-lev to a subway link and then take the subway into the city centre (all for only 88RMB for the two of us). The Mag-lev was damn impressive, with the trip lasting 7.5 minutes and clocking a max speed of 431 km/hr (faster than the Jap bullet trains which travel at around 300).

Shanghai is a pretty amazing city with a lot of new shiny buildings but most of the streets are still dirty and that oh-so familiar asian sewage smell hits you in the face every block or so. We only had a few days in Shanghai and were still feeling the effects of jet lag coming from London so we spent most of the time just wondering around the financial district, shopping malls, old shanghai gardens, as well as wondering the streets late at night looking for food.

The food was pretty good in general with most meals costing us around 2-3 dollars for noodle soup and dumplings. One meal which we had late at night when nothing else was open was in a hole in the wall restaurant (and i use the term restaurant very loosely here) where we walk in and the guy gestured if we wanted to drink to which i replied with the universal eating sign. So we sat down, counting the number of cockroaches running around, wondering if we would be getting menus. The guy came a short while later with two plates of fairly simple fried noodles drenched in oil, and since we were hungry we ate it, leaving a nice puddle of oil. Then came the bill, a princely sum of 15RMB or under A$3, making it officially the cheapest cooked meal we had had on the trip.

The other thing i really like about Shanghai were the chinese massages. We went twice to a place on Nanjing Rd and on the second day we had a 60 min body massage followed by a 80 minute foot massage. All for only 280RMB! One word of advice if you do get a chinese body massage would be to learn the chinese word for softer otherwise you to might end up screaming like a little girl when they elbow too close to the spine. Sorry for laughing at your potential spinal injury Jas. hehe

We also checked out Shanghai Tang, a brand touted as Asia's first superbrand. Very expensive stuff and good quality but for A$500-600 per scarf I think Burberry or some of the other brands are better buys. Probably cause its not recognised yet. I did like the chinese collar on their business shirts though, but not sure how you would wear a tie with it.

Then on our last day we woke up at 4am to take a very scary 1hr taxi ride to the airport for a flight to HK where we spent a day doing laundry, getting a long overdue haircut, eating claypot rice, and catching up with friends (sorry again A and J for missing you guys).


The museum...no we didn't go


Older part of Shanghai near the gardens...quite touristy but then we're tourists!


Ever wonder what Starbucks in Ancient China looked like?!


Passage way into the Yu gardens (and one very stunned local)


Gateway to the Yu Garden


Touristy part outside the entrance to the garden where all the over-priced bad food and tacky souvenir shops are


Inside the actual gardens...would be quite tranquil i'ld imagine without the tourists


Shanghai financial district...the red, yellow and blue building in the front is the new Superbrand mall, claimed to be the largest in asian...we checked it out and its pretty big but only partly occupied at the moment


The very busy Nanjing Road at night...pretty much just one long, mainly pedestrian street mall

London - All things duck...

So after stuffing our faces with gelato in Cinque Terre we made our way to London and then dropped off our bags before heading out for some real food. Food in Cinque Terre wasn`t quite agreeable to the refined palates of the PJWT explorers.

We stayed in a hotel near Paddington station (or more precisely near Bayswater station) and there was a fantastic variety of food. Ranging from persian, chinese, malaysia, etc. (and even very tasty gourmet burgers). But our favourite place by far was this really busy chinese restaurant called Four Seasons (self proclaimed roast duck specialists) which was one of four restaurants in London and was packed out lunch and dinner. On the suggestion of J`s dad we tried roast duck at this place on our first night (because duck in london was meant to be a lot different to the duck in australia) and it was fantastic. Nice and juicy (probably from all the extra fat in the duck), it was without doubt the best roast duck i`ve ever had. Sure it probably added a few points to the cholesterol level but it was worth it! =)

But wait there`s more!!...the following night we went to Fat Duck...voted in the top 3 restaurants in the world...and a place we booked two months in advance for! As explained in one of the earlier posts, its famous for doing really interesting dishes like sardine on toast sorbet and bacon and egg ice cream. After getting lost trying to find it (its about an hour out of London by train and then a taxi ride) we spent three and a half hours going through the tasting menu. It was pretty fantastic. I`ld actually liken it to Cirque de Soleil for your palate. The make it a real show of it with interesting twists and ways of serving. For example, they `cooked` two of the `ice cream` dishes with liquid nitrogen at your table. It really was a great showcase of why certain ingredients go together...the whole tasting menu plays on what you expect food to taste, feel, and look like. The best example of this was the sardine on toast sorbet served side by side with a small slice of fish. Both tasted remarkably similar but the texture of both were completely different.

The rest of the London trip was spent catching up with a few friends and doing the tourist thing. Taking in the London eye, Big Ben, London tower, Buckingham Palace, etc. Weather-wise it wasn`t too bad in terms of temperature and the rain came down in short bursts of 30 minutes every now and again. We probably got lucky i`ld imagine. One thing that did surprise us was how early the subway closes (midnight), which placed a bit of a strain on the taxis (impossible on a weekend) and buses. Though catching the bus at night did give a few more randoms the chance to talk to Jas....it all evens out in the end...Hobos in San Fran for me...random dudes for Jas. =)


Da Queen`s crib


Just hanging out...=)


The birds certainly are well-fed here...and most delicious!


Cathedral near Big Ben


Big Ben himself


London Eye


View from inside the London Eye


London Tower


London tower bridge

Cinque Terre - Gelato capital of the world

From New Yawk we made our way to Cinque Terre, a little place in the north of Italy famous for its postcard-esque look. This required us to take a flight from New York to Madrid (without inflight entertainment so quite a boring flight), flight from Madrid to Pisa, and then a one hour train from Pisa to the first of the five towns (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, Monterosso al Mare) of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore.

We were pretty stuff from the travelling so we took it very slowly on the first day in Cinque Terre and walked the 18 km trail along the coast to the last town of Monterosso (stopping off for gelato at each town of course! =P). Its hard to describe Cinque Terre as anything but beautiful and even then that doesn`t quite do it justice. So i`ll just refer you to pictures (once i can put them up).

p.s. we also checked out the leaning tower of Pisa and yes we did take the corny shots of us pushing over the tower with one finger! =)


First shot from the train station at Riomaggiore


Postcard from Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore)


Another postcard...


View from our room


Start of the trail from Riomaggiore to Monterosso...very easy to the second village...second village to Vernazza was probably the longest segment and a lot of the people who we started with quit at this stage and opted for the train ride to the last town instead...but not your hardy PJWT explorers! =)


Vernazza..the town before Monterosso..or otherwise know as "the town with the tower"


The leaning tower of Pisa


Some of the other buildings in the same square as the tower...all quite straight unfortunately =)

New Yawk City

After a most eye-opening trip to Las Vegas we flew to New York via Miami, getting in around 7 at night and taking a shuttle bus to the hotel we were staying at. The driver of this particular shuttle bus could have given Schumacher a run for his money and seemed to model her driving on that of the woman from the movie Taxi.

New York wasn't what we expected, while it was a pretty impressive city and the people were a lot friendly than we were lead to believe, it was a little over-rated. I'ld liken it to the hype i'ld heard about Jurassic Park being a great movie and coming out of the cinema disappointed. New York has been the set for countless movies and tv shows so the culture, people and places are pretty much ingrained in our minds. Its probably because of that we thought that New York would be larger than life.

It was still pretty cool to see the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the Empire State building, the Wall Street bull, site of the World Trade Centre and funnily enough Gray's Papaya, a little hotdog shop made famous by that movie with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek that I can't quite recall the name of.


Times Square...neon lights galore


Empire State building


View from the top of the Empire State building


Wall Street..."Greed is good!"


The famous Wall Street bull...very tempted to ride the bull but restrained myself (just)


Site of the World Trade Centre


Grand Central Terminal


Inside Grand Central Terminal


UN building


Where they film "The Apprentice" i think...."Money money moneeeeee!"


Inside Central Park


What New Yawk City is famous for...skyscrapers!

Las Vegas and the PJWT gambling gods

In case you haven't been checking some of the older posts, i've updated some of them with pictures so you might want to have another look.

On the last night of the San Fran leg we had to drive our rented car from San Fran to San Jose (about 60 kms i think). Bit tiring after a big dinner but it was a pretty easy drive. The next morning we dropped of the car and hopped on the plane to Las Vegas, gambling capital of the world!

We stayed at a budget place at the end of the strip called Riviera and we noticed that it was where all the tacky topless strip and drag queen shows were held. That and it was a bit of a retirement village (a la cocoon 2) but it was clean and jumping on a bus (called the Deuce) to any of the other casinos was easy.

Las Vegas was truly amazing, the amount of neon lights at night was very impressive. Inside the casinos themselves, each one was unique, ranging from extremely classy (Wynn, Bellagio, Palms and Venetian) to the very tacky (Hooters and Luxor). Hooters was a major disappointment...decor was poor...and the signature characteristic that Hooters are supposedly famous for was lacking. =)

Highlights of the Las Vegas would be the helicopter ride over and into the Grand Canyon, winning US$330 each at Texas Hold-em (after dropping US$100 on the first night), seeing a couple of World Poker Tournament celebrities (Dan Negreanu and Scotty Nguyen), and seeing the very impressive (and very naked) Zumanity Circe de Soleil show. I'm just disappointed that we didn't see a single Elvis impersonator anywhere.


Our helicopter..


The Hoover Dam


Inside the helicopter cockpit (and the back of our pilot)


Our mess hall inside the Grand Canyon


The Strip


A most nutritous PJWT breakfast at Dennys


Piece of arrrr...t..outside our classy hotel..the Riviera =)


Mandalay Bay


Inside the MGM


New York New York...home of Zumanity


Inside Paris...check out the cool sky roof


Rio...home of the WPT...we just missed the final of the annual big World Poker tournament


Palms...home of the new Playboy club


Outside the Riviera at night