TI之旅圆满结束。
First solo trip. First time to China.
A quick recap here – I might consider to write an entry in my travel blog. We’ll see.
Day 1
Flew into Shanghai. 浩宇 “Stay”, who specifically flew in to Shanghai from Xi’An just to meet me, came over to Pudong airport to 接机… It was nice to meet him in person, after chatting online for so long. There’s no awkwardness – he’s as 健谈 as he was online, which is good because I’m not that great at chit chatting lol.
We first went over to his hotel where I passed him the souvenirs I got for him, and he passed me the Lumix camera I bought, as well as the gifts that he and the other girls prepared for me. I dumped them into my luggage, and off we went from his hotel to my hotel, where I checked in, got my luggage up to my room, got the camera out of the box and chuck it into my day bag and went down to the lobby where Stay was waiting and headed to Taikoo Li Qiantan, a huge mall which is pretty near my hotel.
We discussed rather long when deciding on dinner, and in the end he brought me to a vegetarian restaurant, which looked upscale but the price was extremely reasonable (when converting the bill to SGD, that is). Food is really good – nothing “Shanghai-sh” but just real good food.
He took some photos with my Lumix and was pleasantly surprised by how good it is, and also taught me how to use manual settings to bring different “feel” to the photos.
Day 2
We went to 百联ZX创趣场 and strolled for the whole 6 storeys – going into almost each and every of the anime merchandise store. I almost bought a Frieren blind box, but stopped myself at the end lol. He then took me to an old reputable Shanghai restaurant for 蟹黄汤包… and everything 蟹黄-related. It’s quite nice! And their 生煎包 was good too! It was the first time I tried 生煎包, now kinda regret why I hadn’t try it previously lol.
We then headed to one of the art galleries for the glass exhibition, where he again taught me on using my camera. I experimented quite a bit, but unfortunately still couldn’t be proficient at shooting nice pics LOL. We then went over to The Bund and strolled a little, before taking the ferry to go across the river and headed for 云朵书院, which needed reservation in advance to go up, and it was just unfortunate that my timing clashed with their summer holidays, and there’s just HORDES of families queueing to buy the cheapest drink at the shop’s cafe to get a chance to get into the cafe where one can take photos of the Shanghai Bund view. We gave up on it, and just looked around the bookstore for a while before heading back down, where we got lunch at their Food Republic food court, and got ourselves iced (milk) tea from Chagee before taking the ferry back, just in time for nighttime skyline over at The Bund.
We both started using our cameras to take the dusk view of Shanghai skyline, with Stay again guiding me on how to manipulate the manual settings on my camera to achieve better effects. It was then the Bund started to be quite crowded, and the second hand smoke started to become more frequent. It didn’t help that it was uncomfortably warm and sweaty, and I found my body temperature to be quite high and it didn’t feel like it’s gonna drop soon. I felt something was amiss and looked at my watch – my heart rate is at 140bps, even though we were just casually strolling. And it was already evening – the sky had turned dark. Never did I thought that I would suffer from mild heatstroke at night, but Stay and I decided that it was heatstroke after all. My cheeks were unusually red and my body temperature just wouldn’t drop, as with my heart rate. We called for a cab instead of trying to take the metro back (the metro station was jam packed with people too) while I desperately drank more water. Thankfully he did managed to get one on his first try, and my heart rate and body temperature dropped after 20 minutes sitting in the extremely cooling cab. It was a pretty scary ordeal, but I’m glad it didn’t become worse at the end of the day and all ended well.
Day 3
Stay checked out of his hotel and we first went over to the Oriental Sports Stadium (where TI is being held) to take photo of the stadium, which already has a QOP statue there. The small “ponds” in front of the stadium was filled with in-game runes too – very nice! We then went over again to Taikoo Li for a quick lunch at Shake Shack, then we went searching for Crystal Maiden’s and Drow Ranger’s statue and took some pictures. Stay then brought me over to a famous 网红打卡点 at 武康街… ummmmm OK, I took some photos and yeah, we strolled along the street and taking photos while chatting away. Then we figured the heat and crowd was enough, so we headed back to Taikoo Li and sat at Kurasu (yes there’s one there!), drinking coffee and matcha until it’s about time for him to leave. He then headed back to his hotel to grab his luggage to take the high speed rail to Changsha to meet his other friend, while I headed back to hotel to rest for a bit, before heading back to the stadium to take photos of the venue at night when the lighting is up. So nice! But then I missed out visiting Tsutaya bookstore though… oh well.
Day 4 – 7
TI all the way! Literally. I only left the venue when I had to go for meals. And for the first 3 days I didn’t stay all the way to the end – my energy really couldn’t keep up with it and I need my sleep lol. But this TI was organized really, really well. Every attendee gets a goodie bag everyday, with random items in the bag (much like a blind box); ticketed entry tied to government IDs are very well carried out; stage decoration was awesome; surround sound throughout the stadium (so immersive!!); decent kiosk food with decent price (at least from my POV); allows any kind of beverage to be brought in (as long as it’s not in mineral water bottles – I can even bring in Manner coffee!); light stick given everyday (I only bring home two)… there’s really no complaints at all at this TI.
Day 8
Booked an airport transfer via Trip.com and reached the airport comfortably. I have to say… it’s really quite cheap to arrange for airport transfer in China. Although I’m sure booking via Didi myself would be a lot more cheaper, but I’m perfectly fine with the fees that Trip charged, so all’s good. Got through the customs in a breeze, didn’t queue that long to go through the security checks. Shanghai Pudong airport managed these queues quite well. Had a decent lunch at one of the eateries in transit area, bought some Shanghai snacks from the souvenir shops, and … yup the flight went smoothly and landed back in Singapore safely at around 8+pm.
Overall, TI was great, meeting Stay was nice, Shanghai’s weather was terrible, Manner coffee was oh-so-delectable.
Not sure if I’d update my travel journal (I’m so lazy now), but well, in any case if I didn’t, at least I’ve wrote something here. :D