Day 7 - Shanghai
We visited Fudan university and baosteel factory. At fudan university ,we attended a economic lecture by one of the professor there, the lecture was in english with regard to shanghai 's economic.
Fudan university
bicycle 's culture ;P
At night, it was our last shopping in shanghai @ nanjing road
Day 8 : Shanghai - SIngapore
We visited a bookshop in shanghai which was 6 levels high. The majority of the books sold there was in mandarin but the books were very cheap, compared to the price sold in Singapore. I mananged to get 3 books , 2 of which is by 'ji mi' one of my favourite literature author. The books cost around less than $10 over in shanghai, but in singaproe, one book can cost up till $20++= or $30 +++ .
HEaded for lunch and pudong airport. We took the 4.30pm flight and arrived in Singapore at around 9.50 pm plus.
Well, this trip was a good learning experience for me to see how fast china is changing,especially shanghai ( the financial hub of china) . I will miss the cold weather as well as all the fun that I had with SRGCE SHANGHAI people. The 6 months worth of effort and preparation was worth it.
Day 6 - shanghai
Visit to shanghai museum and back to hotel for Internal presentation ;) And before i forget , on one of the days, we visited Shanghai urban planning centre too.
Shanghai museum ( 5 levels )
Shanghai urban planning centre
DAy 5 ( suzhou - shanghai)
SRGCE shanghai group is officially out of Suzhou and back in Shanghai . In the morning, we went to Zhou Zhuang and visited two wealthy men s' house built years ago.
Zhou Zhuang was known as the 'western venice'. Houses were situated on opposite sites of a river. The scenary and the weather was great :) I learned a lot from what the guide of the day told us. Every single items in the house had a meaning to it. For example, the young mistress of the house cannot lean back against the chair and there is a hole through the chair. This means that the young mistress is not married and do not have a '靠山'. Whereas for the mistress of the house, she can lean against her chair and there is no hole through the chair. This indicates she is married and have found her '靠山' already.
Then there was this stone which could be used to forecast the weather. If you touch the stone, and feel it's a bit wet, it means today will rain. We touch the stone, and indeed it was a bit wet. At the same time, it was drizzling.
After viewing the house, we started our shopping. I must say we are good at bargining ;) Teachers included ;)
Thanks to the purchase of a scroll by some of us, we were delayed by 1 hr + and the tour guide and the bus driver was a bit piss off. Sorry about that, but on the scoll there was a poem writen based on one's name. Therefore the writer must think before crafting out the poem based on the name.
We got back on the bus and return to shanghai for lunch, before proceeding to the shanghai world financial centre (which was finished building in dec 2008) and the pearl tower ( most significant building in Shanghai). Next up was dinner on a boat. SOme people got giddy as the boat was slanted to the side. We were almost late in catching the cruise along huangpu river. The ride was great as we get to see the night view of shanghai ( pudong and puxi). There were a lot of photo taking as well ! Except for the fact that towards the end of the ride, it was raining and the weather was super cold with the wind blowing onto you.
Shanghai world financial centre
Waiting for the life and inside the lift...
Pearl tower
quening up to take the lift up the pearl tower...
Cruise along huangpu river
Day 3
We visited Asia pAcific Breweries where we shown the ingredients of making beer , the machines as well as those above 18 years did have taste of beer.
There was a presentation by one of the Singaporean working there. I have learned that the beer industry is actually considered Perfect Competition. SIngapore's beer industry consists of mainly Calsberg and Heninekeen outdoing each other. I have also gained more knowledge of the beer industry in China and learned that although China 's demand for beer is increasing over the years, the profits made is still lower compared to european countries. The reason being the Chinese s' aim to keep the price of beer low. So it doesn't mean that as the consumption of a good increased , the profits will increase too.
Next up was Parkway Glegeagles Health centre, after lunch at Mcdonald. We learned more about the private healthcare service in China and how it caters to mostly expats. They even have an operation centre as well as wards for patients to stay in after their operation. The Q & A part was fun and it provides us with greater knowledge of the private healthcare industry in china. All the questions for internal presentation popped out as each speaker started to post their respective questions to our guide of the day. She used to be a dentist but switch to being an adminstrative manager.
The day ended with dinner with businessmen from Singapore working in Shanghai. Our group met up with a lady who was working for DBS in Shanghai and she filled us with her own encounters and experience living in Shanghai. Almost all the Singaporeans we met told us that if one do not go after a luxurious life , it is actually considered quite cheap to live in shanghai. After which our group went over to Team content 's table and had a chat with a Projects Manager working in Singapore-Shanghai international school. He turned out to be quite humormous and filled us with details of his own life experience. He is currently studying for a degree ( when we met him) and now he had gotten his degree.
I was thankful to our teachers for arranging for us to meet up Singaporeans working or studying in Shanghai. It feels good to see fellow Singaporeans in a foregin country. They told us that indeed they miss home, especially the local food such as 'Chay guay tiao', chicken rice and hokieen mee. They told us that if given a chance or opportunity, one should grab that chance given to go overseas to experience a different lifestyle and culture.