Top 5 Cities To Travel In South East Region Of China

We took MAS B777 from KLIA to Shanghai’s Pu Dong International Airport. The wobbling journey took us 5 hours from 9:40am to 2:40pm to reach Shanghai. Since Malaysia and China are within the same time zone, we didn’t experience any time lag when we reached Shanghai. We had a complimentary refreshment of omelette set lunch on board (which is the advantage of MAS over Airasia in the same budget range) and a power nap thenafter, so we were all reasonably refreshed when stepping out of the Boeing’s and took the first breath of cool air in Shanghai. The temperature there was reported as 19°C which was cool.

Being the nature of vacation package in a group, we spent some extra time in baggage claim, group calling, meeting up the local tour guide, instead of exploring more of the airport, checking the bus service and people seeing. Once everything was in order, after knowing our local tour guide was a HangZhou lady called Ah Mei who was going to lead us for the rest of the trip, we were brought to our dedicated excursion bus and headed to the city centre of Shanghai.

Alright. There was a short story of our safe arrival in Shanghai. Before we reached the city centre in another one and a half hour, Ah Mei briefly explained to us what or where we were going to see and visit in the next 8 days and 7 nights at 5 important cities in the south east region of China and I jotted down these itineraries here:

1. Shanghai - Visit to ChengHuangMiao shopping district, the central feature of a large retail and entertainment district; Try the local  snacks there as ChengHuangMiao is really well called ‘the kingdom of snacks’; visit the Oriental Pearl TV tower, the tallest communication tower in Asia and third tallest in the world; Night cruise along HuangPuJiang river, admiring both the east and west side of the river; Visiting the Bund, the historical street of Shanghai; Also is the Nanjing Street, the shopping paradise, and Xing Tian Di, the Shanghai’s version of our Bangsar; Lastly is Tung Ren Tang, the chinese pharmacy;
   
2. HangZhou - Visit the Long Bridge garden and Orioles Singing in the Willow; To view ten scenes of the West Lake of Hangzhou, including the Broken Bridge, Su Causeway; In the evening, enjoy the show “Night of Hangzhou”; Joining the boat ride on West Lake, admiring the scenery of Leifeng Pagoda; Also to visit the West Lake museum and Xi Tian Di, another well known street for bars and cafes; For chinese tea lovers, Dragon Well tea farm must not be missed; Lastly, WanSong Academy is well known for its students, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the folk legend of love story;
   
3. Suzhou - Visit Wuzhen, a 1300 year old waterside town, the eastern Venice of China, before arriving at Suzhou; Visit the Lion Forest Garden, or the kingdom of rockeries with labyrinthine man-made limestone mountains with winding pathways and caverns as well as pavilions, terraces and tower; Jinji lake photo taking session; Hanshan Temple, the famous local temple; Visit the world’s renown silk factory, experience the process of getting the silk from the silkworm; At night, GuanQian Street is the famous shopping streets with lots of local snacks and cheap shoes and boots;
   
4. Nanjing - The significant historical city of China; Visit the Yangzte river bridge, the first bridge built across the Yangtze river or ChangJiang of China; Shopping at FuZhi Temple street, buy more and more stuffs for your trip; Drop by the Song Mei Ling Residence, admiring how she and her husband, Mr. Jiang Jie Shi, the President of the Republic of china, enjoyed their life here; DongShuiGuan is an important heritage as the city wall of the ancient Ming dynasty; Lastly, visit the jade factory, and
   
5. Wuxi - the famous city of Yixing clay teapot origin; admiring the beautiful scenery of LingShan giatn buddha. With Lingshan mountain at its backdrop, the 88m high bronze statue is the highest standing buddha statue outdoor and is one of the largest buddha statue in China; Enjoy a special fountain show called JiuLongGuanYu, experiencing the birth of buddha; Transfer to Li Lake for photo taking session; Visit pearl factory and shopping at Parkson at night.
   

 It’s hard to believe that all these itineraries could be covered within 8 days but we surely had. That was also why my Lumix worked really hard to snap over 2 thousands photos, trying to capture every single scene of the trip. I’m going to start blogging on all these tourist attractions that we have been to in coming posts. Subscribe to enjoy free updates on RSS feeds. - Travel Feeder.

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  Before we departed for our journey to Shanghai, I was kind of uneasy with the itineraries of this trip, wondering how we could visit so many tourist spots and cities in only 8 days. This was my first experience of travel by all-inclusive vacation package. Before this, I used to self-travel or travel by ‘Free and Easy‘ package where we could plan ourselves those tourist spots we are going to visit, the food we are going to eat, the place we are going to stay, the retails we are going to shop, and even whatever sweet time we are going to spend or relax. Not for this trip. I was going to experience a totally different perspective of travel.

I called it All-inclusive vacation package because once you signed up, the travel agency will plan everything for you, even when and where you are going to shop and buy souvenirs from! No doubt, having a full time local tour guide to lead you from one place to another, introduce you the place you are going to see means that zero time you are going to waste on searching for transport, places and every other things. On the other hand, however, we lost some real fun of travel with those same reasons as well, sometimes.

In terms of budget, group travelling has surely got a better deals in dining, accomodation and transport. For a total package cost of RM2,350.00 per person, we might not be able to get as high star-rated hotel, or the same quality of food and restaurant, if we were travelling by ourselves. On the other hand, we would not be able to experience what the local people are doing, eating and the flee market that they are going and shopping, if we were travelling by all-inclusive package. 

However, with no argument, all-inclusive packge is the better option when we travel with old folks (Yes. I travelled to Shanghai with my mother-in-law). We couldn’t expect our parents to walk from one street to another to search for the best budget hotel! Also, her stomach would not be feeling good if we were to try out all those local foods from the roadside stalls! And I’m too lazy also to explain and introduce to her those history of where we are visiting to….

After all, my verdict for this trip is: NOT TOO BAD. At least, I drove my Lumix real hard. My digital photo album size has now become larger with an additional of 2000 photos, taken from 6 significant cities and towns in South-East China (my available hardrive space of my laptop has also become smaller though ). Also, my body gained weight significantly after this trip as full course Chinese local menu are being served in every morning, afternoon and evening! (also those junk local foods as our supper )

This is my short introduction of our 8D7N all-inclusive packaged travel to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuzhen, Nanjing and Wuxi. Stay tuned for more! - Travel Feeder.

‘Budget travel? Do I need that?’ Perhaps it’s just for me who has limited budget and time but been dreaming for travelling more. ‘What is budget travel?’ It’s as simple as a Travel with budget constraint as opposed to luxury travel. There are always 2 option of travel, either luxury or budget, and both have their pros and cons (not right or wrong). ‘What is the essence of budget travel?’ It’s a bit tricky here. For a good quality budget travel, it is not as simple as save money on your travel. The true essence of budget travel is to limit your budget on extravagance and spend sparingly but sufficiently on exploration of the local living and culture.

Clear? Let’s start our top 5 steps to plan for your budget travel as follows:

1. Travel Destination - Firstly, you have to decide where you wish to travel most at this moment, somewhere you have been dreaming about all this while. At this stage, a rough budget is extimated. Surely said that you can’t choose a country or destination where you can’t even afford the air ticket or transportation cost! Thanks to the upcoming and popular budget airlines nowadays that travelling to lots of places in the world are no longer a dream only!;
2. Set Your Budget - Set your exact affordble budget. Don’t stretch your credit card limit until couln’t pay back! Set budget for transport, travel expenses and some extra for your beer or coffee! Then you have to choose your option of travel: Luxury or Budget. If you decided on luxury travel, then add Travel Feeder to your RSS Feed reader for coming updated tips on luxury travel!
3. Go online! - Book your air tickets online! The benefits are certainly the cost. Online booking is usually cheaper than drop-in as you are paying them in advance and which is normally NOT refundable! Visit one of your local budget airline websites to look for cheapest flights and time available. Malysian Air Asia for instance, air ticket price depends on the date and time of flights. The more advance you book, the more saving you could get! Some of the famous low cost Airlines are JetStar Australia, Tiger Airway Singapore, EasyJet England, Virgin America, Spanair Spain (Oops!) and Nok Air Bangkok (Oops Oops!!);
4. Go online Too! - Book also your budget hostel online too, if possible. It will easily cut off half of your accomodation cost if you search around for the best deal and book in advance (off course after your flight booking confirmation). Hostel World is one good example of online hostel search engine which searches over 17,000 hostels in 168 countries! You just key in your destination and date in the form on top of sidebar and they will search for you NOW! Some might prefer to book the first few nights online and search and book the rest only when they reach there. This is good practice when you are planning to have some feeder trips from your original destination. Then off course, adjust your budget a little bit, and
5. Finally, wait until tha date comes! - If you have time constraints or you are still under employment, apply leave in advance! Then read my previous posts on the Top 5 Things To Do Before Your Travel!

If you have observed it well, budget travel is all about planning your trip well in advance! Travel Tips: Last minute travel is always your last option of vacation travel. If you like this post, you may like to subscribe FREE to Travel Feeder’s RSS Feed. - Travel Feeder.

I was shocked when listening to radio this morning that an air plane in Madrid crashed and broke up in flames after failing to take off from Madrid airport which killed 153 people and 19 injured. It was Spanair jet plane MD-82 which is the second largest airline and the largest budget airline in Spain.

According to the Spanish Transport Minister Magdalena Alvarez, the flight JK 5022 was to take 162 passengers including two babies and 20 other children from Madrid to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. It was Spain’s worst plane disaster since a Boeing 747 belonging to Colombian airline crashed in Madrid in 1983 killing 180 and the worst in Europe since a Russian Tupolev crashed in Ukraine in 2006 killing 170.

The tragedy has enlightened me on the safety of air travel which was once considered as the safest public transport in this world. Unfortunately, with the ever rising petrol prices and tougher and tougher competitions among airline, budget airline companies have been striving to survive nowadays. Because of that, I’m just wondering whether they have also compromised the safety standard of their aircrafts and if that is the case, they are jeopardising our lives!

Is it still wise to fly with those budget airlines just for meeting our travel  budget? Or should we re-proportionate our travel budget to accomodate those reputable airlines? Should AirAsia’s slogan “Everyone can fly” be changed to “Anyone wants to fly?” Well, let’s give our silent condolences to all the victims while thinking of the answer…. - Travel Feeder