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.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

  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.

Finally. After 8 activities-packed days in Shanghai….. I’m BACK!!! To be exact, it was not Shanghai trip but a round-up trip covering Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuzhen, Nanjing, Suzhou, and Wuxi…. all in 8 days! It is normal when we book a vacation package to China that seldom travel agencies would organise trip to only 1 single traval destination or city of China. Instead, few cities in the same region of China would normally be covered in a single package unless it is a ‘Free and Easy’ package where only flight ticket and accomodations are included. For example, if someone wishes to visit Suzhou by all-inclusive package, he would need to book a vacation package that covering few cities in the South east region of China, like the one I booked and just got back from. There isn’t any or very few vacation packages that let you spend 8 days in Suzhou alone.

From Shanghai Trip

Since this is my first travel to Shanghai and even China (and heard well enough bad experiences of security threats and con incidence), I found it alright and made more sense to join this kind of all-inclusive travel package. However, after got back from Shanghai, I realised 8 days are basically nothing if you want to explore most of the travel sites of these cities and I would say only 30% of them are covered in my trip. Moreover, social securities are found to be much better than expectation due to the continuing effort of China government to revive its image.

From Shanghai Trip

These are the two photos of China and Shanghai’s trademark: The Bund of Shanghai and bicycles. In this coming weeks, I will post more and more stories of my first travel to China and its biggest city, Shanghai. For these exciting travel experiences, you may prefer to subscribe to my RSS feed for free updates. See ya. - Travel Feeder.

Yes! I’m flying off to Shanghai an hour later for my 8D7N vacation travel! I’m so excited now. Though the itinerary of the package is very tight in schedule with 6 cities and towns to cover withing 8 days, it still like a dream comes true to me since I’m going to be able to actually see and feel the beautiful scenery of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and Wuzhen, LIFE! I have been admiring all these places for so long and all these while only images and videos from TV documentary are stored in my memory.

I have made sure my camera have enough battery power (I brought 2 lithium ion battery pack and a charger with socket adapter with me) and have sufficient storage space (I brought 2 SDHC memory cards with 4GB each) in order to capture the whole but the whole footage of this trip. (”Is this trip a vacation or a photography expedition?“)

My biggest concern is the weather in Shanghai during these 8 days. Hopefully there would be no rain or little rain on these days as what forecast suggests. Bright sun and clear sky are also preferred. Other than that I would also hope for some nice local foods that come with the vacation package.

So, wish me good luck and I shall be back in a week time. By then, I will start off an all new series of posts on my travel experiences in…. Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi, and Wuzhen, China. Cheers! - Travel Feeder.

Hurray! Finally! 1 day to go before my family and I going on board for our vacation travel to Shanghai! Though it will definitely be a rushing tour since we joined the destination-packed travel package, there is still something that I’m looking forward to: beautiful sceneries for my photo album! During this 8D7N tour, I would expect some huge proportions of time being spent on travelling, be it on bus or train, travelling from 1 destination to the other. I don’t really mind as long as there would have good weather and great scenes for shooting , instead, rains and overcast weather of autumn seems to be my bigger worry. Let’s hope for the best.

Only 24 hours away, what have I prepared so far? Other than those normal items in my packing list, I found that it is quite challenging to get prepared for a whole-week-long winter travel in a country that you haven’t been to before. Here are the top 5 challenges I am facing or have rather overcome before my winter travel to Shanghai:

1. The biggest challenge of mine in this final day is to pack sufficient (or necessary?) winter clothing for the trip - According to the weather forecast, Shanghai at this moment is having an average temperature of 8 to 15 degree C, which is cold for someone from a tropical country like me. Packing those thick winter clothing into our small cabin baggage seems to be our biggest challenge! Last night, we decided to check-in our baggage finally (though it’s not my preference after some bad experience with check-in baggage damage years ago). This will allow us to expand our travel bag to an additional space of 30% and that would be enough for all our staffs;
2. The second challenge during the preparation of this trip is things that need to bring along - Shanghai is not a commonwealth country so their power sockets are different from what we are having here in Malaysia. In order to plug in our chargers (handphone and camera), we need to bring along an adapter socket; Another item in our packing list is