The day started off rather late as we were all exhausted from our partying the night before. We went to a little boutique restaurants in the French Concession called Azul for Sunday brunch. Since we did not have a reservation, we had to wait for about 10-15 minutes in hopes that someone will get the bill and get out of there. We were very lucky to be sitting in 15 minutes time in a very nicely decorated but crowded restaurant.
The crowd was mainly French but with some local and tourists mixed in. A brunch combo can either include 2 courses for $120 RMB or 3 courses for $150 RMB. There is a starter, a main and a dessert, plus a drink which can be either alcoholic (like sangrias, champagne mixtures, etc), a smoothie (very exotic combos like lime-mango, pineapple-coconuts, passionfruit-mango, mixed berries), or a freshly squeezed juice (watermelon, grapefruit, pineapple, etc), plus a tea or a coffee.
Most of us went for the 3 course meal and the table was filled with pancake starters (min's pancakes were super thick and yummy), baby spinach salad with feta and pine nuts (yummy) and my smoked salmon on top of a crepe thing. Then we were served our drinks - Ashley got a sangria, min a white sangria, Andrea got a passionfruit-mango smoothie and my pineapple-coconut smoothie turned into a pineapple juice which was ok as I was getting full by that time. We were also served scones, and very cute muffins. Then the main was served and Ashley's egg's benedict and Min's grilled monkfish came out first. They were great but Ashley's benedict was a bit overcooked. Then my open-faced omlette came with a very yummy hashbrown underneath it. Andrea's monkfish took forever to come, but it was still very good in the end. Our final course was the dessert and unfortunately by that time the passionfruit and citrus salad option was sold out. So instead we got the kahlua chocolate creme brulee which ended up awesome. Andrea got a flan and it was also very very yummy.
By the time we finished brunch, we all felt like going back home to nap again. But because of our ambitions and desire to do at least something touristy, we dragged ourselves over to sun zhong shans or sun yatshen's old residence in the fuxing park area. We dropped Ashley off to shop and then headed to the residence. Entrance cost was 20 RMB, and to rent a audio guide was 30 RMB. You had to pay a deposit of $200 RMB + passport to rent or $400 without a passport. The museum was very big and very cold but it was very thorough with different collections and display of things that documented his life. It ended with closing words written about him by his wife song qing ling, it was very nice. The third floor was a changing exhibit and the one that we ended up walking through quickly (as the place was closing) were a bunch of pictures about his life and the museum itself.
The whole visit ended up with a tour of his actual old house where you enter into the kitchen and have to put on plastic shoe socks. We then toured his dining area, living area and upstairs into his study room, bedroom etc. The place was lined with very nice wood and decorated very comfortably. Also he has drawers and shelves of books divided into the different dynasty and different time periods of chinese history. It was all very impressive.
Then we went home and took naps until dinner time and had dinner at a restaurant named Simply Thai. I quite enjoyed my meal especially the sesame seed sauce on the leaf wrapped chicken. We then headed over to the pudong area and went to the JinMao tower where the Grand Hyatt is located starting on the 54th floor. The bar, Cloud 9, was actually on the 87th floor, and the highest bar in the world in the tallest building in Shanghai as part of the tallest hotels in the world. We took the express elevator from the bottom of the building to floor 54 which is where the hotel Grand Hyatt starts. Then, we took another elevator up to floor 85 which leads to people's rooms and the jin mao conference rooms and Cloud 9 restaurant. A third elevator was required to get to the 87 floor as there's probably a choice to head out to the observation deck instead. The deck closed at 9pm and originally would have costed 50 RMB just to get up there anyways ( a cover thing like the Panorama in Toronto). Instead, we had a 120 RMB + 15 % minimum charge per person to cover. So we ordered expensive drinks (my tea cost 60 so i ordered long ching) and some desserts ( a dessert platter that looked better than it taste), some champagne, coffee and wine to cover the cost. The desserts were a bit disappointing but my tea was good. Nonetheless, the view of the huangpugong (although a lot of the lights are off, we found out later that they turn off at 11pm) was still breathtaking to a point that we wished we were lower.
class again tomoro... i think we're also heading to the circus.... should be quite fun
we are also checking out the fabric market.. i might not end up buying or making clothes here as i want to keep a bit more cash handy.. we'll see what happens
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