Call break: Trip to Shanghai
Turns out he was still at Bukit Merah! Later at 6:30, he claimed he was already at Fort Road. We give him instructions on how to find the condo, hoping that it'll speed things up. At 6:35, we call again, he doesn't pick up (!?!). Finally, at 6:40 - a full 20 mins late, he shows up saying that he got LOST (yes, even after we gave him directions!).
Ok, since I'm still on call break (yay!) I shall attempt to blog more while I'm still free so....
*Caution: Long post ahead*
= Day 1=
Our trip to Shanghai didn't have a good start, mainly because of our taxi driver who was very very late in picking us up. Being very kiasu/plan-ahead type of persons, G and I arranged for a cab to pick us up the night before (or rather at 1am in the morning on the day of our flight) to pick us at 6:20am. We had already checked in online so we had to be at the airport to check in our luggage at least 1 hour before our flight (8am). However, the stupid taxi driver was late! At 6:15am he called G to tell him that he'd be "a bit" late, but by 6:25 he was still not here.
G calling the taxi driver to find out where the heck he is.
HOW CAN A TAXI DRIVER BE LATE WHEN HE KNOWS WE HAVE A FLIGHT TO CATCH!!
Such bad service. So unprofessional. He apologised, and said he would speed to the airport and that it'll be very fast. He also said it was his first day at work and he wasn't too familiar with all the roads yet.
Hello. 1st of all, I'm not that inclined to believe him that it's his first day at work. Would the taxi company send someone on their first day at work to pick passengers who have flights to catch? I don't know. 2ndly, assuming they're that dumb to do so, still he had ALL MORNING to figure out where we lived. We booked at 1am, the pick up time was 6:20, that's a whole 6 hours later ok. And he KNEW he had to pick us up as we were already told his taxi cab number and he had our contact numbers! Does he not know how to read a map? Or follow directions?
Worse of all, in G's view, his driving was really bad. Like unsafe kind of bad. The never-turn-corners-correctly, change-gears-wrongly and weaving-in-the-lane-unsteadily type of bad driving. AND he was slow too.
He's lucky we're such nice people that we didn't give him too hard a time. It took all of G's patience not to scold him for driving badly. (G is very anal about bad driving. NOT a good person to have in your car haha *stress*)
Anyway, unluckily, we're such plan-ahead type of persons (ok, maybe it's just me) that we had already checked in online and chosen our seats (when we bought the tickets) so we had little problems at the airport. By the time we reached, there was absolutely no queue at the "internet check-in" booth so it was all very quick. With the new-ish scanning customs, we were in the boarding area in less than 10 mins. We even had time to have breakfast and check out the movie theatre. (YES! Changi has a movie theatrette inside! Machum like a whole mall inside already. Quite impressive. Best of all, it's FREE - i think la. Didn't go inside)
We even had time to check out the sunflower garden and take photos. Pretty, right?
The flight itself was quite enjoyable. There was even a mini drama involving a French man (seated next to me) and a flight stewardess involving food. *haha* Won't go into too much about that, but the gist of it is that the man made a mistake and scolded the stewardess for nothing, only to have G and I point out his mistake to him, making him very paiseh and have to apologise to the stewardess. *haha*.
The second hick up in our trip (which we kinda already expected) was that when we arrived at Shanghai, we couldn't find S. *haha*. The Shanghai arrival area is super chaotic la! Imagine tonnes of China people crowding around the gate waving signs and all passengers from all flights exiting through the SAME gate. It was madness. And S was no where to be found.
Call his SG hp, it was off. Forgot his China hp number. Don't know his exact address. Don't know OUR hotel's exact address. (This is what happens when you let other people handle all your affairs and when your computer cannot read chinese characters such that the email containing all the vital information about where he lives comes out as ???? 89? 3? 704? and where you are to live comes out as Motel 168 which is along ???.)
Die la. What to do? We just had to wait and wait and wait outside the gate, amidst the chaos, praying that Shawn will find us.
About 30 mins later, we spot him! YAY! SAVED FROM THIS MADNESS THANK GOD.
After a long taxi ride and checking into our motel, we went to visit S's apartment, a mere 5 min walk from our motel *shiok*. Not bad la. It's quite a nice place! 
Having fun in S's room
After that we head off to the Tailoring Market to make suits and then go for dinner at a nice Shanghai family-run restaurant. Very yummy food! I especially loved the "Ji Gu Jiang" (some chicken dish) and the "Ba Si Poh Luo" dessert. No photos because we were too hungry and busy eating to take any. *haha*
After that, we took a walk around the very haps Xing Tian Di area and found ourselves at Paulaners with a beer in each hand. How did that happen??
The beer was not cheap (65 yuan/S$13 a pint) but the ambiance was good and drinking al fresco in cool weather was really shiok! No worries about the beer getting warm!
After that, we went back to bed. Too exhausted to do much else.
Ok, that's the end for the post on Day 1.
Coming soon: Day 2 (and 3 and 4 and 5.. hopefully we'll make it to Day 10)
bernice @ Friday, May 25, 2007 | Leave Comments in Tagboard!
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Call break: Trip to Shanghai
Turns out he was still at Bukit Merah! Later at 6:30, he claimed he was already at Fort Road. We give him instructions on how to find the condo, hoping that it'll speed things up. At 6:35, we call again, he doesn't pick up (!?!). Finally, at 6:40 - a full 20 mins late, he shows up saying that he got LOST (yes, even after we gave him directions!).
Ok, since I'm still on call break (yay!) I shall attempt to blog more while I'm still free so....
*Caution: Long post ahead*
= Day 1=
Our trip to Shanghai didn't have a good start, mainly because of our taxi driver who was very very late in picking us up. Being very kiasu/plan-ahead type of persons, G and I arranged for a cab to pick us up the night before (or rather at 1am in the morning on the day of our flight) to pick us at 6:20am. We had already checked in online so we had to be at the airport to check in our luggage at least 1 hour before our flight (8am). However, the stupid taxi driver was late! At 6:15am he called G to tell him that he'd be "a bit" late, but by 6:25 he was still not here.G calling the taxi driver to find out where the heck he is.
HOW CAN A TAXI DRIVER BE LATE WHEN HE KNOWS WE HAVE A FLIGHT TO CATCH!!
Such bad service. So unprofessional. He apologised, and said he would speed to the airport and that it'll be very fast. He also said it was his first day at work and he wasn't too familiar with all the roads yet.
Hello. 1st of all, I'm not that inclined to believe him that it's his first day at work. Would the taxi company send someone on their first day at work to pick passengers who have flights to catch? I don't know. 2ndly, assuming they're that dumb to do so, still he had ALL MORNING to figure out where we lived. We booked at 1am, the pick up time was 6:20, that's a whole 6 hours later ok. And he KNEW he had to pick us up as we were already told his taxi cab number and he had our contact numbers! Does he not know how to read a map? Or follow directions?
Worse of all, in G's view, his driving was really bad. Like unsafe kind of bad. The never-turn-corners-correctly, change-gears-wrongly and weaving-in-the-lane-unsteadily type of bad driving. AND he was slow too.
He's lucky we're such nice people that we didn't give him too hard a time. It took all of G's patience not to scold him for driving badly. (G is very anal about bad driving. NOT a good person to have in your car haha *stress*)
Anyway, unluckily, we're such plan-ahead type of persons (ok, maybe it's just me) that we had already checked in online and chosen our seats (when we bought the tickets) so we had little problems at the airport. By the time we reached, there was absolutely no queue at the "internet check-in" booth so it was all very quick. With the new-ish scanning customs, we were in the boarding area in less than 10 mins. We even had time to have breakfast and check out the movie theatre. (YES! Changi has a movie theatrette inside! Machum like a whole mall inside already. Quite impressive. Best of all, it's FREE - i think la. Didn't go inside)We even had time to check out the sunflower garden and take photos. Pretty, right?
The flight itself was quite enjoyable. There was even a mini drama involving a French man (seated next to me) and a flight stewardess involving food. *haha* Won't go into too much about that, but the gist of it is that the man made a mistake and scolded the stewardess for nothing, only to have G and I point out his mistake to him, making him very paiseh and have to apologise to the stewardess. *haha*.
The second hick up in our trip (which we kinda already expected) was that when we arrived at Shanghai, we couldn't find S. *haha*. The Shanghai arrival area is super chaotic la! Imagine tonnes of China people crowding around the gate waving signs and all passengers from all flights exiting through the SAME gate. It was madness. And S was no where to be found.
Call his SG hp, it was off. Forgot his China hp number. Don't know his exact address. Don't know OUR hotel's exact address. (This is what happens when you let other people handle all your affairs and when your computer cannot read chinese characters such that the email containing all the vital information about where he lives comes out as ???? 89? 3? 704? and where you are to live comes out as Motel 168 which is along ???.)
Die la. What to do? We just had to wait and wait and wait outside the gate, amidst the chaos, praying that Shawn will find us.
About 30 mins later, we spot him! YAY! SAVED FROM THIS MADNESS THANK GOD.
After a long taxi ride and checking into our motel, we went to visit S's apartment, a mere 5 min walk from our motel *shiok*. Not bad la. It's quite a nice place! Having fun in S's room
After that we head off to the Tailoring Market to make suits and then go for dinner at a nice Shanghai family-run restaurant. Very yummy food! I especially loved the "Ji Gu Jiang" (some chicken dish) and the "Ba Si Poh Luo" dessert. No photos because we were too hungry and busy eating to take any. *haha*
After that, we took a walk around the very haps Xing Tian Di area and found ourselves at Paulaners with a beer in each hand. How did that happen??
The beer was not cheap (65 yuan/S$13 a pint) but the ambiance was good and drinking al fresco in cool weather was really shiok! No worries about the beer getting warm!
After that, we went back to bed. Too exhausted to do much else.
Ok, that's the end for the post on Day 1.
Coming soon: Day 2 (and 3 and 4 and 5.. hopefully we'll make it to Day 10)
bernice @ Friday, May 25, 2007 | Leave Comments in Tagboard!
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