Beijing-Shanghai Day 7: Jingan Joy City, Flight Home & My Reflections

For some strange reason I had woken up at dawn and managed to catch the sunrise!

Couldn't see the sunrise directly but you can see it's reflection on the buildings

Good morning from Pudong Shangri-la!

I went back to bed and woke up much later with the family and walked to Super Brand Mall for breakfast.

Dian Dou De Restaurant

The Hubby had brought the rest of the family to this restaurant for breakfast when the Eldest and I were at Disneyland and wanted the Eldest and I to try the food because they liked it.

We were one of the first customers

Various dim sum and noodles

Mango dessert, fried noodles and roast pigeon

Yummy red crispy rice rolls with shrimp, a must-try in Shanghai!

Super cute piggy bao and fried "chicken" crispy balls

Super cute avocado dessert

The food was generally better than what we had at Bao Yue Lou the day before (but also slightly more expensive if I had remembered correctly). 

After breakfast, the Littlest showed me what she and her brother did when the Eldest and I were at Disneyland.

Marvelous Fun Land

She had fed the rabbits and played with soft clay with her brother

The Lego shop

We headed back to our hotel to check out and left our luggage at concierge. We had some time before we needed to be at the airport so we met up with my dad for lunch and final shopping at Shanghai Jingan Joy City mall.

Dad came to pick us up!

Joy City

The Hubby chose Jing Nan Feng restaurant for our lunch.

Jiang Nan Feng, a restaurant specialising in Shanghainese food

The food looks so good!

Family photo

Drunken prawns, xiao long bao and plain noodles (for the picky Littlest of course)

I can't remember what vegetable this was but it was super yummy!

It's a must to eat paofan in Shanghai!

The very cute capybara (I think) and other food we tried

Complimentary gachapon for the kids!

After a sumptuous lunch, we explored the rest of the mall and did a lot of shopping!

Super long escalator

We found a lot of cute and interesting stuff at Loft

The mall was filled with toy shops! Kids had a blast!

Top Toy again because this Mummy wanted more blindboxes! 😅
I managed to get this super cute My Melody in pyjamas 😄

It soon came time for us to head back to Pudong (how fast time flies!) and we hailed a DiDi to IFC Mall.

IFC Mall

It's a pretty atas mall with many luxury brands

Final shopping at City'super, the supermarket in IFC Mall

There's always time for ice-cream!

We walked back to Super Brand Mall for the last time during this trip and had our dinner.

Final photos with the Shanghai Tower & Oriental Pearl Tower!

We had dinner at this Japanese restaurant at the first floor

The Boy's favourite food!

Vegetables and yakitori

After dinner, we returned to our hotel at 9pm and hailed 2 cars via DiDi to Pudong International Airport. The journey took about 50 minutes and cost approximately S$20 per car (super affordable). We arrived at the airport just before 10pm.

Pudong International Airport Terminal 2

Boarding our flight at 12 midnight

Awaiting departure

We were once again served our meals at 1am 😮‍💨😓

We were really tired but thankfully the flight was only 5 hours. We arrived at Singapore Airport Terminal 3 at around 5am.

It's good to be home! 🥰

My Reflections

We really love Beijing and Shanghai! The cities were modern, clean and efficient! We averaged 20,000 steps a day easily due to the sheer size of China! 😅

It was great that we speak the language and had no issues with communication. You'd need to know Mandarin to communicate as most of the locals cannot speak English. Consider using translation apps if you don't speak the language.

China's WiFi does not support non-China apps such as Google Play Store, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. You can only use these 'foreign' apps with your local roaming data. We realised on hindsight that we should have downloaded Chinese apps before the trip to save on data. Key apps to download: Alipay, WeChat (for chatting and payment), Weibo or Tiktok (for entertainment), Baidu (search engine) and Amap (for navigation).

It can be difficult trying to figure out Alipay and WeChat Pay for the first time as they were foreign to us. It took us awhile to understand the process but once we did, it was very seamless! Don't bother bringing cash as everyone uses digital payment and hence do not have change (you'd need to pay the exact amount).

The cons? Let's just say there are rude and inconsiderate people everywhere and we have met our fair share in Beijing and Shanghai! The drivers can also drive as aggressively as Singapore! 😅

However, we have also met really lovely people who had given us great advice on where to go. 

We planned to visit the following attractions on our next trip to Beijing:

• Universal Studios Beijing
• National Museum of China
• China Science and Technology Museum
• Henan
• Xian

Other attractions in Shanghai:

• Xintiandi 
• Suzhou

Overall, we had a great trip and will definitely be back! Can't wait! 😍

<< Back to Beijing-Shanghai Day 6: Expo, Yu Yuan & Nanjing Pedestrian Street

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Beijing & Shanghai, China 

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Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Beijing-Shanghai Day 6: Expo, Yu Yuan & Nanjing Pedestrian Street

We had a simple breakfast in our hotel room as we planned to meet my Dad for an early lunch.

Morning view of the Huangpu from our room window

My Dad has worked for many years in Shanghai and still lives there half of the time despite being semi-retired.

Group photo at the lobby
(My 66-year-old dad is second from right, doesn't look like it I know 😂)

Dad brought us to the Shanghai World Expo to show us some of the projects he used to be involved in when he was worked there full-time. 

Shanghai World Expo Mercedes Benz Arena

We had lunch at The River Mall, a long horizontal building that used to be part of the Shanghai World Expo but has since been converted into a mall.

Bao Yue Lou restaurant

Front entrance looks very cool!

Xiao long bao, tea and har gow (prawn dumplings)

Crispy vegetable pancake

Red crispy rice rolls with shrimp

Prawn chee cheong fun (rice roll)

Roast pigeon

Dessert and noodles

The food was value-for-money and generally tasty.

After lunch, Dad brought us to the top of the Mercedes-Benz Arena to check out the view!

Mercedes Benz Arena

View of Huangpu River from the top of the Mercedes Benz Arena

View of the China Art Museum (red building) on the left and The River Mall on the right

View of the Huangpu River towards Pudong

Opposite the Huangpu River

We headed to Yu Yuan (Yu Garden) at 2pm and took a DiDi (CN¥53 for a 6-seater). Our tickets to Yu Yuan were bought on Klook at $5.55 per person.

Reasonably priced souvenirs at the shops opposite of the entrance to Yu Yuan

Entrance to Yu Yuan

Beautiful backdrop for my OOTDs 😀

Small but pretty garden

Rock formations

Pavillion

Pond

Kids were dressed up to match the location! 😀

Love these photos I took of my girls

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It's a nice attraction but definitely too small compared to the huge gardens at the Temple of Heaven. It's still doable if you visit during the off-peak season (it'll be too crowded to walk, much less take any decent photos during peak periods)!

After exiting, we walked onto Yuyuan Old Street.

Get a glimpse of old school Shanghai but upgraded
(It looks even better at night!)

Along Jiujiaochang Road

Close to the intersection of Jiujiaochang Road and Fuyou Road is a restaurant selling all kinds of food.

Food court style restaurant that is packed with people

Bought my Boy's favourite corn dog for him!

Tried their beef stick, which was delicious!

At the intersection near Shanghai Lao Fan Dian 上海老饭店

After shopping, we returned to our hotel, which was about 30 minutes via Didi as we had go through the underground tunnel. We relaxed in our hotel until 6pm before hailing a DiDi (CN¥53) to Zhuang Shi Long Xing 莊氏隆興 Noodle Restaurant for dinner.

Zhuang Shi Long Xing Noodle Restaurant
(Address: No.441 Middle Zhejiang Road, Huangpu)

We managed to get a table for 6 at the mezzanine with very low headroom

Famous crab roe noodles!

Pork katsu

It's a must to eat crab roe noodles in Shanghai and these were good. I probably wouldn't return as I wasn't a fan of crab roe but if you're a seafood lover, you should try it at least once!

We walked down Zhejiang Road for about 5 minutes until we reached Shanghai Fashion Store, which was at the intersection of Zhejiang Road and the famous Nanjing Road 南京路.

Yongan Shopping Mall (left), Shanghai Fashion Store (top right), and Nanjing Pedestrian Street (bottom right)

As we walked down Nanjing Pedestrian Street, we caught sight of the impressive Top Toy Flagship Store! As big fans of toys and blind boxes, we had to check it out! 🤩

Top Toy Flagship Store at Nanjinglu

We bought so many of these Sanrio blind boxes because they were way cheaper in China!
And soooo cute! 😍

Happy with her shopping loot!

As we continued down the street, we spotted the biggest Miniso we had ever seen! 😲

Miniso Land!

It had everything, including my favourite Detective Conan!

After buying a bunch of random stuff at Miniso, we continued down the street until we saw the Popmart Flagship store!

More of Nanjinlu shopping

Huge 3D screens are the rage everywhere!

Eldest was super happy with the blindbox she got from Popmart

We contemplated between taking a DiDi home and continuing down the street. We decided to go with the latter as I was under the impression that there was a way to go through the river to the other side (there wasn't). We ended passing by Shanghai Xiao Chi Cheng 上海小吃城 (small eats city) and popped in to grab some snacks.

Shanghai Xiao Chi Cheng

Bought a corn dog for the Boy

All kinds of BBQ meat on a stick

Look at how big a stick of beef was! It was super yummy!

We reached the end of the road and caught sight of The Bund!

You can see the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Shanghai Tower and even our hotel Shangri-la Pudong across the river

Beautifully lit buildings at night

We found out that there wasn't a way to get across the river after all and hailed a DiDi to get back to our hotel. 

The rest of the family were exhausted after the long walk but the Eldest and I wanted to walk along The Bund before we head back to the room. 

View of the other side of the river, where we were just at!

We returned to our room and opened our blindboxes!

Blindbox reveal!

Enjoyed our days in Shanghai so far! 😍

Continue to >> Beijing-Shanghai Day 7: Jingan Joy City, Flight Home & My Reflections
<< Back to Beijing-Shanghai Day 5: Shanghai Disneyland 

~~~~~~

Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Beijing & Shanghai, China 

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!