18 April 2011 Monday
This morning we headed off to the Lian Xiang Lou restaurant for brunch. The restaurant is another one of the famous locations along the ShiangXia Jiu Street. Dim sum is one of its popular must have.
We've ordered BBQ pork buns, pork dumplings (Siew Mai), Prawn dumplings (Har Gao), Prawn Rice noodle (Chee cheong fun) and my favourite turnip cake. We've asked the service staff to have the food out ASAP (as we are hungry plus the previous night experience tells us we need to inform them in advance). However the service staff said these food are made to order, so it may take as long as up to 20mins!!! Luckily for us, we didn't have to wait too long (maybe 10mins). The entire restaurant has a sleepy atmosphere. It seems like the local comes in for morning tea and take their time to enjoy their food and Kung Fu tea. Having dim sum is more like a social event where they catch up. The brunch totals to 68RMB. As famous as it claims to be, I'm not rather impressed with the pork dumplings, its quite plain and oily. The BBQ pork in the buns look less and the buns are rather small. (Craig said it's not the best he had before).The only tasty one is the prawn dumplings. The prawn is rather big. I'm pretty sure they uses MSG or some similar form as I'm left thirsty for 3-4hrs after the meal.
Next we headed to the Pacific Digital Plaza via the train (Chang Shou Lu station to Gang Ding cost 4RMB). There are several shopping complex that sells mainly computer and IT stuff around this area. Street side shops sell laptop bags, mobile phones, printer cartridges. There's a 2storey high building that sells all the old company stuff as well, as though they live in the 90s. Craig wanted to have a look at electronic shops but we couldn't see any around this area. Most of the shops here are pretty similar, unless you have something in mind to purchase, you'll get bored after 10mins.
We decided to head back to the hotel and go for a massage instead. There is a spa or health club opposite the Holiday Inn hotel on the ground floor. For 298RMB you can get a 90mins Chinese massage, which we are told by the reception it will only be a back massage. We decided to go with the Thai massage which will be the whole body, which cost 328 for 90mins. The hotel gives out a 15% discount card for hotel guest. Be careful if you are going to be using this discount. There is a serious translation problem for the terms and condition. In English it says 15% will be given for each transaction. However in Mandarin, it says one card per person is required. So we have to go back to the hotel front desk to ask for another card as the spa reception insist we must have one discount card per person per use. The tourist pay upfront but the locals pay after their service is finish. (not sure why). We are both given a tracking hand-wrist that opens up our assigned locker. This is where the females part from the males. I didn't enjoy it as much as Craig did. My masseur said she had a relaxing 90mins since I was really "easy" to massage. Well I'm glad one of us enjoy it. Craig enjoyed his massage. He had a slightly bigger lady who had more muscle and strength. She even ordered him a massage on his manhood! She told Craig a lot of local guys asked for sex as well.
Dinner was at Saiberya, a western/Italian fast food place. It wasn't very tasty but definitely cheap. I've ordered grilled chicken, egg and spinach rice and Craig had a chicken pizza and a drink (it was a drink buffet but it's very low quality powder mixed drinks). All up 58RMB. Final shopping for the Guangzhou trip.
The things sold here are really cheap but the fashion is just not fantastic to me. If you are a sparkle lover, you could buy the entire street. Everything is sparkly and shiny here, shoes, belts, especially clothes.
That's it for Guangzhou for us. I think 2days 3 nights is just nice for us. We didn't do any tourist stuff. My greatest joy for the last 3 days is that we did not get mugged. (I wrote this a bit too early and I think I had self-cursed myself, for my camera is stolen the next day on the bus)
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