Shanghai.

Highlights from our few days in Shanghai were of course the buildings and the exposure to the urban life of such a huge city! The eastern part of Shanghai, Pudong, was literally filled with skyscrapers and the western part, Pu Xi was the total opposite.

Oriental Pearl Tower, Shanghai.

View of Pudong from the Grand Hyatt.

We spent our last few days at the Tongji Guest House and from there we visited an architecture firm, Neri & Hu.

Neri & Hu staircase.

The visit was yet another highlight of our Shanghai trip. It was very informative and educational. We learnt how different the construction line is in China.

Waterhouse at South Bund by Neri & Hu.

On our final day, some people were already leaving right after breakfast. A couple of us stayed back and Stan was kind enough to bring us book-shopping despite the pouring rain. He brought us to a hidden bookstore located in one of the nearby apartments in Tongji area and a few of us bought several architectural books at quite reasonable prices.

Bookstore outside Tongji Guesthouse.

Then, we bid our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Till we meet again back in Sydney!

The Grand Hyatt.

After an intensive week in Suzhou, we were finally off to Shanghai for a night of luxury in the Grand Hyatt Hotel located in Pudong.

An architectural wonder - a 20-storey atrium.

After checking in, we are now off to explore the big city!

Borrowed Landscape.

An example of a 'borrowed landscape' found in Zhuo Zheng Yuan.

Mr. I.M Pei.

Today we were free from any activites and we thought we had it all planned out only to find the Suzhou Museum closes on Mondays!

We headed back to the hotel to complete the four collages to be submitted tonight.

Of Gardens and Street Food.

8th of December.

Today's visit was to Wang Shi Yuan, the garden my team and I are appointed to present on. We had to walk through a residential area to get to the garden, and it was quite an interesting experience.

Our tutor, Stan Fung making funny faces.

Putra presenting.

Everyone else paying attention to us.

Wang Shi Yuan was an interesting garden, or maybe I'm just being biased. Stan brought us around and explained certain things to us such as how spatial collapse is used to create two-dimensional views.

Everyone trying to capture the two-dimensional view of the garden.

Spatial collapse between the handrails and the rockeries.

After Wang Shi Yuan, we had lunch together and were off to visit Cang Lang Ting. A few of us who cannot read Chinese joked about this pavilion and called it the Cockroach Pavilion, as Cang Lang means cockroach in Mandarin if pronounced differently. Cang Lang Ting however means Surging Waves Pavilion.

 9th of December.

We had the whole morning to ourselves after a pretty hectic day before. It was a cold day so we decided to have hot pot for lunch!

Enjoying our hot pot.

We gathered back at the hotel after lunch and was off to visit two more gardens. We visited Yi Pu Yuan first and literally ran to the next one, which was Huan Xiu Shan Zhuang. It was a really funny scene as a group of about 30 people were running like mad on the streets while the locals stood by, shocked. Stan was worried that we couldn't make it in time as it was almost 4pm and the garden closes at 5pm. Fortunately, we were a group of young and healthy people and managed to get there with plenty of time to spare!

Group photo at Huan Xiu Shan Zhuang

After the visit, a few of us stayed back in the area to explore for a bit. We tried several types of street food despite Stan's warning. Thankfully none of us had any food poisoning.

A lady making some kind of omellete roll. 

Chinese buns and cakes.

The Real Deal.

We just had our first feedback session this morning and all is well! There were really good and constructive feedback from Stan, and I was able to learn from all the collages that were selected and presented by Stan.

Ou Yuan.

Ou Yuan is located within this village surrounded by canals. 

My favourite garden and place thus far.

Bullet Train Ride!

On the 5th of December, we were supposed to take an earlier train from Hangzhou to Suzhou to meet up with the rest for dinner. Unfortunately, we underestimated the Chinese crowd and couldn't get any tickets for the afternoon trains. We caught the 4pm bullet train and arrived in Suzhou at 5:30pm.

Hangzhou Train Station

Bullet train ride!

By the time we arrived at our hotel, everyone had already gone out for dinner with our tutor, Stan Fung. The three of us had to have fast food meal at the nearby shopping area where as the rest got to enjoy steamboat dinner. :(

Rice Set Meal

After dinner, we met up with the rest at the hotel and were told that we had to wait till 12am for an email from Stan regarding the itinerary for the next day. The email came while we were enjoying a late night supper of Portuguese egg tarts from a nearby KFC. :)

The email was very thorough. It explained quite a complicated system regarding our early-morning presentations. The 'audience' were split into two groups and each presenter had to present twice - one time for each group. We found this very hard to understand in the beginning.

Anyway, on the 6th of December, we were all up and ready by 8:30am for breakfast in the hotel. By 9:30am, we were all readily seated in Sam's hotel room. (I was in the Group 2 - which means an extra 15 minutes to prepare!) After the first round of presentations, we realised that this was actually quite an effective method as we do not have to be all packed in a single hotel room and the presenters had a chance to 'rehearse' before presenting from the second time to Stan. Furthermore, Stan has very good time-management skills as everything went according to schedule! None of the presentations exceeded the time limit.

At 10:30am, we were all gathered in the lobby and headed to our first Suzhou Garden visit, which was Yi Yuan, also known as Garden of Happiness. Apparently, this is one of the smallest and least impressive garden. David and his team was appointed to do a short presentation for this garden.

Garden Presentation

'Tourist' shot!

Hangzhou.

My travel partners and I landed in China on the 3rd of December, two days before summer course starts.

We landed in Hangzhou and spent our two days strolling along the Westlake, with its beautiful views and sunsets. 

 Not forgetting all the street food, as well as local food that we tried!