Shanghai (part 1)

Day One

Took a grab early in the morning to the Airport Terminal 3.

Kopitiam @ T3 Changi

After checked in my luggage, I had my breakfast in the Kopitiam located at the basement of the terminal (left photo below). Got myself a bowl of ban mian at SGD 4.80 (right photo below). Food was acceptable.
Singapore Airlines

Boarded SQ 830 and the flight took off on time at 0920 hours. I was served with snacks and drink soon after take-off (left photo below). During inflight meal serving, I selected fish fillet with vegetables in peppery sauce (right photo below).
Hotel Check-in

Took metro from the Airport station, then walked for about 10-mins to the hotel. After checked-in the hotel, had some washup in the room before getting out to explore Shanghai.

Hefu-Noodle (和府捞面)

Decided to have my dinner in Hefu-Noodle (left photo below). It is a restaurant chain featuring Chinese noodles and emphasizes the herbal soup coupled with Chinese scholarly elements (right photo below).

First selected a braised chicken feet, home-made sausage and a crab leg from the snacks counter (left photo below). Followed by a herbal beef noodles (right photo below).


Total cost was CNY 76 and the taste of its herbal broth was acceptable.

🍔 Hefu-Noodle (和府捞面)
Address:	Floor B1/F-14, Hongyi Plaza, No. 299 Nanjing East Road, Shanghai
Access:	East Nanjing Road station of Line 2 and 10
Operating Hours:	1000 hours to 2200 hours; daily

Nanjing Road (南京路)

Nanjing Road is the main shopping district of Shanghai that starts at the Bund in the east, and ends in the west junction of Jing'an Temple along with west Yan'an street totaling a distance of 5.5-km long (photos below).
Famous Shopping Street

Nanjing Road is one of the world's busiest shopping streets, along with Fifth Avenue (New York), Oxford Street (London), Orchard Road (Singapore), Takeshita Street (Tokyo) and the Champs-Élysées (Paris). It attracts over 1 million visitors daily.



💡Travel Trivia: Many cities in China designated their streets using names of other provinces, cities and counties. Coincidentally, some of these streets have become famous and popular shopping street in that particular city. Examples of such are Nanjing Road in Shanghai and Beijing Road in Guangzhou.

Interesting Shops

Besides the shopping malls and fashion shops, there are some interesting shops along the Nanjing Road. M&M's World Shanghai is the first and only M&M's flagship store in Asia occupying two storeys with an area of 1,700 square meters (left photo below). Another interesting shop is the LEGO flagship store occupying 600 square meters in two storeys (right photo below).
Huge Lego brick creation of Chinese dragon (left photo below) and the Statue of Liberty (right photo below) could be found in this store.

HeyTea (喜茶)

Opted to get a drink when I saw a HeyTea outlet in one of the malls while shopping (left photo below). Got myself a "Cheeze Latte" at CNY 25 (right photo below). Taste was good which was similar to those in Starbucks.


Back to the hotel to have a good rest.


Day Two

Had a fulfilling breakfast in the hotel and took metro to the Disneyland.

Transportation to Disneyland

The Disneyland can be reached by Shanghai Metro from the terminal station "Disney Resort" of Line 11 (left photo below). Once exited from the station, just followed the path to reach a sculpture fountain (right photo below). Not far from this fountain is the entrance to the Disneyland. This layout is similar to the Hong Kong Disneyland.
Shanghai Disneyland (上海迪士尼乐园)

Opened on Jun 2016, the Shanghai Disneyland covers an area of 3.9-square kilometers and currently the newest Disneyland in the world.

Park Admission

There are two ways to get the tickets:

• Online Purchase. This can be done using the official website of Shanghai Disneyland.


• On Spot Purchase. After security checks (left photo below), the admission tickets can be bought from the ticket counters located in front of the main entrance (right photo below).
  Bought a one-day standard pass at CNY 399 where a physical ticket was given to me (photos below). Do note that personal identification, such as passport, is required during ticket purchasing.
  

Park Layout

The park currently has eight themed areas, namely Mickey Avenue, Gardens of Imagination, Fantasyland, Treasure Cove, Adventure Isle, Tomorrowland, and Toy Story Land (photo below).


Unlike other Disney castle-parks, Shanghai Disneyland does not have a steam railroad surrounding the park's perimeter. Also, instead of "Main Street USA", the street was named "Mickey Avenue" to emphasize on Disney characters rather than American culture.

Mickey Avenue

The first sight visitors would see is the floral arrangement of Mickey Mouse (left photo below). Behind the flower bed is the entrance building to the park (right photo below).
After the building is the Mickey Avenue (left photo below). This avenue was modelled after a typical American Midwest town of early 20th century. It was where several emporiums, shops, arcades lined along the sides of this street (right photo below).


There were also several cafés and restaurants located in this Mickey Avenue (photos below).

Gardens of Imagination

The Garden of Imagination features several Chinese-themed gardens. It is the first land inside a Disneyland to be designed as a garden that includes a novel, terraced area for viewing castle stage shows and nighttime spectacular (photos below).

Fantasyland

The land features a 60-meters tall "Enchanted Storybook Castle" that is themed to Disney princesses (left photo below). This castle is currently the largest in any Disney castle-parks. Exquisite display of a sparkling crystal castle was on sale inside the castle souvenir shop (right photo below).




✍ Update:
This crystal castle was sold for CNY 1.8 million in Apr 2019 and was now replaced by a bronze 'Frozen' statue.


The most popular attraction inside the castle is the "Once Upon A Time Adventure". Guests first had to climb up a magnificent winding staircase in the middle of the castle where there were bas reliefs of Disney's princesses (photos below).






"Once Upon A Time Adventure" is an interactive walkthrough attraction themed to the Disney animated classic 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. Following is the compilation on some of the clips I took during the walkthrough (video below).

Treasure Cove

Treasure Cove is themed to an 18th-century Spanish harbor town located on a Caribbean island that is captured by Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure" is a magnetic powered dark ride (left photo below). Before boarding the boats, guests began by entering Fort Snobbish which was a base for the Royal Navy (right photo below).



"Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure" features animatronics of Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones. Following is the compilation on some of the clips I took during the boat ride (video below).





The "Treasure Cove" land is also home to "Eye of the Storm: Captain Jack's Stunt Spectacular" which is a stunt show inspired by the films and Siren's Revenge (left photo below). In addition, a shipwreck-themed interactive play area is set aboard in a wrecked French galleon ship (right photo below).

Adventure Isle

The "Adventure Isle" land focused around a mysterious lost world full of hidden treasures. The main feature of the land is Roaring Mountain. Expeditions into the mountain can be taken through "Roaring Rapids" by raft or the rope courses at Camp Discovery. The raft past through the erupting volcanic vents (left photo below) and steaming geysers (right photo below) as the whitewater rapids sweep the boat back to the basecamp.
The most popular attraction is the "Soaring Over the Horizon" which is a flight motion simulator (photos below). The ride employs a mechanical lift system, a 4K film presentation on a 24-meters concave 180-degree OMNIMAX laser projection screen, artificial scents and wind to simulate a hang-gliding flight over several locations across six continents around the world.

Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland is a futuristic-themed land with space-age structures and building (left photo below). Its most popular ride is the indoor roller coaster "TRON Lightcycle Power Run" (right photo below).

Toy Story Land

This is a Toy Story franchise-themed land that features rides, restaurants, show and a gift shop. Tall sculptures of Woody (left photo below) and Jessie (right photo below) could be found for photo opportunities.

Souvenirs

Felt that food and souvenirs in Shanghai Disneyland were equally expensive as those sold in other Disneylands. Despite its pricey tag, I still could not resist and bought two desktop decorations at CNY 99 each (photos below).

Did not stay till the fireworks in the evening and I left the park at about 5 pm.

🎫 Shanghai Disneyland (上海迪士尼乐园)
Website:	https://www.shanghaidisneyresort.com
Access:	Disney Resort metro station (迪士尼站) of Line 11
Opening Hours:	0830 to 2200 hours; daily
Admission:	CNY 399 (adult)

Disneytown (迪士尼小镇)

Disneytown is a shopping, dining and entertainment complex open to the general public right outside of Shanghai Disneyland (photos below). This is the same concept to Disneyland Resort at Anaheim, Disney Springs at Florida, Ikspiari at Tokyo, and Disney Village at Paris.
Besides Disney franchises, there were also food tenants which include Starbucks, HeyTea (left photo below) and BreadTalk (right photo below).
Lego flagship store can also be found in this Disneytown (photos below).


Like most flagship stores, innovative lego creations could also be found in this store at Disneytown (photos below).


Disneylands around the World

Depending on the definition, there are a total of 12 Disney theme parks around the world. Among them, 6 are Disneyland-style "castle parks" where each had a castle as a central icon with various themed lands surrounding it. Only 5 are actually named "Disneyland", to be specific in California, Hong Kong, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo. The Florida's flagship park is called "Magic Kingdom" instead.

Comparison of the Five Disneyland Castles
Disneyland Resort Sleeping Beauty Castle	Tokyo Disneyland Cinderella Castle	Disneyland Paris Le Château de la Belle au Bois dormant	Hong Kong Disneyland Sleeping Beauty Castle (Old Name)	Shanghai Disneyland Enchanted Storybook Castle
Location: California, USA Built: 1955 Height: 23-meters Fun fact: Smallest and Oldest among the 5 castles Year that I visited: 2011	Location: Tokyo, Japan Built: 1983 Height: 51-meters Fun fact: A second castle "Beast's Castle" standing at 33-meters tall is opened in 2020 Year that I visited: 2005	Location: Paris, France Built: 1992 Height: 51-meters Fun fact: Castle name literally means "the castle of the beauty in the sleeping woods" Year that I visited: 2010	Location: Hong Kong, China Built: 2005 Height: 23-meters Fun fact: Castle extended and renamed as "Castle of Magical Dreams" in 2020 Year that I visited: 2006	Location: Shanghai, China Built: 2016 Height: 60-meters Fun fact: Newest and Biggest among the 5 castles Year that I visited: 2019

With the visit to Shanghai Disneyland, I had completed one of my travel "to-do" lists that is to explore all 5 "Disneylands". However, I still anticipate to visit the rest of the Disney theme parks and magic kingdom in near future to expand my list.

Sukiya (食其家·牛丼咖喱)

Had my dinner in this Japanese chain restaurant 'Sukiya' located at the basement of Sunshine World shoppping mall (left photo below). This shopping mall is just right above the Tangzhen metro station and near to the Holiday Inn Express hotel. Ordered a spicy ramen set at CNY 39 (right photo below).
Taste was good especially its noodles.

🍔 Sukiya (食其家·牛丼咖喱)
Address:	No. B154, B1 Floor, Tangzhen Sunshine World Shopping Mall
Access:	Tangzhen metro station of Line 2
Operating Hours:	1000 hours to 2130 hours; daily

Shopped in the supermarket and got some snacks as supper before heading back to the hotel.