Suzhou and Yangzhou

People don't know how to drive here!! There's no rules and you pretty much have the faith that no one will run into to you.. lol. We have spent SO much time turning around and u-turning and almost running into mopeds that it wasn't even funny.. Our tour guide just kept saying "Just close your eyes and listen to me instead" lol.

A group of us went to Suzhou over the weekend which is about 4 hours south of Nanjing and 1 hour north of Shanghai. It is called "The Venice of the East" b.c. of the canals and picturesque views. It's in no way a small town with it's 7 million-ish citizens living in the city! (The largest city here, btw, is in the center province of China at 32 million citizens!! Whew, that's more than the state of Cali!)

So Suzhou was nice- we saw one of the four most famous Chinese gardens called "The Humble Administrator's Garden". (If you ask me, anyone who builds a big "garden" for himself is NOT humble, lol) So there's 100+ gardens in China and just a little bit about them: There are two types of gardens: the Imperial garden- those made for the emperor, or the state; and Private gardens- those built by high ranking officials. The Imperial gardens are found in the north and the private gardens are in the South. There are four characteristics found in every garden: rocks, water, plants, buildings. They are all different and I'd have to say that the Humble Administrator's was my least fave.

We also went to Tiger Hill which is the #1 tourist spot in Suzhou. (I have no clue as to why! lol) There was a pagoda at the top of the hill which was built in the 900s, but we couldn't go in.. It's like the leaning tower of Pisa--if you notice it leans to the right!! (Also, it was built before the leaning tower of Pisa-- how like us Westerners to copy some Eastern idea! lol)

Also there was an emperor buried there and it was he who had the "hill" built for him. He was buried somewhere underneath the man-made pond with 300 swords and lotsa treasure. People aren't sure where exactly his tomb is b.c. if we try to find out all the rocks on top will cave in... so there he stays with his swords and money.

This was also the only place in all of China that has a representation of Buddhism and Confucianism together in one place: the column has representations for Confucianism and the little building behind it is for Buddhism.

We went on a tour of a Buddhist temple which was quite intriguing.. there was this building with representations of all the past Buddhas and you can chose the one you like the most then buy his little souvenir card where it tells you your "fortune"..

On Sat night we went on a boat tour of the Grand Canal. It was pretty neat even though everything was said in Chinese. Suzhou is known for it's canals and the fact that this is where Marco Polo spent a considerable amount of his time before coming back to Italy and suggesting the strategic planning for Venice!! Interesting. So the Grand Canal tour was neat to see where Marco Polo had been... Also the Grand Canal is the largest man-made waterway in the world! It was built during the Sui dynasty for the emperor to get rice and other goods from the south quicker.. it still remains the connection between the North and South to this day. Well it was interesting b.c. it's a major tourist attraction, even for the Chinese, to take this Grand Canal boat tour... So people were AMAZED by us!! esp. us blondes! Some of them had never seen a foreigner so they were taking pictures with us like we were celebrities! This one girl was walking behind me and touched my arm then it scared her away... lol, once i turned to look at her-- her friend snapped a picture of us then it started this whole line of girls getting pictures with me! lol. I felt rather popular.

On Sunday we went to the Silk factory which was really neat. Suzhou is the #1 silk producer in the world and supplies most of China and most of the world with silk-- this is why Suzhou appears "richer" than the other places we have been. So we went to the factory to learn how silk is made from silk worms. Without boring you, they basically harvest the silk worms and wait until they get to be 50 days old-- once they are old enough they spin their cocoons and then a lady figures out whether they are a single cocoon (the majority) or a double cocoon (only about 5% of them)... after that is done they are put into really hot water and a lady takes the silk off the cocoon and the threads are pulled off and spun... THEN it is turned into cloth! (basically it's a pretty complicated process)

On the way home our bus broke down! (I kept thinking, "hey-it wouldn't be a summer for me unless I broke down!" lol) We were on the side of the highway for about 2 hours in the 100+ degree heat waiting for a replacement bus. (There was a 3.6 Earthquake when we were standing there but we didn't even feel it b.c. of the traffic! :( )Eventually Curt came up with the idea to bet 5Yuan on the time that the bus would get there-- naturally it got quite exciting at that point! (and yes, Curt won the bet! lol)

We eventually got home, went to bed, and went to Yangzhou today. ("zhou", btw, means "state") It was HOT!!! At 116 degrees F we were all frying and sweating and felt like dying. ugh. Esp. since we saw two other gardens today-- being outside really made us all want to collapse. We did get to see a lacquerware factory which is insane the amount of work that is put into things! I felt REALLY bad for the workers b.c. the avg. salary here is like 1500 Yuan/month (basically $215 in the US!!) It's crazy...

I've met SO many nice people here that I will miss them when we're gone-- we've started eating at this Mexican place b.c. the Chinese food is not really agreeing with our bodies anymore (If you get what I'm saying! lol... PLUS trying to relieve our systems on these urinal toilets is NOT fun!!) The Mexican place is a lot of fun with Chinese guys playing Mexican music and the entire Mexican ambiance-- also, the cheap beer!! yay- that's what I'm talkin' about!!

It rocks here, I LOVE it!!