Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Hey everyone!
It feels like its been a while since last entry but a lot has happened since then. Riley is a lot better. We are both very well.
1. Ming Gate: Last weekend we went to the Nanjing wall around the old city. We ddin't walk the whole wall (too long!) but we did walk thru some of the tunnels and walked up top to enjoy the view. We meet a student, not part of our group, who majors in industrial design. That was pretty cool.
2. Confucius Temple: It's actually once a temple now a mall strip. We walked from the confucius to the Mandarin Garden Hotel were we had dinner. I tried to try jelly fish but it was almost impossible to chew.
Saturday, we had a three-day weekend were we traveled/stayed in Suzhou and then in Hangzhou. From Nanjing is about three and a half hours to get there and it rained all weekend.
3. Small farm village: I don't remember if there was a specific name for where we went but we walked over the canals and toured former houses of businessmen. Some of the areas (now turned into museums) held the dress wear the chinese wore for weddings. We also saw scupltures made entirely of tree roots. Lions, landscapes, people, etc. We saw a papercuttings shop where the craftsman was so good he freestyle cut without a template. We previously had a culture lecture/workshop where we learned the art of paper cutting to make different chinese designs that we find in the windows of many restuarants here. It was not easy especially without an X-acto knife. So we now respect the skill of the craft.
4. Our tour guide, Anna, must love tofu we figured. A lot of our meals have been 3-5 dishes of tofu cooked slightly different ways. After a point people were begging for some new dishes. I do love the time we get to all eat together and talk around the round table with the lazy susan and people spinning it to find a good dish.
5. Suzhou hotel: the name is somewhere in my possession as I took a hotel toothbrush with me. We were told that the hotel was five-star and two-story rooms. They don't use the star system much in China but the newer the hotel the better. I thought I misheard when she said two-story but it was true. It was very nice. Lux, many student had used to describe the rooms. We had only one night there before moving on to our next place so we enjoyed it while we had it. We had to leave at 9:00am next day. I set my alarm but I don't need it here cause I wake up at 5 or 6am because it gets bright so early in the morning. They had cake and watermelon for breakfast and that made me very happy.
6. Lingering Gardens, Suzhou: It was very beautiful and quite large. We saw more bonzai trees and more rock formations. Some food halls and beautiful pavillions. There were large goldfish and blooming waterlillies. There were musicians dressed in chinese attire. One playing the pipa--famous instrument played only by a woman.
Sunday, it was still raining.
7. Silk Museum, Suzhou: I was really excited that we were going here. We got to see the silk works and the coccoons. They had specimens of each stage of the silk worm. Some kids keep silk worms as pets. They are pretty cute. We got to see the inspection belt, spinning machines, weaving looms, and the webs of silk. The workers were ok with us touching some of the things but I'm sure they were wanting to get back to doing their work. Then onto the silk shop were most of the stuff here was made of 100% silk or mostly silk not like 100% silky. (ex. the different between 100% cashmere and cashmere 100% made in china)
We left Suzhou for Hangzhou. I don't remember how far apart they are but it is a lovely scenic route, changing from city to farm and mountains. It still rains. Anna Lamm joined us for this part of the trip.
8. Hangzhou hotel: I might have the toothbrush from here, too. The hotel was nice and even nicer than the Suzhou one in my opinion cause it had a bathtub. The view of the canal was nice and at night you could see the lights on the building on the other side of the canal. It was lit up like something out of Tron meets Christmas home lights. We boarded the bus at 9:00am when the hotel said they are missing a fork from one of the rooms the guys stayed in. It was funny cause it took 15-30min for the issue to be resolved when the guys said they didn't take it. It turns out they were right. Who would want to take a fork? And why did they make such a big deal about it? haha
9. West Lake: This small city surrounds this one lake and the city is best known for it. Because it is raining all the sales people bombard us as we get off the bus selling umbrellas and plastic panchos. It's funny cause they notice Riley has neither pancho nor umbrella and they target him. It was the most rainy day of all the days of this trip. Our group stayed close because West lake is so big and there are so many people it is very easy to get lost. Also, bus drop-off location was different than the pick-up location. I kinda don't want to get lost in China. We took a boat around the lake and took many pictures there. There is an island in the middle-- Xiaying Island and near it in the water are the "Three Pools Reflecting the Moon" which you can see also on a 5yuan bill. On the other side we saw a large pagoda.
10. Green Tea: The second tea place we went was the place were the actual tea trees were. Driving thru Hangzhou we suddenly started to see high mountains on each side of us with many rows of tea plants from top to bottom. After lunch we stop there and took better pictures. In the tea house the tea lady explained how green tea makes iodine turn pure cause of the antioxidants and it will make your body pure inside too. The tea smelled and tasted like asparagus with water.
Back in Nanjing. Not raining here. I know Riley is happy for his shoes not to be wet and I'm happy for my knees. Aside from that we had a great trip in Suzhou and Hangzhou!
11. I felt bad cause I didn't study for class much this weekend. We had Chen today not Cheng laoshi. Cheng works really fast and its hard to digest all the information. Before the end of class the idea was generated for the whole class to go to lunch together then go to Fashion Lady mall. Chen talked about Fashion Lady and some of the students told her about their favorite restaurant where they point at the menu without knowing what it says and get good food. So it was set we were going to lunch together then to the mall in Nanjing.
12. The Restaurant: I got to write down the name of these places! It's funny cause the Chen and Cheng laoshi were not sure about the restaurant cause it looks sketchy from the outside and the inside but the food actually was pretty good. It's nice that we had lunch with our teacher and also nice that they ordered for us cause they could read the menu. We had rice & green tea (staples), sweet and sour pork, fish with soup, sweet fried corn, chicken and chips and chicken with peanuts.
13. We took the public bus to Fashion Lady then to the metro to the Nanjing train station with a great view of the lake. We took the bus then back to the school. Man, it's crowded.
Well, gotta goooooo! Love,
Diane & Riley
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