Suzhou

Pagoda at night, garden with Evelyn, Jon Marie, and Mary. Diane in garden. John Marie with her new friend!

We have traveled by bus for three hours to Suzhou. Pronounced shoe-show.  It is a much smaller city than Nanjing is. We passed many factories and farms, including duck farms. Yum! This city is known for its beautiful stone bridges, pagodas, and gardens. It is also known for its silk factories. 

We arrived here and went directly to a beautiful garden called The Humble Administrator's Garden. There is a story behind the name, but too tired to write it tonight. It was a beautiful garden, but crowded because it being Sunday. I had a bag full of junky presents that the students so nicely gave to us, but we had no room to take them. I handed them out to kids on the way. They loved it!  We walked around for an hour and took pictures and enjoyed the bonsai garden along the way. A couple of people had to go back to the bus because the crud has hit again. Terrible stomach flu. I haven't had it yet....knock on wood!

We ate a typical Chinese lunch, always they give us too much to finish. Then it was onto the hotel for a short 30 minute rest. We then headed out to a silk embroidery factory. It is just simply amazing the artistic pictures they create out of sometimes single pieces of silk. There was a Mona Lisa piece that looked just like the original, and all done by hand.   People begin to learn the art at age 15 and go to a basic school for 5 years. At this point they can make 1200-1500 yuan a month (about 175-200$).  Slave labor, I call it!  They can make more than 2000 a month if they have at least 10 years experience ($285). They can earn bonus's for finishing faster. One girl was demonstrating and had been working on a beautiful piece with storks on it, for three years.

I would have liked a beautiful panel that cost 12,000,00.00 ($17,000) but I controlled myself.  I settled for a much less expensive piece featuring birds. On one side the flowers are yellow, but the other the flowers are red! Amazing!

We had dinner next door. Another typical dinner with way too much food. But yummy!  Yea Chinese food!

We then headed to the canal for a boat ride on a junket to see the beautiful lights at night. This city has many canals and is very green. There is no honking allowed in the city! What a huge change. Peaceful and quiet after the noise of Nanjing, and our bus driver honking every minute at anything!