August 25, 2001

Aww…leaving the nice hotel. Why couldn’t we have stayed at that hotel longer!!! Anyways, three stops in Suzhou today, another rock place, another Buddhist place, and a garden (Suzhou is famous for its gardens). Okay, so I guess there a lot of rocks in Suzhou too, but there’s some legend that this guy in history threw one of his swords into some lake in this area, but it hasn’t been found yet. Also, there’s this other rock that’s split down the middle (sliced into two pieces…probably not natural), which people say he used to test his sword out. While we were there, my dad was filming and then I saw this mosquito on his arm so I hit it. Normally when you smack a mosquito, it’s just guts and stuff…this time I smacked and it was blood…bleh.

Stop #2, Buddhist place. Again, little commenting on the Buddhist place being that I was very clueless about everything. Inside the place, there was this 5 story building, which we bought tickets to go into. However, they didn’t even check them! Oh well, the stairs were really steep and the top two floors were closed off (maybe that’s why they decided not to take tickets). Anyways, standing at the third floor, I saw tons of coins on all the roofs…even on ones like 10 meters away! Later, I saw some of the janitors of the area picking up coins of people who missed the roofs…hehehe.

No commenting on the temple, but let me comment on afterwards. Okay, so of course the moms are on a mission meaning that as they pass by the markets outside the exit of the temple place, they see all these clothing stores (Suzhou is famous for silk products…forgot to mention) and they HAVE to go in and look at the selection. I can not wait any longer and therefore decided to try and find the bus (at this time the tour guide has also left for the bus, and Eric never left it). As I walk along, outside this little square where the parents were, I find this whole street of vendors!!! Oh my gosh, this was going to take a while…I was right. An hour later…they are STILL in the same little square! They probably spent like 2 or 3 hours shopping around for clothes and eventually found one they liked…cheap too, only 25 rmb. However, one shop didn’t have enough for their needs, so they had to go to like 3 different ones…they still didn’t have enough. Okay, so after lunch (we ate at 1…we got there at like 10), we went to the garden and guess what…four shops side by side are selling the exact same top that the moms were searching for, for like 3 hours.

The garden was so beautiful. It used to be owned by this guy during the Qing dynasty I think. It was his retirement home. See, Suzhou is famous for its gardens because historically, women in Suzhou weren’t allowed to leave the house. Therefore, they spent all their time tending their gardens. This place was huge. There were he hua’s and all these other exotic plants all over the place. There were also a lot of stones from some lake in Thailand.

As we were preparing to leave, and the dads plus Eric’s mom were taping everything, Terry’s mom and Brett’s neighbor rushed off to hit the shops and get all their outfits. By the time we got out, they had finished their shopping (FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!), and it was time to head back to Shanghai.

When we got to Shanghai, we took this tour of this park by the Xi Jiao (no…not wash feet) Sports Centre. The brother of the lady in New Asia Market is like the manager or something of the restaurant inside the center, so we got special privileges =P. The park was really peaceful…almost no people…just nature.

Next, we drove next door to the center. This sports center used to be solely for government officials (like Mao), but was only recently opened up to the public. We ate dinner there…nice dinner with a nice private room too. After dinner I asked the guy if I could go upstairs and see the bowling alley (Eric told me about it…he ate at the same place the first night). Well, my original plan was to just SEE the place, but of course Eric and I ended up playing one game…then two =P. By that time, our parents had already left, so the guy decided to take us to another place, the exercise room. Eric and I spent maybe like half and hour there until the guy told us that we had to get back to the hotel. On our way out he pointed out the swimming pool and then we hitched a taxi back to the hotel. Sigh…wish I could’ve stayed longer at that place…it was the highlight of my day.

Oh well, last night in China…and I spent it reorganizing my bags.