China-Day 6: Suzhou

We awoke at 7am, and while hanging out the window to assess the weather Christian hit his head quite spectacularly, causing a rather deep gash and a flurry of sympathy from his doting wife. Then down to breakfast, which was a delightful spread of a mixture of western and asian dishes, including spagetti for some reason. Once done, we met our CITS city guide Jan in the lobby, and headed out into the awaiting van. For some reason, the Chinese haven’t yet caught on to rear seat belts, and the van wreaked of cigarette smoke, thanks to our driver. To his credit, he never did smoke when we were present in the vehicle.
Our first stop was the Garden of the Humble Administrator (Zhuozheng Yuan) in central Suzhou. The garden was built in the early 1500's, and was last owned by a corrupt government official. 5 hectares of streams, ponds, bridges and islands of bamboo cost a lot to maintain. When he died, he left the garden to his son, who lost it in a single card game. Even in the rain, the gardens were spectacularly beautiful; perfectly manicured and bordered by manmade rock formations and the occasional coi pond.
On the way out, Kelly found an attached shop selling pashmina's. The price the saleswoman was selling them for were far more then Kelly was willing to pay, and they became involved in a very heated argument over them. In the end, Kelly bought four for the price she wanted, and Jan mentioned to Christian that she never could have gotten them for that low.
Upon leaving the gardens, we got back into the smokey van and headed out to our next destination, the Suzhou #1 Silk Museum (Suzhou Sichou Bowuguan), which we must say was absolutely fascinating, which is why it is such a popular tourist spot. Upon entering, you walk past several growing mulberry trees, which are the only trees silkworms feed on. Suzhou's silk industry spans 4000 years, and in that time they have really perfected the art. We visited a room that showed silk worms in all stages of life, from egg, to pupae, to worm, then to their little silky coccoons. We were able to hold live silk worms at about 20 days old (about 1 inch long).
This is followed by rooms filled with large looms that separate the silk from the coccoon and feed it directly onto large spools. We saw how different decorative fabrics were produced on large machines and were given the opportunity to buy any number of items, although the prices were fairly steep. There was a fashion show going on and Christian was able to take many photos of the lovely Chinese models featuring various items made of silk.
Afterwards Jan led us through the parking lot to a large pavilion where we would have our lunch. The main hall was filled with tourists but we were led to a private room, where one young girl in a teal chinese dress was our dedicated waitress, whom we had exclusively.
Our lunch consisted of a large bowl of egg fried rice, a tomato and cabbage soup, fresh shrimp cooked with salt pepper (with eyes and legs, we mean FRESH, like, they were living 5 minutes before), fried calamari, beef and onion, and bok choi. It was way more than we could eat but we made a good effort. We kept trying to think of things we could ask our waitress to do, as she was waiting for any word from us, but we really were ok. This was chinese food as a Chinese person would eat it, not in any way westernized.
After eating way too much, Jan took us back to the icky smelling van with no rear seatbelts so we can head to our final destination. Our guides do not dine with us, so we asked Jan what they do when we're eating. They have a separate area where guides and the drivers eat together, and she did confess that they tend to talk about the tourists they are given charge over. She said we're actually great, since we show a great deal of interest in the artifacts we see and ask for nothing more then a little time to photograph everything. She said Americans can sometimes be quite difficult, since they often tire of Chinese food. We have seen tourists behave this way and were more than a little embarressed by it.
On to the Garden of the Master of the Nets (Wangshui Yuan); 1/10th the size of the Humble Administrator's Garden but in many ways far more elaborate. Originally designed in the 12th century, it was later abandoned and restored in the 18th century by a retired official. It also has large pavilions, including a reception room, a study, and an art studio. Each window has a view specifically designed to appear as a work of art on the wall. Absolutely stunning place.
Jan gave us some options of what to do next, like going to an embroidery factory, but she did confess it was quite expensive and after watching Kelly haggling several times in the last few hours, she understood that we don't respond well to expensive. We decided to return to KFC Square (yes, as in Kentucky Fried Chicken, they sponsor the square).
First, we had to go back to the hotel so that we could tell Jan what airport we needed to go to the next day, since Shanghai has two and our time of departure from the hotel was reliant on which hotel we needed to get to. StinkyVan took us back to the hotel long enough for us to check our flight tickets, than they took us to the Square, where we were left on our own. We desperately needed another suitcase to hold the stuff we had bought so far, and made a concerted effort for quality by going to the two department stores they had there, but to be honest, paying 80 pounds is just too much for a case, considering we can get one at Target for a lot less, so we caved and purchased a Swiss copy in the market for 200 yuan (15 pounds/$27). Sitting on a curb for a short while to rest our weary feet, we again attracted many curious looks and quite a few obvious stares from passersby. After awhile, Kelly just smiled back. Deciding Christian needed a belt, and seeing several in a shop window for 29 yuan, we entered the shop and looked through several till Christian found one to his liking. When paying for it, we realized that for once Kelly wasn’t the center of attention, but Christian, or rather his feet, were. The salesgirls at the counter rapidly talked and pointed, and one of them gathered the courage to approach and put her size 2 foot beside Christian's size 13, which caused us all to laugh. Foot binding was outlawed in the early 20th century, but they still come rather small.
Coming rapidly to the end of our money, we approached a long line of rickshaw drivers. One was faster than the rest and typed out 30 yuan on his cellphone for a trip back to our hotel when we showed him our roomkey. Kelly got him down to 15 for the trip and we were on our way. It was just as much fun as yesterday, riding the rickshaw in the rain, but halfway there the driver began to wane and appeared to struggle. At one light he looked pleadingly at us; we simply smiled and shrugged. When we arrived at our hotel, I gave him the 15 yuan we had agreed to. He looked upset. He would have been more so if we had docked him another 5 for making us feel fat. We are large Western people. You knew that when you approached us, Foo!
After dropping the bag off in our hotel, we headed back out one more time to the convenience store around the corner we discovered yesterday, where we bought some more diet Cokes and coffee gum for Kelly's dinner, as well as a Chinese beer and sugered figs for Christian. We stopped by another convenience store on the way back, which wasn’t as good, but the 8 year old girl in there was practicing English with her mother, who ran over to ask Kelly how to pronounce the words on the piece of paper she held out. "What is that on the desk? It is tape." Kelly read obligingly. "It is taypah" she repeated. Close enough. Christian had to draw a picture of a cassette tape on a pad of paper so they knew what they were saying. We must admit, they are leaps and bounds ahead of us in a foreign language. They're talking about desks and audio equipment, and we can still only say "Xie Xie" (thank you).