Scenic Suzhou - Day 2 in Shanghai

March 8th, 2024 Friday

Scenic Suzhou




Our second day in Shanghai was spent on a tour that departed very early - 6:30 a.m.!! It was a 2 hour drive outside of Shanghai to a beautiful area called Suzhou. It is an ancient Chinese town dating back to the BC days of yore.




The first place we visited was a beautiful place called "The Humble Administrator’s Garden". It is a Unesco World Heritage site. Our guide, Benny, told us that the "humble" administrator was really on the take and used public funds to build his garden ... surprise - corruption is the same around the world, ancient or modern times. He wanted to show how beauty and politics could co-exist! The garden’s name comes from the proverb which says, "To cultivate a garden for a living is really the politics of a humble man." It is one of the top four famous gardens in China or so we heard. It was very pretty ... and pretty crowded.









Our guide then took us on a boat ride on the ancient Grand Canal which runs through Suzhou. It is called the "Venice of China" ... maybe not quite as grandiose, but does shed some light on life along the canal. This area is also on the Unesco World Heritage Site list. It is located where the downstream of the Yangtze River and Suzhou Grand Canal cross in the center of the city of Suzhou. We rode on a wooden boat with our guide talking into a microphone that sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, "wah, wah, wah ... wah, wah." We floated down some narrow waterways and saw some little white houses with tile roofs. We waved at the people who were going about their days, doing laundry, watering plants, playing cards, etc. Most of the locals smiled and waved back! There were some beautiful old stone bridges we floated under as we tried to fathom how very old all this was (while hoping the boat would stay afloat!) It was very scenic indeed, and gave us a glimpse into old China.















After the boat ride, we had a nice lunch at a local Wyndham hotel. It consisted of traditional Chinese foods (see picture below for menu), complete with the full chopstick experience!



Lastly, we stopped at the Silk Embroidery Research Institute. While there, we got to witness artists embroidering by hand beautiful paintings with silk thread!!! The embroidery was so detailed and intricate. We also saw a woman weaving with silk thread also. We immediately thought of LeRoy's Aunt Connie who was a wonderful weaver. The pieces they created were spectacular! The finished products can take anywhere from several months up to a couple of years to complete. We saw tigers, flowers, intricate scenes - some were even double sided! This Suzhou area is known for its silk manufacturing since way back.
















Suzhou was really quite special. All and all, It was a great day, but Venice in Italy is still on our bucket list. Farewell to Suzhou and Shanghai. We are off to Dalian.










Vi and LeRoy
Location: Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life on the Zuiderdam

Image
May 11, 2024 The Zuiderdam  First, About our ship  -  The Zuiderdam is a bit bigger than the Amsterdam was on our first go around the world trip.  It is what they classify as a Vista-class cruise ship.  It was launched in 2001 and refurbished in 2017.  Capacity is right at 1900 passengers and 842 crew.  We only had about 1200 on board for most of the trip.  Made it very nice for us.  There are 3 sister ships, the Oosterdam, the Westerdam and the Noordam.  Each ship translates into a direction of the compass.  Zuider is Dutch for south.  The Zuiderdam is 936 feet long and has a width of 105.8 feet.  She has 11 decks.  She draws 25 feet in the water, and there were times in the Amazon and a few other places where we were only a meter or so from the bottom. Top speed is 24 knots.  There are two main places to eat, the Lido and the Main dining room,... also a couple of specialty restaurants should you wish to pay ext...
Read more

Gorgeous but Tortuous Grenada!

Image
  Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024   St. George, Grenada is where we parked our boat on this stop.   It is the capital of Grenada and the largest city.   7,500 or so call it home.   All of Grenada has about 125,000 folks. They are celebrating their 50th year of Independence on February 7th, 2024!  There were flags all over town!  Time to party! Y’all remember Grenada?   Back in the 70’s, we “attacked” the island.   I think we did so on the guise of keeping our students there safe.  Safer and more accurate to say that we were not going to let it become a communist government while they were deciding what kind of regime to become.  More on that a little later. Our excursion this day was to repeatedly get into a small bus and drive around to be told of the history here.    What this fort was or that one, etc.   Seems every time a country overtakes another one they feel a need to build a fort to give the next gro...
Read more

HoHo Bus - Honolulu, Hawaii !!!!!!

Image
Thursday, February 8, 2024 A place where you cannot take a bad picture!   I am petitioning the federal government to move Hawaii closer to Tennessee so that we can all enjoy it more!   What a beautiful place!!   Today is the island of Oahu and more specifically, Honolulu.   Home of Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach, The North Shore and so many other wonderful places to enjoy.    Trouble is that we are only here for one day and there are only so many hours in the day.   Not complaining but a little more time here would have been nice.   This is our third time here and so we wanted to do as much as possible but also some new things.    So we didn’t sign up for the Arizona Memorial.    Have been there and it is an iconic tribute to that group we all know as the greatest generation.   Such a deeply moving and sobering remembrance to WWII and the men and women of that time.  Some friends went, and made t...
Read more