They call Suzhou "The Venice of The East", but we thought it looked more like Amsterdam without all the goodies. It was definitely a cool places with plenty of gardens, temples and pagodas to visit. Europe has there churches castles and China has it's walls, gardens, temples and pagodas. We went to the "Master of the Net's" garden. I reckon they are better to see in the spring and fall when there's more foliage. But we got some cool pictures, nonetheless. After awhile, you start to feel like if you've seen one then you've seen them all. Luckily my father isn't on this trip or we would be seeing them all! :)
Our hostel was situated in a quaint little area away from the hustle and bustle. It was brand new, too...hadn't even opened yet. And we would've gotten a free nights stay if we invited people to stay there, but who was around to invite? On the first night I think it was us and maybe one other room there so it was nice and quiet, except for the dogs barking and waking us up. But overall it was a pleasant retreat.
I lucked out on ordering off a Chinese only menu and got some excellent beef and noodles. And had my first taste of duck being here in China. mmm....delicious! I'd have to say it's a two-way tie between Germany and China on who has the best pork. Well, China puts different flavors to it so I guess Germany takes the Silver.
We took the train to Nanjing today, which was only a two hour train ride. I swear, the trains just keeping getting better and better as we go along. Nanjing is just another big city with a lot to see and do. More that I want to see here than any other place we've been to. Tomorrow we're going to head up to the "Purple Mountain" and hopefully hit some other cool sites. We leave early in the morning on Saturday to Qingdao so we've got a lot on our plates tomorrow.
We'll keep you posted, but for now it's beddy bye bye! (gosh, I'm such a dork!) I take after my big sister so what can I say?!
Oh, and Mel says "hi"...just so you know she's here everytime I type a story. She's just a slower typer than me. ... She's my Editor in Chief.
Okay, we're getting kicked off the comptuer now. There's actually a curfew for the computers here. How lame! It's free so I can't complain.
