Ugh! 6 a.m. on the bus this morning. Left Beijing on flight to Shanghai. Tough to leave the city and our tour guides and bus drivers – we feel they have become our friends. But on to new adventures.
After landing in Shanghai, we met our new friends, tour guides Jacky and JJ. They say it is common these days to adopt English names. And they are just as fun as our former guides. For example, after all the Chinese meals we’ve had lately, served on the little turntable in the middle of the table, Jacky was asked the name of the restaurant we would have dinner at tonite. “The Lazy Susan,” he said!
Actually, not true. To our surprise, after a two hour bus ride from Shanghai to Suzhou, we stopped at our lunch spot – a beer garden! There we had salad, chicken, and potatoes . . . and beer. The place is right next to the Suzhou exhibition center, supposedly the inspiration for the Olympic Birdsnest in Beijing.
LOTS of construction here. Huge multistory buildings up or going up everywhere. Our guide said Suzhou has one of the best industrial parks around, in part because it’s cheaper to build here than in nearby Shanghai. We saw a Caterpillar plant, among others. You can definitely feel the energy. Our guide said they used to wonder if they could ever be successful. They say, “now, nothing is impossible in China.”
This is flatland here. Water everywhere. That’s why it’s appropriate we took a tour of the Grand Canal. It’s the longest and oldest canal in the world, approximately 1,800 kilometers (1,000+ miles). It was started 2,500 years ago and took over 800 years to complete. That’s one of the amazing things about China – its history goes back millennia, not just a couple centuries.
Meanwhile, back on the Canal, we crowded onto boats to see how the water people live. The houses come right down to the water, with steps literally into the Canal. Some have boat landings right into their houses. We also landed and walked a market next to the Canal. The live eels in buckets were a little disconcerting.
We departed there amid the “mosquitos” (peddlers), back to our hotel. If we thot the Crowne Plaza Sun Palace (5 star) was nice, the New City Garden Hotel (4 star) could be even better. Of special interest to most of our crew is the bathroom, with its bidet. When asked, our guide said they are very common here in China, because of so many Japanese visitors, who expect them.
Some of us caught up on e-mail, etc. while others visited a local Chinese massage center. They all raved about it. Others visited the local downtown with more street vendors, including a man selling goldfish from a ten-gallon tank (small bowl part of the deal) from the back of his bicycle!
We all met for dinner at Linliyuan Restaurant. Before we enjoyed another delicious Chinese meal, we paused for a moment of silence to honor the memory of Private Nicholas Cook from Hungry Horse, first Montanan killed in Afghanistan March 7. He gave his life, so that the world could travel and trade with security. Rest in peace.
