Shuzhou

Tuesday morning we were up early and left the hotel around 7 am to catch a morning flight to Shanghai. The semantics of moving a large group, there are approx 80 or two bus loads, must be a nightmare. To get them all checked in and checked out, luggage and all is quite some effort. From the Shanghai airport we had a 3-3.5 hour bus trip to a city called Shuzhou (sue jo) which has been describe as paradise on earth. It is only a small village of around 2 million people and very green with lots of mature trees in the street and gardens. It is referred to by two other names, one is the garden city and the other as Venice of the East due to its canals and a large area of the city being covered in water. 

The traditional architecture is low rise housing all painted in black and white. The walls are whitewashed and the roofs are black. It was very pretty with the water, trees and black & white housing and relatively easy traffic. Our first stop was at the Lingering gardens which is considered as one of the finest gardens in China. It was constructed by a retired official, Xu tai, in 1593 who lived there and wanted to create a peaceful environment from the busy life outside the walls. There were many different parts of this garden which is over 23,000 sq metres and it was like walking through a labyrinth of buildings and gardens so I lost all sense of direction. Everything was planted for a reason and it took our guide a couple of hours to lead us through to explain all the different parts. By the time we had finished they had locked the gates! We had to wait to be let out again. They also had a large bonsai garden and it was peaceful once everyone had left. One guy said he loved bonsai and I thought unkindly to myself no wonder because you married one (he has a very short, fat wife).

The last visit for the day was to a silk embroidery art gallery. Here they embroidered the finest strands of silk approx 1/5 size of human hair and created these amazing pictures. The needles were so fine I have no idea how they could even see the eye to thread the damn things. They created double sided pictures where either there would be the same picture on both sides or even a different picture on the other side or same picture but different colours. Some of these pictures are worth thousands of dollars as it can take the artist up to a year - 18 months, depending on the picture. Of course out the back was the obligatory shop where you got the chance to buy a picture for yourself or maybe something cheaper as they have many different products, something for everyone.

The next morning we took a trip on a long narrow boat down the Grand Canal to see the houses from the water. The silks and goods use to travel down these waterways all the way to Xian on their way to the Silk Road to Europe. Just like Venice, the canals are also their main road of transport as the road is so narrow, only wide enough for a bicycle so they literally walk out their back door and hop in a boat. We understood why our boat was narrow when we got to the canals and at some points we weren't far away from the walls of the houses. So close in fact that we could see in their windows and doorways and could tell how big the people were who lived inside by the size of their knickers hanging on bamboo clothes Lines! I would have loved to have strolled down the streets of this place, it looked very interesting with a few shops and cafes beside the canals and narrow winding streets. Unfortunately it wasn't in the itinerary, instead we got to spend 3 hours free time that afternoon in a very uninteresting part of the next town we visited an hour and a half away. 

Before we drove there we visited a silk spinning mill to learn how silk is spun from the silk worm cocoons. They are very proud of their silk worms, not only do they put the fat little suckers on a stick and eat them, they take their silk from them first. If you unravel one cocoon it reveals approx 1600-1700 meters of silk thread. According to the people from this mill, a Thai silk worm only produces around 200 metres of thread. This means more joins in the fabric I guess. Apparently the silk worm was discovered around 4000 years ago when a woman was having a cup of tea in the garden and one fell into her cup. Maybe take that story with a grain of salt.  Anyway, they had this machine that had like a gutter running underneath some spindles. The cocoons were in this gutter which was full of water. The water served to soften the thread as it was hardened by the bugs saliva then it was threaded up the machine and the spindles spun around, unwinding the cocoon. From there it went to another section to be stretched then I wasn't really paying attention as my eye caught the shop! The silk here was such a beautiful quality and so soft and light as air. They sold gorgeous bedding, silk sheets, duvets covers etc. I was so tempted to buy but as Jon reminded me, think what the cat would do to that and at $900 I wasn't going to risk it. We had lunch here, or at least some of us did as Jon wandered away followed by Malcolm and Roger who managed to find their own place which didn't serve boiled cabbage and soap broth, a common dish we have had every day.

Silk Cocoons

Threads coming from the silk cocoon

I can't say I'm fond of the food, the most I could say of any dish is its not bad but nowhere near as delicious as Thai food. Only another week of it to go.

Wuxi & Hangzhou

So the next town we drove to that afternoon was Wuxi (oooo she) which is one of the oldest cities in China with more than 3000 years of history. It is about 128 kms from Shanghai and a little bigger than Suzhou at 6 million people. The name means 'no tin".

The hotel was the best so far, large rooms with a separate lounge area but not in a great part of town. We managed to find a Carrefour which kept us amused and sold wonderful custard tarts. After our 3 hours free time we where taken to the old part of town called Nanchang St where old meets new. It was a pedestrian street with red lanterns hanging in the trees, old buildings with a modern fit out of restaurants, bars, cafes and shops that ran alongside a canal. It was a warm, balmy evening and just great to take a stroll down, check out the shops then we stopped at a German restaurant, had dinner outside and watched the world go by, such a great experience.

On Thursday we were off to the fresh water pearl farm. The pearls are farmed on the lake that Wuxi is built around, lake Tai, as it has ideal conditions for oyster farming. The lake is really large, around the size of Hong Kong but only 2 metres deep so the sunlight can go to the bottom and happy little oysters can do their thing with the pearls. It was of course another exercise in the extraction of money from tourist wallets and it seem to work quite well. We had a 15 min talk on why their pearls were the best and the different products they made from them besides jewellery such as face creams, pills and the elixir of life from crushed pearls. Then there was the showroom. With some beautiful jewellery and looking very classy and up market. Go into the toilets and the only sit down one was used as a broom closet and out the front reception foyer behind the desk was thick with dust, cigarettes all over the floor and a tangle of old and broken office equipment on the desk behind the counter. A total contrast to the lovely showroom.

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Lake Tai

After a short stroll around the park on the lake which looked fairly uninspiring we were back on the bus heading for Hangzhou (hung joe) described by Marco Polo as the most beautiful and magnificent city in the world. I'm not sure when the last time Marco was there but I think it may have changed since his time even tho I would agree it was a lovely city.

It's only slightly larger than Wuxi, at 8 million people but felt a lot bigger with big spaghetti junctions on the motorway and a huge river to cross. An unusual phenomenon occurs in the is city once a year on mid autumn day. A huge tidal wave, sometimes as high as 20 metres, comes roaring down the river. People often come to see the tidal wave but one year it was larger than expected and wiped out the banks and from what I understand, a few people with it.

We first went to West lake and it was so much prettier than lake Tai. There were large mature trees lining the boulevards, willow trees dripping into the lake and little islands dotted around. The lake was surrounded on three sides with hills and mountains and on the 4th side was the city. A lovely long wooden boat took us for a ride around the lake and at one point the guide asked us to take out a one yuan note. The scenery was exactly how it was on the note, lake, mountains and 5 stupors in the water. It really was extremely picturesque and tranquil. We also had time for a walk around some of the lake and it's lovely gardens before heading off to dinner for another boiled cabbage & soup delight.

Scene on the one Yuan note

Our Hotel

The next morning, by this time it was Friday, we headed for the hills to where they grew tea. It was also picturesque with the manicured tea bushes marching up and over the hills and nice little farmers houses instead of the multilevel high rises with knickers hanging out the balconies blowing in the breeze.  The mission this time was to visit the Dragon Well Tea Plantation which absolutely delighted both Jon and Roger to bits. So here we had a tour of who and how the tea leaves were picked, dried and packaged then about an hour lecture on the benefits of their particular tea, the antioxidant properties and something called polyphenols, a super food that can alleviate  almost any disease known to man. Out came the wallets again with people buying freely and happy to part with hundreds if not thousands of dollars to cure the ills of the world.

The art of pouring tea

With the bus loaded with green tea and lots of polyphenols, we headed back to Shanghai, a drive of around 3 or so hours. As a change for lunch from boiled cabbage and watery soup, they gave us sandwiches, crisps, bananas and a couple of snickers bars which went down very well on the whole bus, in fact both bus loads got it so we were all happy campers.

Shanghai

First stop in Shanghai was the museum which I thought was a funny place to go out of all the great things you could do in this city. It was a very nice museum, mum and I got stuck on the ceramics floor and after studying some of these ceramics that were over 10,000 years old & feeling quite in awe of that fact, we couldn't find our way out as it just kept going on and on. This was just the one floor so we blew our entire allotted time by the time we emerged out the other end. Next we drove to the central city for a walk around another famous shopping street called Nanjing St and strolled along The Bund which is a mile long broad walk along the big Huangpu river (pu means river). By now it was Friday evening and everyone was out and about walking along the river or just hanging out. There were several weddings going on with the brides having their photos with the backdrop of the river and tall high rises behind. The side we were on was the old side, the streets were lined with colonial architecture of European design. We thought it looked rather like the streets of New York rather than Shanghai. On the other side, East, of the river (east is Dong in Chinese or Pudong with the emphasis on dong) was a different story. There were some of the tallest buildings in the world and some very unusual shaped ones at that. The Shanghai centre building is 620 metres and the third tallest in the world while the World Financial centre was just a mere 490 metres and looked like a handbag handle at the top. There were a couple of buildings that looked like a globe and a needle building with balls (or pearls as the Chinese like to call it) going up the spike. When night fell, all these building lit up like Christmas trees and looked just amazing. It's incredible to think that just a mere 25 years ago that side was just farmlands.

They start driving young over here

A comfy looking pillow

We went and had a coffee at costa coffee, without Jon of course as coffee here costs approx $9 a cup, as we had been hanging out for a good cup of coffee for over a week. Chinese do not do good coffee, then met back with the group to board a boat for the night cruise along the river. It was a very busy river, lots of barges and small boats plus the cruising boats looking at the night lights. It was the best city night scene I have seen in a long time and remarkable in the fact that here we all were in Shanghai, a fact that I have difficulty in believing. I liked this city and thought it was far nicer than Beijing, it has a really nice feel to it and it doesn't a threatening vibe, or at least not in the parts we went to.

Saturday morning was going to be a real treat, we were off on the bullet train for a ride to the airport and back just for the experience. It took 8 mins in the train, the same trip in a bus usually takes at least an hour if the traffic isn't bad. This is the fastest train in the world and top speed is 431 kph. I have been on fast trains before including the bullet train in Japan but they are not a patch on this one. When it got to around 370kph I thought we were starting to go really fast but by the time it hit 400 it felt unbelievable. The countryside was literally zipping past then we hit what I thought was a speed bump. I later realised it was a train going the other way, it passed in about half a second with a sound like a mini explosion. The tracks were also unusual as there weren't any, just two grooves in the concrete with what I guess is the magnetic blocks set into it. To say this ride was thrilling would be underselling it and would be one of my highlights.

They took us to the indoor markets after that to spend the rest of the morning pursuing around the bargains and haggling down the prices which can be quite exhausting. We really hadn't had much time to do shopping as they are busy herding us from one attraction or factory to another so it was nice to have some free time. We went back to the hotel for more free time before we met for the farewell dinner that night. Over half the tour group were going home the next day while we were to go on for our cruise down the Yangtze. We took this opportunity to take mum to the hospital to have her stitches removed. Jon, mum & I caught a cab to the hospital where we had to wait for her name to come up in lights. It looked so funny as everything else was in Chinese until we saw 95 Reid in amongst all the hieroglyphics. Anyway it only took half an hour or so and cost the princely sum of $5 so all a bit of an experience. We caught another cab to the meeting place for dinner, total cab fare for both journeys which would have been over 3/4 of an hour only cost $14, a true bargain. We were a little early for dinner so we took a stroll around the streets, went through a fresh food market which was extremely clean selling fresh fruit & veges along with fish and meat. We got chatting to a Chinese man in there who happened to live in Adelaide and was just visiting his parents. He was delighted to talk to fellow Aussies.

Another boiled cabbage and soup dinner

Sunday morning. Was a bit of a lie in, we didn't have to check out until 9.30am so we had a stroll around the neighbourhood which was extremely poor, very much ghetto area but they had a market on. Once again, even tho it was poor, the streets are very clean, the market was orderly and lots of fresh fruit & veges as well as meat. Usually in Asian markets there are flies hanging around the meat and it all looks unappetising but this looked like a normal market, even the prawns were in buckets and swimming around, very much alive so you can't get fresher than that.