Blogs from Suzhou, Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 7

Dear Friend, I am home again. It is snowing. It is not the silent snow of depth or the kind of snow that has fallen during the night muffling the world outside. It is the snow that includes you in its floating. Gentle snow flakes land on my upturned hand. I wait. It is not as exciting as ‘the first snow’ but it envelopes me, just the same. I see the crystallized formation of the flakes as I once did when they rested on my duffle coat as a child. I remember looking in awe at them then as I do now, many years later. I am tired. So many practical things achieved, so many still to do. My neighbour woke me with her return home at 1.30am, scolding her puppy and screaming at it in ... read more

Ely and I stayed up all night, the night before our 18-hour jaunt to the Middle Kingdom. This strategy makes the acclimation process much easier, and was aided by the fact that travel bug had been steadily building in our veins, sending off excited endorphins that inhibited sleep. Also aided by the fact that we chose not to pack until the night before. Very non-customary of me. Our trip started of terribly. We failed to amend Ely’s passport. This isn’t a problem when traveling to Tijuana, but Communist China doesn’t like when your passport name and airline ticket name don’t match. After 45 minutes of waiting, the ticketor performed some sort of miracle—possibly illegal albeit—and re-ticketed Ely under her maiden name. We took off our wedding rings and proceeded through the gates. Our friends, Rick and ... read more

Today has been a travel day so no photos to publish specific to today - just thought I would post a couple of general photos for interest. We left our Guilin hotel at 9.15, an hours drive to the airport (we had to drive a fair way out of town to get away from all the mountains) Our flight was on time and we arrived at Pudong airport in Shanghai just after lunch. Then it was an interesting 2.5 hour drive to Suzhou, through the outskirts of Shanghai - will talk more about Shanghai tomorrow as we go back there after a one night stay here. After checking in we had time for relaxing bath and then it was off to dinner and a walk around the streets of Suzhou - the city has a lot ... read more

Ce matin je pars pour une excursion d'une journée à Suzhou. Mon nouveau couple d'amis chinois m'avait aidé à acheter les billets de train hier alors je n'ai pas eu à me casser la tête à mimer ce que je voulais. Suzhou est en fait une banlieue de Shanghai de 5.7 million d'habitants (ils diraient probablement que Montréal est un village si 5.7 million est une banlieue!). Je prend tôt ce matin un train faisant le trajet de 90 kilomètres entre Shanghai et Suzhou en 25 minutes. (le tout à 300km/h). Suzhou possède de nombreux jardins renommés et plusieurs sont classés par l'UNESCO. Je décide d'en visiter seulement un et de choisir son plus connu, soit le jardin de l'humble administrateur. Quelle erreur!!! Le jardin était évidemment magnifique mais était aussi extremement bondé! Je n'avais pas ... read more

Vrijdag 30 juli, de laatste dag van de Chinareis voor de “zoekenden” 7.30u ( toch even uitgeslapen ) lekker en gezellig ontbeten ten huize van Berna en Wim . Rond 8.45u gingen we op stap naar het theemuseum: Hangzhou is de streek waar de longjingthee wordt geteeld. In de propvolle bus K4 stonden en hingen we tussen de Chinezen Nadien was het even wachten op bus Y3 die 13 haltes verder stopt aan het theemuseum .Werken aan weerszijden van de straat, bouwmaterialen en geparkeerde auto’s belemmerden het verkeer zodat politie en security moesten ingrijpen . De toegang tot het museum is gratis zodat de jonge mensen ook eens een extraatje kregen . De lekkere smaak ven de longjingthee is te danken aan de ligging van de theeplantages. De planten vragen een zure bodem en een vanuit ... read more