Suzhou Today

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Finally... internet access and time to catch up

Day 1.. Sat ... arrived in Bejing very tired and weary around 12.30pm Saturday. (2.30 pm Brisbane time) after leaving Sydney at 7.45pm the night before. Hotel at Beijing was nice, traffic unbelievable, don't move very fast in cars. The first afternoon we wandered not far from the hotel and found "Pizza Hut". Should have known it would not have taken Glenn too long to find a pizza. We managed to actually order one and pay for it without saying one word in chinese, and the young man serving us not speaking any English. Quite funny really. Pizza was similar but menu is very different... lots more pastas on offer, Looks very popular over here.

Day 2 - Sunday ... We went to Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square today (day 2 and 3 were reversed). Raining all day. Not ideal to be outdoors and temperature down to 13-15 degrees. Amazing to see and find it quite hard to believe that we are actually here seeing all these things which are so famous and steeped in history. Fantastic. Food ...obviously all chinese and "different". Breakfast is nice though plenty of variety(just could be hotter)

Day 3 - Monday .. Went to Jade factory, Great wall (again unbelievable)... and did not make it to the top but did my best. Legs will never be the same. Visited a copper vase factory as well... very touristy. Bus loads of all nationalities. After the great wall they took us for a foot massage and then proceeded to read our palms and tell us what illnesses we had and sell us chinese herbs which will cure everything. Over $1000 to cure Glenns but we decided to opt out of this one and let nature take its course. Very pushy sales pitch though. But got to say the foot massage was excellent. Feet felt great but rest of body was a right off.

Today we flew from Beijing to Shanghai. Was not overally impressed with Beijing so glad to move on. Flew out and arrived at 11.30pm at hotel in Shanghai.

Day 4 - Tuesday ... First impressions of Shanghai. Hotel 10/10. Food 10/10. Nice hot breakfast, lovely room. Sorry to be only spending a day here but will be back in a few days. We did the Grand Canal cruise and visited a local market. Local foods.... frogs, eels, and other delicacies.... the smells not good. Tried some local bread (similar to Naan bread and crumbed chicken (I think) ... quite tasty. Local chinese are quite taken with westerners and are not shy to take photos with you. We have both had photos with our new found "chinese friends". Very funny. Also visited the Silk factory. Quite interesting but again very touristy.



Day 5 - Wednesday - We have bussed to Suzhou from Shanghai. We have visited the Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou. Lovely and very peaceful. Have also done a cruise on man made lake. We were to go to a chinese production tonight but have been on the go for the last five days and totally exhausted so staying in and saving energy for tomorrow. So far we are really enjoying the trip (albeit are really tight schedule).



Sorry to everyone if you have been checking earlier but wifi is limited and we are not in one place very long. Taking lots of photos and hopefully will remember what they are all about when we get back.

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