Day 251 – Xitang

We checked out of the hotel and got on the bus at 8:30 this morning.  Our destination was the city of Xitang.  It is also a city build with canals through it like Suzhou was.  The ride there took about an hour and a half. 

We walked through part of the old city that was very crowded with all the people still on holiday.  It was pretty hard to get around as a group with the crowds and the very narrow walkways through the city.  David had on his camouflage hat and many of our group were grateful for it, so they could look up and see where our group was supposed to go.  We tried to stay pretty close to the tour guide, so that we didn’t get lost.  Our first destination was the harbor for a boat ride on the canal.

 

The narrow street we walked through to get to the old town of Xitang.

The canals of Xitang.  People live here and most of them seem to run either a shop, restaurant or an inn.

Looks so "romantic," a favorite word of the Chinese.

One of the inns along the canal.  The girl in the green dress was taking a picture of her grandfather on the steps.

On our way up and down the canal, the people were all taking pictures, and many of them were very friendly with us.  We would wave and say, “Hi,” and they would wave back and say the same thing.  It was rather fun.  After going up and down the canal, we were put off at a different place than we got on.  Marvin had arranged for us to have lunch at a small restaurant that wasn’t far from where we got off the boat at.

 

This was some of the food along the street, not what we had for lunch. 

Our boat captain.

These are cormorants, diving birds that they tie the string around their neck and don't let them swallow the fish.  It is a dying skill of the older generation and they just do it for show now.

The meal at the restaurant was arranged quickly, but it was a pretty good meal.  We liked most everything that they made for us.  When we finished the meal, we were given an hour’s free time to wander the streets.  Of course they wanted us to buy things, but we just looked and smiled at lots of babies and posed for pictures with either the babies or people.

 

When they want to mop the floors, they go to the river, dip in their mop in, then go mop the floor.  They also sweep the floors and dump the garbage into the river.  Then there is a person that comes along the river in his boat and dips the floating garbage our of the river.

This man played his erhu for us during our lunch, then passed the hat for tips.  He was good.

When it is wall-to-wall people, this sign was rather ironic.

As we were passing by this food stand, they brought out this mound of white and then carefully placed it in front of the store.  

Then he started carefully cutting into the mound.  You can almost see the little brown balls in the powdery stuff. I don't know if it was sugar or flour.

They quickly boxed them up and had them for sale.  I didn't try any of them though.  Not curious enough to find out what they taste like.

These are steamed dumpling made into little shapes.  They like to do this for the holidays.

Anyone want to eat some octopus?  They would put them on a stick and eat them like lollipops.

When the time was up, we walked back to the bus and then had a two and a half hour ride to the airport/train station near Shanghai.  They placed the two in the same area.  We thought it was a smart idea, because the others had flights to catch, and the Pace’s and we were taking the train back to Jinan. 

We were there two hours before our train left, so we had to try and find a place to sit.  That was a real trick.  You stood around and as soon as someone stood up to vacate a seat, you sat down, and you didn’t dare get up, because it wouldn’t be there when you got back.  There were a lot of people sitting on suitcases and just on the floor, too.

We bought a little supper from McDonald’s, and then I was able to sit and put my leg up.  When it was time for the train to leave, we got in the long line and made our way to our seats.  Shanghai is the origin of this high-speed train, so we had time to find our seats and get settled before we left.

The five-hour train ride put us back to Jinan at 11 p.m.  We still had to take a taxi from there to get home, but we were able to get close to the first of the line to wait for them.  Pace’s got in the taxi with us and it only took us about 25 minutes to get to our campus.  Not bad at all for how far the west train station is from us.

Day 250 – Humble Administrator’s Garden, Tiger Hill, and Lingering Garden

After breakfast, we all met in the lobby at 8 a.m. to get the day started.  We drove through heavy traffic to the Humble Administrator’s Garden.  It was so busy there that we had to get off the bus early and walk to the entrance for a little way.  There were already a lot of people there, being this was the other day off for the National Labor Day Holiday.  It was pretty crowded in the garden and we had a hard time getting through in some areas because of the wall-to-wall people.  The gardens were beautiful and there were some interesting stories that guide had to tell us.

Just an interesting old tree in the Humble Administrator's Garden.

One of the beautiful structures.

This was inside the music room of the summer house.

A bridge loaded with people trying to cross it- in both directions.

We stayed in the garden for three hours, but we were pretty much done and tired after being on our feet after one and a half hours, so we went to the museum and found a place to sit (along with several of the others from our group).  We just talked until it was time to go find the guide. 

This pagoda was build by a man that wanted to see into the Humble Administrator's Garden. 

It was a beautiful day to be out.  Just wish we could do some of this travel at times when the crowds aren't so big.

I had stopped to put my leg up for a bit and David was my backrest.  Someone in the group thought it would make a cure picture, so she took it for us.

I have found it interesting that each area seems to have a unique form of transportation that people can rent to get where they want to go.

Silk worms hungrily munching on mulberry leaves.

They have several different methods where they get the worms to grow their cocoons,  This was just one of them.

Here they are unwinding the silk strands from the cocoons.  It takes eight cocoons to make one strand of thread.  They thread the machine with eight cocoon stands and then turn it on.  The wheels at the top are gathering the strings.

The leaning pagoda at the top of Tiger Hill.  

This is us on Tiger Hill.

As we were coming down the hill, this family was taking a photo in a place where David and I were going to take a photo.  His mom wanted a picture of David with her son, so David put his hat on him and then the father snuck into the picture too.  It was such a fun moment. 

 

Caught a cute little guy peeking our of the stone structure that kids were playing in.

We had lunch at a restaurant near the silk factory that we were to visit next. It was an okay lunch, but not the best we have had. 

We had an interesting time at the silk factory, except most of it we had learned on a trip earlier this year in Guilin.  There were some different things there, so it was made interesting for us.  At the end of the tour are all the shops for you to make your way through, but all I was looking for was a place to sit down for a while at.

Driving to Tiger Hill didn’t take as long as the tour guide thought it would, so we got there earlier than he had planned.  That was okay.  We climbed the hill, which wasn’t too bad, and it was interesting and beautiful.  This place was a little less crowded than the Humble Administrator’s Garden, but still had good crowds.

On the way to the Lingering Garden, we passed by a street that is called “Bridal Gown Street.”  There were probably a hundred or so shops that sell bridal gowns and fancy dresses.  That was kind of interesting.

At the Lingering Garden, we saw a bonsai garden that was many hundreds of years old.  This garden was much smaller than the Humble Administrator’s Garden, but it had nice charm to it.  The best part of the garden was that most of the people had gone home by now, so it wasn’t too hard to maneuver in.  When we were trying to get a group photo in, there was one woman who, when the guide was counting down to take the picture, she would do something funny at that moment that would make all of us laugh.  When we were leaving that area of the garden we all thanked her for making the picture fun.

Bonsai trees.

I liked this one where they were growing the bonsai among the stones.

This tree seemed to be one of the oldest ones.

Dinner was on our own tonight.  David and I were too tired to travel around the city with most of the others, so we opted for the KFC that was just steps away from the hotel.  Deanne Hughes came in while we were finishing up and we had a fun time visiting while she ate her dinner.  Now to relax.

Day 249 – West Lake and Suzhou

We had breakfast at the hotel and then took our stuff down to the lobby.  We had about 40 minutes before we had to leave, so we took a quick walk across the street and looked a the Grand Canal.  There was an old woman that smiled at me, and I at her and we tried to have a conversation.  She was really pleasant and I sure wish I could speak more Chinese than I do.

 

People doing Tai Chi in the square across from our hotel.

Barges on the Grand Canal of China.

This man was selling baby bunnies and this little girl was the new proud owner of this one.

We drove in the bus to the West Lake.  It is really beautiful.  We had a boat ride on the lake that was very pleasant. 

One of the structures on the park around West Lake.

Some of the beauty we saw.

More of the park.

Riding the boat around the lake.

West Lake, Hangzhou, China.

After the boat ride, we walked around part of the park that surrounds the lake.  Our guide knew where to take us that was a less crowded part of the park, so we could actually see that park and not just people.

These pigs had to share the road with us during the traffic jam that caused us to be late for Suzhou.

After lunch, we drove to Suzhou.  This drive should only have taken us two hours, but the traffic was horrible and it took almost four.  We were so late that the traditional Chinese garden that we were going to see had to be cancelled because they close at 5 p.m.  As an alternative activity, they took us on a boat ride on the moat that surrounds part of the old city.  At first the canal is pretty wide, but we went down some canals that got pretty narrow.  People were waving at us and shouting “hello.”  It was rather fun that way.

In the canal in Suzhou.  Suzhou is considered the "Venice" of China because of all the canals that the city is built around.

This part of the canal was pretty narrow.

David go his finger in the way of this shot of the narrow canal.

We checked into the hotel and then had dinner at a near by restaurant.  After dinner, we stopped at KFC and had an ice cream cone.  We were both tired, so we just came back to the hotel room and got caught up on email, Facebook and the blog.

Day 248 – Hangzhou

We both had classes to teach this morning.  Mine went okay, not as well as yesterday’s lesson, but okay.  We had lunch when we got home and video chatted with Ammon and Kadie for a little bit. 

At 1:30 p.m., Eva came over with a lady from the University’s Insurance department.  We are not sure that they will pay anything toward my hospital bills, but Eva thought it was worth trying to submit them.  We’ll see.  The lady was missing her right hand and a good part of her left hand, but we were amazed at how capable and nimble she was with what she had!

At 3 p.m., Alan’s mom, Ye Hong, came to pick us up and drove us to the Jinan West Train Station.  The traffic was looking pretty heavy for some time, but finally cleared and we made it in plenty of time for our train. 

We had time to get a little get something to eat before the train got here.  Then when they opened the line for us to go to the platform we had about fifteen minutes before the train got there to wait in line for that.

 

Waiting for the high speed train to come at the West Jinan Station

We were a little dismayed to find that our seats were not next to each other, but the guy who was going to take the seat next to David, was kind enough to switch places with me so we could be together.  When someone else came to claim my seat, then he was also kind to switch seats.  One woman came on and she sat wanted to sit in the seat, so I had to go to where my seat was supposed to be and sit there.  She got off a half hour later, and the guy who was to take that seat next to David again was kind and let us sit together. 

The trip from Jinan to Hangzhou was four hours on the high-speed train.  We had nice seats and when you sit in first-class, you get a bottle of water and a box of cookies. 

Once we arrived at the Hangzhou Station, we were unsure of where to go next.  WE needed to get a taxi to take us to the hotel, but we didn’t know which corridor to go to get the taxi.  Several people were offering to take us places for 100-200 RMB, but we had been told that it should only cost around 30-35, so we found the place where you stand in a long line and get the registered taxis.  Had we known that to begin with, we would only have had to stand in line for about a half-hour.  As it was, we stood in line for an hour to get a taxi.  It was a 20-minute ride to get here from the train station, but we are here in the hotel ready for bed.