Day 12; Suzhou / Shanghai (Wed; 9 Apr)

 Tour 1; Day 8

The schedule for the day was a trip to Suzhou to visit the:

• Humble Administrator's Garden
• Grand Canal
• Embroidery Research Institute 

I should start by saying we stayed at the Central Hotel in Shanghai.  There has to be literally over a 100 hotels in the immediate area of Shanghai that we stayed in. I don't know how this hotel was chosen but in my journal I note that it was "very nice", as have been most of the hotels we've stayed at to date. On to today's adventures...

After I assume was a standard hotel buffet breakfast (no journal notes reference...) we hopped on the tour bus at 8 AM for the ~60 mile ride to Suzhou. The trip took over 2 hrs as the traffic getting out of Shanghai was every bit as crowded as LA rush hour.  I recall thinking, for the umpteenth time, that I was glad I wasn't driving... We made a bio-break pit stop at another "super" rest stop where Stony did his best to keep us corralled and on schedule (read as; his guidance being "There will be time to shop later... "). We arrived in Suzhou about 10 AM and again the bus driver earned his keep maneuvering through town, over a small bridge and into a parking lot that was built when I'm certain no one thought busses would park there. More likely no one thought of busses at all...

The canals and historic districts of Suzhou are known as the "Venice of the East" - so named by Marco Polo (who knew?  I thought Marco Polo was a pool game all this time...) owing to it's criss-crossing canals and stone bridges. Debussing (you know, similar to getting off the deplane...) our first stop was the Humble Administrator's Garden (HAG) that was, yet another, amazing site. The only downside was, once again, the crowds. We were led into the garden and then cut loose with the guidance to meet at the east gate exit in 1 hour. There were several possible paths to the east gate, we chose what we thought was the path of least resistance and managed to cut off half of the garden, which was not our intent. So, when we discovered we had arrived at the east exit in 20 minutes or so we doubled back to pick up what we had missed - most of it! Discovery of the Day: The only thing worse than a very crowded area is trying to walk upstream in a very crowded area, but we managed. As I mentioned, the garden was spectacular with rock, water and specific gardens whose features I hope the pix below capture even a fraction of their beauty. The highlights for me were the bonsai garden and misting ponds.

 After the HAG it was time for lunch. Today it was Spaghetti Factory... not! Chinese banquet was the order of the day, which pegged my surprise-o-meter...not! It was good enough though that I had to remind myself to ease up or a new wardrobe was in the near future (at least new pants) .

Our next event was ride in what I guess is the Chinese version of a tourist gondola. The ride was described as a tour of the Grand Canal (GC), or so I thought I heard. Of course, given that the GC over 1,000 miles long and links Beijing to Hangzhou that would make for a long boat ride. In reality, we motored (as opposed to rowed) down and back a local canal that paralleled Dongbei St. (I think... I'm reconstructing memory here...) out to the Waicheng River (still guessing here...) that, while one could likely get to the GC, did not appear to be large enough to allow barge navigation and was likely not part of the GC proper.  Again, other that we went in a boat, much of this is reconstructed memory and speculation on my part. Once you're in the boat there's not a lot to see except the sides of the canal so I don't have many (read any) pictures while we were on the water. There is one picture of a gondola like the one we rode on, in a canal like the one we went down, so that counts for something... All in all I think a gondola ride in a canal sounded better than it actually was...

After the canal expedition we did some shopping along Dongbei St. where Donna bought a line drawing (that we now have to figure out what's coming down so we can display it - or buy a new house with more wall space...)

Lunch, boat ride and shopping taken care of it was back on the bus to make our way to the Embroidery Research Institute (ERI). I have to say I had low expectations here - Embroidery, Research and Institute just did not seem like 3 words that should appear as a title in my (I like to think) technically oriented mind and it's just fancy sewing, right? Our visit to the ERI once again reinforced for me the mantra "you don't know what you don't know...". We learned what a painstaking and precise process it is to produce the embroidered pieces we saw. There were several embroiders working on several pieces while we toured their work area (I'm sure not doing anything to help their process...). We (read; I) learned that even the most "simple" pieces were, in fact, complex with regard to color mixing of the single strands of silk and the pattern they were building (I can't think of a better word at the moment) that was taken from a drawing, painting or picture. The "simple" products might take as long a month to complete. The (much) more complex, 2-sided pieces typically required 2 people up to a year to finish. We toured a gallery of finished pieces, some of which were for sale and while they seemed expensive at first blush, after seeing what it took to produce them, they were clearly under priced. And while I might still have a bit of an issue with the "research" part of the institute's name, I have a new-found appreciation for silk embroidery and the people who create such beautiful work.

 After the ERI it was back on the bus for the 2+ hour ride to Shanghai. So, all in all we were on the bus ~5 hours today. It didn't seem like time well spent, especially since we drove past Suzhou on our way to Shanghai. On the other hand, I'd guess if there was a better, more efficient way to see what we saw the tour organizers would have organized it as such. Who knows? We got back to the hotel and walked to dinner which I see from my journal was "OK" then we walked for a bit on Nanjing Street in a round-about way back to the hotel. Nanjing St is brightly lit with animated displays and is closed to all but pedestrian traffic (with an exception for a slow moving tram). I'd describe it as Shanhai's version of the strip in Las Vegas or Times Square in NYC, only better in that it has all the sparkle, none of the trash... Back at the hotel for a couple of hours of sleep and then get back at it tomorrow.

 

Outside the Central Hotel in Shanghai...

... and inside

The bus driver maneuvered over this canal using a bridge that was barely wide enough for the bus with sharp turns at both ends. I doubt the bridge engineers ever imagined tour busses using the bridge...

Headed towards the HAG entrance... don't lose sight of the flag...

A map of the HAG. I know, how hard can it be to just keep bearing left?? Apparently too hard for me...

The first picture-worthy thing I saw in the HAG was immediately inside the entrance - a striking rock formation.

The HAG was popular for these period dress photographs

One of the "misting" ponds. It was 80+ F so the mist was mechanically induced, but it was easy to imagine a pond like this on a cool morning with natural mist...

A couple of the many bonsai plants. We probably took over 30 pictures here and that was a subset of the plants on display. One could make a photo album out of just the bonsai plant pictures, we'll settle for a couple here...

I should mention that there was much more than rock formations and bonsai plants...

We managed to not lose anyone in the HAG so it was out the gate and follow the flag to lunch.

Lunch... the lazy susan is not crowded so we're just getting started. By now I was getting very picky as I could feel the weight piling on...

 

 

... but some dishes were harder to pass on than others.  Here, a whole fish presented in a way we'd never seen before (or since...)

A gondola like the one we rode on in a canal like the one we went in...

The line drawing Donna bought in Suzhou

As I read it, it says "Welcome". Oh the part above, as I read it says "Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute of China". Or, if you don't read Chinese, you can zoom into the upper right hand corner... ;-)

Several ERI pictures follow...

Those are bundles of colored silk strands on the back of her chair. Literally thousands of strands from which she picks out single strands and uses one at a time to create the piece she's working on.

This, a 2-person project...

... some of the finished work

Update: I guess I did take some pictures of our trip up the canal... here are some of them...

Our group on the gondola/boat - there was another group as well so the boat probably held 30+ people. Maybe "gondola" is not a particularly apt description...

 

Looking off the stern of the boat (that's the back for us landlubber-types...).

These stone bridges over the canals have been there for hundreds, maybe a thousand years. Not likely anyone ever imagined they'd be used by tour busses...