Tomb Cleaning Day fell on a Tuesday, so much of Shanghai, including Holm had a four-day weekend. We decided to take a day trip to the town of Suzhou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site about an hour from Shanghai.
After much angst and hassle, we were able to purchase our train tickets the day before (It's hard work if you're not Chinese and the ticket agents don't speak English. Thankfully, a bilingual couple in the line gave us a hand.) The train, although not a MagLev, seemed to move just as quickly, and it was really cool-looking.
Again, we passed miles of apartment complexes.
And miles of greenhouses...
It was such a smoggy and hot day.
Holm had traveled to Suzhou the night before to join friends, so Allen and I were on our own. We didn't get into a taxi at the train station because we couldn't have communicated with the driver as to our destination, so we took a long, hot walk to downtown. Thankful to have found this colorful, friendly vendor with cold bottled water along the way.
Love this pedicabs, ubiquitous all over Suzhou.
High season for cherry blossoms.
Historic pagoda, part of a monastery.
We visited a highly touted silk museum, which turned out to be all fake stuff and meh...
But this loom!!! I found this amazingly fascinating and wondrous in its complexity, technology, and cleverness.
Then downtown to meet Holm and friends. The market streets were lively and full of practical foods. I've never seen bamboo being prepped for sale, but this guy was hard at it, and a popular vendor.
I've grown loofah plants, have scrubbed in the shower with the dried seed pods, but have never seen it as a foodstuff. But it is!! Here's braised "luffah."
Fresh fish for sale.
We caught up with Holm and gang for...what else?...dumplings!
(l-r) Ukranian Marianna, her visiting and jetlagged sister, and Greg, Holm's British friend.
Me and the Ukranian beauties.
Off to find a temple, for which Suzhou is famous, to visit. Streets were so crowded because of the holiday weekend.
I don't think I've ever been to any museum anywhere that was so crowded (with the exception of the crowd in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre).
Was impressed at the size of the bonsai garden, neat to see this still in dormancy.
And found such pleasure at seeing these beautiful rocks-on-pedestal displays.
