Citadines Suzhou Xinghai

... train is being built between Shanghai and Beijing. It will cover the 1100 miles in 4 hours and will be quite an impressive structure. New freeways were being built all over as well. <br><br>Joe explained that 30 years ago, nothing was there except rice paddies. The city and the country have really changed since they opened their doors to the rest of the world in the 1980s. <br><br>It&#8217;s nice to have free internet in our Holiday Inn hotel!

Our school day begins early at 7:30am. It takes us about 15 minutes to ride to school. The last kilometer of our morning bike commute takes us down a wonderful neighborhood street we have come to know as Sesame Street. Each morning and afternoon, as we ride to and from school, we watch in wonder as the people of the neighborhood go about their everyday lives on the street. Sesame Street is a narrow 2-lane street. On ...

... we find a group practising Tai Chi. It is so graceful and they make it look so easy although I am sure it is not. There are more fish ponds, walkways, pavilions, seats and picnickers. The sound of more music leads us to an outdoor version of Strictly Come Dancing. OK, maybe not, but the dancers are extremely proficient at the nifty foot-work. From what we can see anyone can join in but we decide that we might need longer to learn the steps ...

... go back to their rooms to sleep(you can see a lot of clothing hanging outside the dorm room windows in the pictures below. That's because there are only washing machines in China, no dryers. So even Lois and I have to hang up all of our clothes after we wash them. Should be interesting this winter). Chinese people love to sleep, and their super good at it. They sleep anywhere and everywhere they can. Whenever we ride the bus at least every third person ...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!! I'm dressing up *s * pir*te / cr*cked out gypsy loh*n, it's pretty legend*ry. Tonight were going to Pulp Fiction, who *re ridiculously nice *nd giving free beer to everyone who is dressed up. It should get f*irly rowdy. App*rently none of the chinese dress up so it's b*sic*lly drunk exp*ts flooding b*r street cre*ting *ll sorts of shen*n****ns. <br>H*ve *n *wesome h*lloween!!! <br>-B

... I bought a few things, funny story there. After all of that we went to our hotel and that was the end of the first day, I mean for tours. Then we went out and just saw the town, that was pretty cool. It's crazy, but KFC is everywhere here. I mean like everyother block kind of thing, ****ing disgusting. we woke up early and headed out for our next town, there we saw a famous lake(it's on their $1 bill). Then we went to a park thing that is popular for the whole pre-arranged ...

Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya, <br> <br>As usual upon awakening I had still to decide where to go next. <br> <br>After chatting to Amigo I decided to head to the water city of Suzhou. A damn fair sized city with around 5,800,000 people. After my mornings ElcheapO coffee hit I said goodbye to the happy staff who informed me that my bus station was only about two hundred meters ...

... could visit it. But the Gift shop is beyond reach for not only most Chinese, but many Westerners, too. The museum sells expensive replicas and furniture. There are some books, which are priced similar to a Barnes and Noble, but nothing piques my interest enough. And I know I would have a difficult time justifying the replica Qing chair on my travel voucher to Juan Castillo so I don't buy anything -- LOL. We only see about half of the ...

Well here we are in Shanghai, we made it on the plane with some creative packing and a LOT of hand luggage, whoever said take half the clothes and twice the money was certainly right - I just wish I had of listened!! We survived the flight, thank god I had those extra seats to lay down on, or my back would have been very, very sore, as it was poor Justin had to sit the whole way with my feet up on him! Shanghai is not quite what we expected ...

... place is amazing, it was the first western hotel in china, Ulysses S. Grant, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russel &amp; Charlie Chaplin were just a few to have stayed there. It was where the first electric lightbulb was seen in china, lots of history. Theyve converted a portion of it into dorm rooms with cots, which we share with about 5 other girls, but its clean, and airconditioned. Were making travel plans now for ...