Mercure Suzhou Park

... in Suzhou. After entering, we went into the living quarters of the garden. I still can't believe that these gardens were built for a single person. This garden was built during the Ming Dynasty by a group of monks, in honor of their teacher. What makes the garden so special are its rockeries. Visitor's entering the garden first must pass through the rockeries. The rockeries ...

732 years after Marco Polo, I finally reached Suzhou. I wonder if ole Marco would be upset if he knew that you can now fly to China in 10 hours. Thinking about all the trouble he had to take, all the dust he had to eat. But I imagine he'd just shrug his shoulders and refuse to step on board of an aeroplane, knowing how many wonderful encounters he'd miss along the way. In any case, Marco Polo would be a guy I'd love to sit down with, over a cup ...

... with a small bamboo forest, some tea fields, waterfalls, Buddhist temples, a leaning pagoda and trees decorating every other area. Suzhou is rich with over 2500 years of fascinating history, and on most days I feel so overwhelmed with the honking horns/pungent smells/complex language that I feel a disconnect with the history. Tiger Hill allows one the quietude to contemplate over 2500 years of humanity. And the elevation to enjoy a beautiful sunset.

... so many i my life!)...Ave of Stars has loads of Chinese filmstars' handprints and name plaques on the floor (like in Holywood or wherever!)...felt like a right geek snapping away at Jet Li's, Jackie Chan's and Bruce Lee's handprints but it had to be done...pretty cool! Then met up with the rest of my tour group for our last night together....went to Temple Street night market to a street restaurant that looked so dodgy but ...

... in bed but I'm in Shanghai and one can not allow a ripper of a hangover stop them from placing one sandal before the other and venturing out into the new world. I met up with Daniel and Alexa and we slowly made our way down towards Nanjing Road in search of food. We headed into a department store and found a nice little cafe. Lunch was eaten at a slow pace by Daniel and I and ...

Hello again. I'm still alive and well. Sorry for the delay - it's been a combination of procrastination, being "busy", and losing my internet connection for a little while there. But, anyways, there's a lot to cover, so let's get started. Last Thursday, I went to the Shanghai Aquarium with my cousin and his kids. The place wasn't too big, but we had a good time. I saw some things I didn't recognize. One was a giant salamander, but I don't know ...

... the sales staff in the jacket store came over to help me look up the word that described the material. I started off on a false lead under "dang," but then they saw my error and chimed in "fang, fang" sort of like the audience does on the price is right. I looked under "fang" and eventually found the word. 'Imitation.' Imitation what? They all said the next word just like a tv audience cheering on this lucky contestant, and I found it ...

From the beginning of our trip we planned to see China on a tour. We didn't know anyone who had traveled it on their own and we thought our mom might join us for this part of the trip. As the time got closer, however, we started to add up the price of tours and thought they sounded well above our budget (even the "budget tours"). Mom decided to come to New Zealand instead. We planned this trip so far without a tour guide - what's so scary about ...

... is part of the grand hyatt hotel (we're talking 5 star luxury baby) and on the 87th floor, it's called cloud 9 and it's the funkiest bar that we've ever been to, with prices to match! As this is a trip of contrasts (and we couldn't afford more than 2 rounds in cloud 9), we headed over to Maomong road and stumbled on a sports bar, where alex got to lose his powers of conversation watching everton v liverpool and chelsea v charlton (get in), while ...

... but rather a question of how many? How many times will I be bitten tonight? It is one of the hardships faced by travelers but is has not been enough to dull my experiences here. Life in summer camp has been great and a nice break from the lonely nights I spent in Shanghai not being able to communicate with anyone. In exchange for room and board, I have taught a couple of lessons in English, showed the kids how to make French toast, and chaperoned their field trips to the local ...