New City Garden Suzhou

... with a copy of my itinerary for 11/11 to fly from shanghai to new york city. this is the second time i've given it to the accountant, but i wanted to make sure that everything was ok. this time she looked at the receipt and said this is no good without the boarding pass. i said i haven't taken this flight yet so there would be no boarding pass. she said that i'll have to bring her a new one with a boarding pass.

after several more mins ...

... what's changed? what's remained the same?

lil was telling me that she had a friend in australia that just recently left the states. as a joke, she asked her friend what's changed back home? it's only been a year so how much could have really changed, right?

well her friend tells her that blockbusters don't really exist anymore. like a lot of other stores, they're all closing, and selling their dvds for $1. and you can rent movies at these machines all over the place ...

... refreshing experience in my opinion. I mean, most years i do the routine two family dinners, both a little boring and containing not near enough booze to get me through happy and content. Also you could never play a decent game of Trevors Ass at a family dinner haha. Trev i'm hoping you'll read this because then at least one person will get my joke! But anyways, great night, great company, and great laughs =). 
Happy turkey eating!
-B

... stone boat anchored in it. There were several little pavilions hidden in the corners. The main building of the garden which overlooks the pond and rockery is more magnificent than the rest. The beautifully carved details are covered with gold accents and the name board above it is covered with dragons and gold leaf. The reason that one building is so fancy is because it is where the ...

... is now. The garden is separated into three principal parts, east, central and west. The eastern section has colourful flowers but is of less interest than the other two.

We enjoyed a cruise on the one thousand year old Grand Canal then went to an embroidery workshop and had lunch at a nearby restaurant.

That night we took a taxi to a shopping area and checked out the local shops, found a KFC and had a burger for tea.

... from Shanghai and known as a garden city. The traffic is horrendous and road rules are very limited, there are push bikes, motor bikes and scooters everywhere, helmets not worn and even the babies are taken on the bikes and held by a parent. Enjoyed a walk along the street dodging the bikes parked on the footpaths and taking our lives in our hands when we crossed the road, even when it's on a crossing with the green light.

... they'd ever use a vacuum cleaner. All that for about 18 Euro. Suzhou is famous for gardens and today I was a good tourist and went to see a few, but if you saw one, you've seen them all. For lunch I accidentally ordered 24 dumplings, and the second problem is that they were so yummy. Filled with minced meat and my sweet beloved koriander leaves. Just couldn't decide which one of the 24 not to eat and now I walk through town like a stuffed goose.

... Hill, Suzhou's number one tourist site. A famous Song Dynasty poet, Su Shi said, 'It is a lifelong pity if having visited Suzhou you did not visit Tiger Hill.' I don't think it could be said any better. Tiger Hill consists of three acres of gardens, tea fields, temples, and other historical sites and a gorgeous leaning pagoda. The pagoda is atop a manmade hill in which King He Lu is buried. It was aptly named after a white tiger was found sitting ...

... shop on the way to the Taco Bell Grande where we stopped in and got hard sleepers on the train to Chongqing at South Shanghai Terminal (Shanghai terminal had no such train going to Chongqing, so we'd originally planned on hitting Chengdu and pandas). We paid about 485 Yuan (=64 dollars) for our tickets, not bad considering going to Chengdu would have been pretty close to that and we'd have had to get to Chongqing after that anyway. After our amazing lunch we ...

... from filling up with smoke. Smoke after smoke, the guards lit their chain of cigarettes as I worked on my vocabulary and pronunciation sounding out the tones over and over again. Chinese simple grammar is fairly easy to learn. However, it is the tones that make it hard for foreigners like us to master the language. There are four tones that must be learned all sounding the same but differing in their overall pitch and when the tone is stressed. Regardless, being immersed in the ...