Wto Hotel Suzhou

... a menu already!!!! Drives me CRAZY!!!!

Today I wore two pairs of socks, boots, long johns, pants, two long
sleeve shirts, a fleece coat, a scarf and a long lululemon raincoat. I
wore my gloves and mitts with a hat on our bike ride to school, but
took those off for class. I didn't take any of my other clothing items
off for the majority of the day. Oh, I suppose that is not entirely
true.

I have been the door nazi today. The students don't really
think ...

Suzhou is home to China's famous gardens, where poets, artists and philosophers spent their time during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Ah, the good old days. Sitting around drinking tea, shooting the ****, and attaining moral perfection.

But the Chinese have no trouble moving on. Like most of the North, the history of this city seems covered in a thin layer of dust kicked up by progress. What remains seems to exist exclusively for tourist dollars, evidenced by whole towns in ...

... the outer condition of their homes. In fact, the only time many of them are painted or repaired is when the building it first completed. After that, no attention is paid to it. However, the interior is often the rival of 5 star hotels, even out in the more rural areas. It’s just a different mindset.

The juxtaposition between the new construction and the rubble in the same city block is something to behold

A new ...

... to my luggage and hopped off and it was busy full of people. You need to walk for about 10mins in crowded day to reach the gate. At the gate I saw the guide of Suzhou Mr. Shang. He was a nice guy who speaks English very well and remind of of Europe accent mates. Well, we went to the private car and the driver was great too. I like this city it's streets is full of tress white painted and so many white rocks. It's so peaceful and the weather was cloudy but not rainy. I ...

... area I found the source. It was a beautiful girl wearing Tang Dynasty style clothing and playing the pipa. There were musicians located throughout the garden and they were there simply for the enjoyment of visitors. Some were singing, some were just playing, and some were duets. It really made the garden come alive. The cool thing about these Suzhou gardens is that they are designed ...

... age order with the oldest person first) to pray, they kowtowed three times and then again three times whilst kneeling on a cushion also facing north. I'm not exactly sure of the significance of the number three, it might refer to past, present, future. On the actual Eve, I was with my friend's family, about seven people. Every child gets given red packets with money inside. They are expected to greet their elders with auspicious phrases. Yu Hua's mother and grandmother both gave me ...

... and gingerly) got up to go to the bathroom. It was awful. I am still unsure whether the malady was fish ball/animal claw/cockroach induced Food Poisoning or if it was, in fact, a horrid case of the flu. But my good friends nursed me, I was able to watch some of those pirated DVD's I've been buying the past few months, sleep incessantly, and on the fifth day I woke up and felt like I had been reincarnated. Now it's time to rock my last two weeks in China.

... with the AC off days. Judy decided to buy a simple purple electric fan after learning that the forecast of the "weather bureau" had been inexplicably set at AC off. The rest of the group is still coping, with a simmering anxiety that some health problems may pop up any day now. Weather stayed AC off until last night. The weather bureau decided that the weather should change. When the first breath of cool air blew down from the ventilation grid ...

... we missed out on "The humble administrators garden", which was suitably ostentatious. Also did some other touristy stuff in Suzhou - the Silk Museum (no kidding, big thing here and it was actually quite interesting - did you know every little square centimeter of silk is achieved by boiling a silk lavae to death?), the 9 storey pagoda (very auspicious, but ...