Up at 4:00 am to catch an early flight to Shanghai. Morning comes early and, without coffee, packing becomes a bit of a challenge when you realize all the stuff you bought doesn’t fit comfortably in your suitcases anymore.
Shanghai’s airport is as modern as Beijing’s new airport. Both are well appointed, western friendly, but, quite frankly, they need to learn coffee…getting anything other than tea is unintuitive to the Chinese but,as with everything else, they learn fast and in all likelihood, will have a Starbucks competitor in a few years.
Thursday was a long day…Joe (Chu) is our new guide and he’s quite a character…very animated. We take a 2 hour bus ride through Shanghai on to Suzhou (pronounced “sue-joe”). What strikes me along the way is the enormous pace of development here. Not Toronto-style fast development where you say “hey look, there goes another condo tower.”..this is hyper development where almost everywhere you turn there is a cluster of 5 to 15 apartment towers are simultaneously under construction.
Once in Suzhou we have lunch (must admit that Chinese food is getting a bit tiring now) and we’re off to Tiger Hill Gardens, a Buddhist hilltop retreat they affectionately call the leaning tower of China. A tall tower on a hilltop, full of contemplative spaces, it exudes tranquility and peace. More photos later…
Later, we embark on a gondola-style boat and tour the canal system that meanders through the older section of Suzhou…obviously not the richer part of town. We stop near a 16th century foot bridge that leads to a traditional street market…food is layer out across small tables, counters, wood slabs. Fish, turtles, eels, catfish, various parts of pigs, cows, chickens…with live chickens slaughtered while-u-wait. There are also live snakes and frogs but they’re not legal so they likely hide them as we approach.
Somewhere there’s a guy chopping snails into a very textured sauce. I didn’t ask my guide what that delicacy was.