Suzhou - Shanghai Liu Garden and city tour Suzhou

Started off today with a short bus ride to Lin Garden in Suzhou.  This city is famous for their gardens.  The gardens here are made up of four components, rocks, trees, water and buildings.  There is also a nice bonsai display in this garden.  There are so many bus tours here it definitely isn't a peaceful morning spent wandering the gardens. 

Andre looked under the bed when we checked out this morning to see if there was anything there, surprise~~

Lin Garden

Lin Garden

Trees just starting to Bud

Part of Bonsai section in Lin Garden

Next we went to lunch in this same city, we ate a very quick lunch so we could walk around and explore on our own a little.  We had seen a pagoda on the drive in that didn't look too far, and also the old stone wall is still intact in places.  We walked over a bridge to the old wall but it had an entrance fee, so passed on that as we had so little time.  Next we walked to the pagoda, it was much closer than it looked, and again an entrance fee but Andre sweet talked his way into letting him step inside the gates just to take a quick picture (of course all using sign language).  We then headed off on the streets beside the pagoda  and walked a little and came across a local market, finally Andre is a very happy man.  We were definitely the minority here, and we saw everything, frogs, turtles (boo), ducks, strange fish, you name it you could get it here.  We explored in here for about 30 minutes, and Andre says his trip is now complete everything else is a bonus.

Many times we saw sweet potatoes for sale at the roadside vendors

Our tour group didn't have to wear matching hats!

Pagoda we walked to, unfortunately  no time to visit

Found a real Chinese market, Andre is happy!

Lady waiting outside the bus to try to make a sale, purse with 5 purses in 1, $2.00, Yes it is silk, or maybe polyester that feels like silk?

After this back on the bus for a 2 hour bus ride back to Shanghai.  They drop us off right on  Nanjing Road, the pedestrian shopping street and give us 1.5 hours for exploring/shopping on our own.  We walked down as far as the peoples square, then back around, popping into a few stores to look around a little.  The pharmacies are very interesting, nothing like you would see at home.  Lots of people out on the street trying to get you to go back and look at their fake purses and watches.  I found a little tea shop off the main street, bought some tea, probably paid too much but my shopping is now done (I think!)

We hit the Shanghai traffic

Lottery booth

Little shop where we bought some tea

Tonight after supper we went to the Shanghai Acrobat show, fantastic.  This is as good as any Cirque du Soleil show we have seen, and much better than the one in Mexico.  We loved it, though I did watch a good part of the show through my fingers, I hate it when they are way up in the air withough any safety harness!  Back to the hotel and saw some of the beautiful lights of the city, unfortunately got to our room just after 10PM so missed the light show which ends at 10, too bad as we have a great view of the downtown skyscrapers from our room on the 29 floor.

Amazing Shanghai Acrobat show

A little side note on our bus driver for this part of the trip, we knew right from when he picked us up at the airport 2 days ago it would be interesting when he backed into the car parked behind us.  Well, he loves his horn, seems like every time he is going to pass someone he beeps the horn.  He will also do a U turn anywhere, stopping all traffic.  On the drive to Shanghai yesterday he missed our exit on the highway, put the brakes on and backed up on the highway, yikes!  Well tomorrow is our last day for him driving us around, hopefully he isn't the one driving us back to the airport!