Coming Home

On my last day in China I woke up early to catch a flight back to Beijing so that I could get my luggage so that I could fly home.

After arriving in Beijing I went straight to a China Mobile office. A few days before my phone had stopped working and I wanted to find out why. I found out that if you make a call outside of the province that you bought the phone in, you pay a roaming charge so I ran out of money.  I was only in Beijing for a day and I didn’t think it was worth putting more money on my phone, so I passed on it and headed into the city.

I had no place I needed to be, the only thing I had to do was get my luggage from Brandon (the guy I left my luggage with) and that was it. Since my phone wasn’t working I went to a hostel and just chilled there for a bit. I had been talking to Brandon via e-mail and I had an address he gave me earlier. He told me that he would leave my bags with the doorman and that I could just pick them up from him. As it started to rain I had my final meal of dumplings, got in a cab, and headed out to the address I had.

I arrived at the address Brandon gave me. After running from building to building in the rain I finally found the right building and went to find the doorman. The doorman was this old Chinese man who clearly had no idea who I was. He also couldn’t understand Englsih and since my phone was broken/had no more minutes I couldn’t call anyone who actually spoke Chinese to talk to him and tell him what the deal was.

After struggling talking to the doorman we went up to the apartment and knocked on the door. After a few minutes of no one answering a girl opened the door and my heart sank because it clearly wasn’t Brandon’s apartment. Luckily it turned out to be the girlfriend of one of Brandon’s friends. Apparently we weren’t at Brandon’s apartment but at his friend’s apartment. I don’t know how I ended up there but I did. We called Brandon on her phone and we found out that my luggage was at his apartment on the other side of town.

So I hopped in a cab and had the driver race to the other side of town where Brandon lived. When we arrived at his complex it had stopped raining but it was very humid out. I was told that he lived in building 3. The problem was that it was like a freaking maze, I couldn’t find the building. I was running around trying to find the correct building, and sweating profusely because of the stress and the humidity. I ran back out to the cab and asked to use the cab driver’s phone to call Brandon.

After talking to Brandon again I finally figured out where he lived and got my luggage. I rushed back to my cab and had him floor it to the subway station. The last train to the airport left at 11:30 p.m. and I didn’t want to be stranded in Beijing. I arrived at the metro and was running through the halls while schlepping four bags. I got a ticket and made it onto the last train just as the doors were closing.

I arrived at the Beijing International Airport and found an area to settle down. Being caked in sweat from running around, I got ready to spend another night sleeping at the airport. Well, I didn’t really sleep. My flight was at 6:30 in the morning so I decided to just push through and crash on the plane. After a 13 hour flight and a layover in Chicago, I arrived safe and sound in Washington.  I called my Dad to tell him that I have arrived and to pick me up only to be told that there is too much traffic on the road (due to the US Open) and that I should take the metro home.  I could not have thought of a better ending to a long and exhausting trip home.

Looking back on my year in China, I can’t believe I had all the great experiences that I did. I had a great time, learned a lot, and made a lot of great friends. I had a blast writing this blog and I hope that you enjoyed reading it. So this is it, until I travel to another part of the world for a year, take care. Zai jien.

Yangshuo: Day 2

For our second day in Yangshuo we weren’t in a rush to see or do that many things. We knew we wanted to go rock climbing at some point but that was it, so we took it easy throughout the day until we went rock climbing. After waking up late-ish, we wandered around town.

I wanted Jennifer to experience hogwar (fire cupping), so we walked around town and looked for a placed that does traditional Chinese medicine. We finally found a place. Her name was Dr. Lily Li. So once again, I had the hogwar done on my back. I thought it felt good and I’m sure Jennifer enjoyed it too. To tell you the truth I am not sure whether or not Dr. Li was a legit doctor. It’s not that hard to lie about who you are in China (I know from personal experience).

  

After getting the hogwar done, Jennifer and I went shopping. My brother, Danny wanted a traditional Chinese hat, so we bought him one.

After lunch, we met up with our rock climbing instructors. Yangshuo is known worldwide for its rock climbing scene. We had to bike out to the location. After biking for more than 20 minutes, I was beginning to lose faith, but we came out into a clearing and saw where we were going to climb.

We came up to the side of a mountain; the way it worked was that there were different courses up the mountain. And depending on where you climbed, the harder it was. We did the easy route first. Jennifer wanted to go first. She had done some rock climbing in Thailand and had more experience than me, so she was going to show me the ropes. She got up in no time and then it was my turn.

 

After putting on my harness and my rock climbing shoes, I attacked the mountain. They say to let your legs do most of the work, but I didn’t understand how not to use my arms. I felt that if I didn’t use my arms I would fall off the mountain. So my arms (especially my forearms) got tired quickly. I made it to the top and the view was spectacular.

      

I was only able to do 3½ climbs because my arms got so tired, but Jennifer was able to do 5 climbs. She was a rock star. (Ha ha get it, “rock” star. I know, bad joke.) She made fun of me and called me a wimp for not being able to do as many climbs as her. What a shot to my ego.

After rock climbing we made it back to our hostel, got some dinner, and just chilled on the roof of our hostel drinking beers and admiring the view. It was the last day of my trip with Jennifer and we reminisced about all the fun things we did together.

The next day I had to wake up early to catch a flight back to Beijing to get my bags and then catch my flight home. And of course, since it’s me, nothing went according to plan.

Yangshuo: Day 1

Our first day in Yangshuo was very busy. We woke up extra early to watch game 6 of the NBA Finals. I hadn’t been able to watch any of it because we had been traveling. And because of the time difference I had to wake up at 6:30 am.  Thank God it was a good game and worth waking up for.

Many of you might know the Jewish children’s song Amsterdam, Disneyland, Tel Aviv. The song starts off “Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish…” Well the song couldn’t be any truer. Just as the game ended guess who comes in, two Israelis. And according to rule #5 of the Members of the Tribe Handbook, we introduced ourselves to our fellow Jews. It turned out that they were two brothers, Nimrod and Omer, doing some traveling before Omer had to go to the army.

Jennifer and I wanted to do a bike trip, so we decided to meet up with the Israelis later on and rented two bikes. We chose to bike out to the Yulong Bridge (Dragon’s Bridge), about 2 hours away. We were told that you can jump off the bridge into the water. So we thought that would be a cool idea and set out.

We were told to take the back roads to get there because it would be more scenic. This caused us to bike through these small villages along the way.

   

It was a hot day so when we arrived at the bridge I was ready to jump in. Before we left for Yulong Bridge I was told that it was 10 meters high. Not being a master of the metric system, I wasn’t quite sure how high that was. When I stood at the top of the bridge and looked down, I realized that it was actually pretty high. Because of my bungee jumping experience I was too scared to jump off. So I wussed out, and didn’t jump.

 

Although I didn’t jump off the Yulong Bridge the area around it was still very beautiful. It was in the middle of a rice field so Jennifer and I decided to walk through the fields and see what was going on. We ended up seeing these farmers and their water buffalo grazing. It was cool to see.

     

While we were wondering about in the rice fields we saw this guy fishing. What was interesting was that he was fishing with birds. We found out that it was called cormorant fishing. Cormorant fishing is a traditional fishing method in which fishermen use trained cormorants to fish in rivers.  What they do is put rings around the birds’ necks so that when they catch a fish, they won’t swallow it.

    

We headed back to town and met up with the two Israelis once again. We biked out to another spot along the river and just chatted and enjoyed the scenery. When we arrived back at our hostel I realized that my camera had a big crack in it. I didn’t know how it happened but I really wasn’t that upset. I was happy to have had it for as long as I did and for it to have cracked on one of my last days in China, it couldn’t have worked out any better.

   

That night we went out drinking. We went to a hostel with a rooftop bar called Monkey Janes. They had a beer pong table set up. So of course Jennifer and I challenged Omer and Nimrod; USA vs. Israel. Thank God we won. It brought me back to my glory days at College Park.

The way it works at Monkey Janes is that winner stays and challenger buys the beers. So of course Jen and I stayed to play another game. These two Chinese challenged us. A middle aged man and a young girl (who was clearly out of his league but he was clearly drunk and you could tell he was trying to get some).The guy didn’t even shoot the ball, all he did was drink the beer and try to psych us out. The guy was psycho and freaked us out. I don’t know how it happened but we lost.

We spent the rest of the night drinking with the Israelis and a couple of local Chinese guys (who creeped Jen out). It was a fun day and a fun night.

  

Finally, Jennifer and I went back to our hostel to get ready for our final day in China together in which we were going to go rock climbing.

Bamboo Boats

The day after our trip to the rice terraces we woke up early to go to Yangshuo. The way we decided to travel to Yangshuo (which is only a two hour bus ride away) was by taking bamboo boats down the Lijiang River.

We had to take a bus ride 20 minutes outside of Guilin to a place in the river where we were going to get on the rafts. As the rafts pulled up we saw that they weren’t made from bamboo but from PVC pipes. Jennifer and I got on first and took the best seat right in the front. After everyone got onto the boats we took off.

  

The views were absolutely breath taking. Along both sides of the river were these spectacular mountains that are so unique to this region. The closer we got to them, the more we realized how big they really were.

         

Half way down the river, it started to rain. And by rain I mean pour. Luckily we stopped for lunch. But being under a tent with no walls we still got wet. For the first time during our trip we were with other Westerners. So it was nice being able to talk to them and hear about their adventures.

On the back of the 20 yuan bill is a picture of the river and mountains we were rafting down. At one point during our ride down, the driver of the raft told us that this was the place where there photo on the bill was taken. So I pulled out a 20 yuan bill to compare. While I don’t think it was a direct match, it was close enough.

Towards the end of the boat trip we came to Nine Horses Mountain. Nine Horses Mountain is a face of a mountain that due to the discoloration of the rock looks like there are nine horses. In ancient times, Buddhist or Confucius or Daoist monks (I can’t remember which one) would come and stare at this mountain. If they were able to see nine horses then they would be considered masters.

The Chinese have a running joke that you only need to find three to be the President of the United States because when Bill Clinton came to China he was only able to find three. You have to use your imagination to see them. I was able to find six. See how many you can find.

It took most of the day to get down the river, but we finally arrived in Yangshuo which is a very small city located along the river and nestled in between these gorgeous mountains. This marked the beginning of the last leg of our trip.

   

Onto the Rice Terraces

So after getting married in the Yao village we got back on the bus and headed up to see the Longji rice terraces. As we winded our way through the mountains the scenery became more and more beautiful.

The bus dropped us off at about ¾ of the way up the mountain, so we had to climb the rest by foot.

All along the path leading up the mountain to the rice terraces were different stalls with locals selling their goods. If you were lazy you could hire two men to carry you up the mountain while you lounged in a chair. I was thinking about it, but they charged by the pound so it would have gotten a little expensive.

  

Although we sweated all the way up to the top of the mountain, the view was worth it. It was breathtaking.

     

On the way to another peak we saw tourists get attacked by locals who dress up in traditional garb so that you could take a picture with them. They were vicious, pulling at you so that you would take a picture with them. The thing was that once you took a picture with them you had to pay them, another Chinese tourist trap.

The views from the other side of the mountain were just as gorgeous and spectacular.

   

The engineering of these terraces are pretty spectacular. They are built in concentric circles and created so that the water flows from the top to the bottom.

  

A famous dish in Longji is their bamboo rice. The way they do it is they cut a hole in the bamboo and stuff rice inside, they then fire roast it. Wanting to try this local dish, Jennifer and I sat down at a restaurant to try it. The problem was that it takes a long time to cook and we only had 20 minutes until our bus left and we still needed to make it down the mountain.

  

Finally the rice came, we scarfed down the food, which tasted average and hustled down the mountain. Luckily we made it right as everyone was getting onto the bus. Although we got stuck in all of these tourist traps and my fake marriage, it was worth it to see these majestic rice terraces.

I’m Too Young to be Married

The next day we signed up with our hostel to visit the Longji rice terraces. We thought it was going to be an English tour since we signed up with the hostel but as we stepped onto the bus the next morning all we saw were a bunch of Asian faces looking back at us.

The way that these tourist tours get you is that they take you to a side location before you even get to the main place. For example in Beijing if you sign up to go to the Great Wall, they will drop you off at a jade factory for an hour or two before you get to the Wall itself. Well the same thing happened with us. They told us that before we go to the rice terraces we were going to stop at a village and see a show. But it was going to cost us and extra 50 RMB.

Jennifer and I asked if we could do something else while everyone was at the show, but the tour guide said that there was nothing else in the area, so we might as well go.

The village we went to was called the Yao village, because they are the Yao people. What makes the Yao people unique is that the women have really long hair. They cut it once when they get married but before then and after that they never cut their hair. What is also interesting about the Yao people is that it is a female dominated society. The women go out and work in the fields while the men cook, clean, and take care of the household. So for all you hardcore feminist out there, you might want to check this place out.

The Yao people were completely shut off from the rest of society until ’97 when a road was finally built connecting their village to the rest of the world. Now the Yao people cater towards tourism by selling artwork as well as putting on this show.

The moment we arrived in the village we were pestered by the local women to buy their goods. Since we were some of the only Westerners in the group they clung to us more. Jennifer got it worst. They followed Jen around the longest, trying to get her to buy their chachkalahs.

   

We were ushered into a large social hall, took a seat, and waited for the show to start. The Yao women came out and did a few dances and songs. It was semi-interesting/cool but definitely not worth the 50 RMB we paid. After about 3-4 songs, they asked for some volunteers to come up on stage. Not really thinking, I raised my hand to volunteer and since I was a westerner, I was picked right away.

  

Not knowing what I volunteered for, I stood up on stage with the rest of the male participants. They finally told us that we were going to participate in a Yao marriage ceremony. The MC told us that we needed to go backstage and change into appropriate Yao attire for the wedding.

  

After changing into our costumes, we were told that part of the wedding ceremony is an exchange of gifts between the couple. The gifts they wanted us to give them were these silver bracelets that the Yao people made. The problem was that they wanted us to pay for these bracelets.

I became a little pissed. Why would I pay for a bracelet that I was just going to give right back to the person I bought it from? It made no sense. And plus the Chinese people who volunteered, already took all of the cheapest bracelets, so the only ones they had left were the most expensive kind of bracelets. After arguing with the Yao women for a little bit they told me (as well as this Danish guy who also didn’t want to pay for the bracelet) to just go back out and that we could pay them later.

As we all know the first part of any wedding is finding someone to marry. They way you select your wife in the Yao culture is by stepping on her foot. So we all went over to the women who were waiting in the corner and selected our brides. I think (and Jennifer agrees) that I picked the prettiest one to be my wife.

  

The first part of the wedding ceremony is for the man to knead dough. I guess it is to show the women that we can be good stay at home dads. It wasn’t as easy as it seems.

Next we did a circle dance with our brides while the elder women stood around making an outer-circle. As we danced around the elder women would pinch our butts. The pinching of butts for the Yao people is a sign of love. But these weren’t soft love pinches, they really pinched hard.

After that we had to share a drink with our wives. They brought out shots of baijo and we each took two shots. The first was by encircling our arms, sort of the way they do in those cheesy romantic movies. The second one was by putting our arms around each other’s whole body sort of like drinking over their shoulder.

Then we had to sing love songs to our brides. Being put on the spot I wasn’t really sure what to sing. The first song that came to my mind was You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker. I learned while I was teaching that if you are going to get up in front of a group of people and make a fool of yourself; you might as well go all out. So that’s what I did with the song. I looked into my bride’s eyes and sang with all my heart, even adding some movements along the way.

Afterwards came the exchanging of gifts. I gave my bride the silver bracelet (that I hadn’t paid for yet) and she gave me a handbag. What an emasculating gift, but I guess that’s how all the men feel in the Yao village.

Finally to end the ceremony we had to carry our wives off the stage while giving them a piggy-back ride.

  

Once we were backstage my wife started to demand that I pay her. Now that I think back on it, it was our first fight as a married couple. I’ll remember it forever.

One minute after being married we got in a fight; I think that might be a new world record.

I finally told her that I had no money on me. She told me that she would look for me after the show and get the money I owed. So I went back to my seat and watched as the Yao women came back out on stage, did some more singing, and unwove their hair, to show us its true length.

   

It was pretty long. Some women had hair all the way down to their feet. When they were done showing us their hair they started to wrap it around their head so that they wouldn’t trip over it. As the show ended, Jennifer and I made a dash for the exit. (I didn’t want them calling in my debt). As we exited, the Yao women made two rows and as we walked through they pinched everyone’s butt.

To tell you the truth I’m not sure if my marriage will work out. From looks of it, it seemed like my wife really got around. She must have been married 100 times already. Well, c’est la vie. At least I got my money’s worth at the Yao village tourist trap.

Guilin

After a 17 hour overnight train ride we arrived in Guilin without incident. From the moment I stepped off the train and looked around I knew that I liked Guilin. Guilin is a very famous place in China. It is regarded as one of the most beautiful places in China. What makes Guilin so special are the mountains which surround the area. It’s really hard to explain what these mountains look like. They look like individual mini-mountains from far away, but when you get closer you realize they are pretty big. Think of a mix between Jurassic Park and the mountains in the movie Avatar, but not floating and more impressive. This was the view from our hostel’s balcony.

  

Guilin is a very small city, so after Jennifer and I checked into our hostel we bought a map and headed out to walk around. Guilin is sort of like Manhattan in the sense that it’s a little island surround by two rivers. We were able to walk around the whole city in a 2 hour time period.

        

A big attraction for many tourists to Guilin are the twin pagodas that they have. One is the sun pagoda and the other is the moon pagoda. I’m not really sure what they represent but they are just impressive to look at.

  

We followed the rivers around Guilin and saw some more interesting things. We even went to this tiny island that was only accessible by a rickety wire and plank bridge. With no railings and it shaking with each step we took it felt like we were going to fall off at any moment.

  

One thing that I realized about myself is that I have a serious disorder. I am a hoarder. Not one of them weirdoes who keep 10 years worth of newspapers in their house but a different kind. I hoard clothes. I just can’t bring myself to throw out clothes. I still have clothes like Robbie’s Bar Mitzvah Bash from ’95. So I decided to slowly get rid of clothes along the way.

At each place we stopped I would leave some of my clothes behind. I left socks, underwear, shirts, and even shorts. I must say it was a very cathartic process for me to do. It also helped me traveling wise because I had less to carry. Now some lucky traveler has his own March for the Cure ‘97 t-shirt or a new pair of boxers.

Next, we head to the famous rice terraces

Onto Hangzhou

We arrived in Hangzhou and thankfully made it to our hostel without getting lost. The main attraction in Hangzhou is a lake called the West Lake. What is special about Hangzhou’s West Lake is that there is a park surrounding the whole lake. No one can bring in animals or bikes into this area. So people are able to come in, walk around, and enjoy the lake.

     

After we checked in we rented bikes and biked around the entire lake. Every so often we would stop to take pictures or to eat ice cream, which is probably the reason I’m so fat.

      

The next day we rented bikes again and biked out to the National Silk Museum. China is very proud that they developed the technique to cultivate silk. It was very interesting to learn about silk production.

After the silk museum we went to the National Tea Museum. The Chinese are also very proud of their tea. In fact they are a little nuts about it. At the tea museum they invited Jennifer and I to participate in a tea ceremony. For me it was my first tea ceremony but for Jennifer it was already her second.

In China a big scam that is played on tourist is that a Chinese person, who speaks pretty good English, would come up to you and start chatting to you. You (the tourist) get excited that you finally met someone who speaks English. The Chinese person will then ask you if you want to join them at a coffee shop or a tea ceremony and continue talking to them. So you go with them and chat with them but when you ask for the bill you see that you are not only paying an exorbitant amount for your drink but your also paying for the Chinese peoples’ drinks as well.

So on her first day inChina, my sister got caught in the scam and ended up paying over 170 RMB for a tea ceremony.

But the tea ceremony at the tea museum was free (we made sure we asked a number of times because we didn’t want to be scammed like Jen was). We tasted four different kinds of tea. For the last one, the tea leaves opens up into the shape of a flower. It was pretty cool. The problem was, was that I like sugar in my tea and the Chinese don’t put sugar in their tea. They believe it distorts the taste.

  

  

Hangzhou was a really hot and humid place. Think Maryland’s weather during the summer and multiply that by ten. Being Schwarz’s we were shvitzing up a storm. But that afternoon was when it started to pour. Good thing we bought umbrellas in Suzhou.

Earlier in the day my phone broke so once the rain stopped I headed towards China Mobil (China’s national phone company). I had only 15 minutes to sort out my phone before we needed to catch a bus to the train station and the problem was that walking to and from the China Mobil store would have taken me 15 minutes alone. I went anyways hoping to get my phone working. After spending 15 minutes in the store alone and still not getting my phone fixed (because I bought the phone in Hubei province and since I was in a different province they couldn’t help me) I hustled back to the hostel to try and catch the bus to the train station.

On the bus we found out that the train station we needed to go to was on the other side of town and that it would take over and hour to get there. We only had 45 minutes. Jennifer and I were getting really nervous that we would miss our train. (It was an overnight train and only left once a day so we really needed to get on that train). Halfway through the bus ride we had to get off the bus and hail a cab. The problem was that we were in the middle of nowhere. Once we did find a cab it turned out to be the slowest cab I had ever been in. In all my time in China I had never experienced a cab driver drive so slow.

We finally reached the train station with a minute to spare only to find out that the train was delayed. Go figure. After waiting 30 more minutes we got on our train and got ready for an overnight trip to Guilin.

A Day in Nanjing

After taking the bullet train to Nanjing we got in a cab and headed to the hostel. Like I said before, getting lost was an on-going problem during our trip and Nanjing was no exception. In fact Nanjing would be characterized by constantly getting lost.

When looking up the hostel’s address we got two addresses (I guess they moved), so I wrote both down. First we went to the totally wrong address. After getting in a cab again I miss-read the address for the second time. I thought the Hostel’s address was 38 but it was really 83. So it took us longer than expected to reach the hostel.

After putting our bags down we headed out to Mount Zijin. Mount Zijin is where the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum is. Sun Yatsen was a former leader of China who helped overthrow the Qin Dynasty. But of course we got lost again because we got off the bus at the wrong spot. We were still at Mount Zijin but in a different part. So we checked out the area and took a chair lift to the top. (It took a half-an-hour just to make it to the top by chair lift).

  

At the top of the mountain we hiked around. There were some pretty great views from the top and some cool sculptures as well. There we saw the largest Buddha statue south of the Yangzi River. You would think that it would be really old but in fact if was only built in ’95.

      

After leaving Mount Zijin, we waited for the bus to take us back into the city. But, it wouldn’t be Nanjing if we didn’t get lost so… we got on a bus that we thought would take us back to the center of the city but in fact took us further out into the middle of nowhere. We had to get in a taxi to take us back. We went to the Confucius Temple. It was a really cool area to walk around.

  

I went into a Confucian temple while Jen chilled outside. It was really fascinating to walk around. They had a lot of pictures and sculptures of Confucius and other people I didn’t know. It was very interesting.

   

They even had this “wishing tree” (I’m not sure if it is actually called that, I just don’t know the real name of it). People would buy these medallions, write a prayer on them, throw them into the tree, and hope that their prayer would come true.

  

The next day we wanted to go to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. We asked the manager at the hostel what bus to take and where to take it to. We found the bus OK and rode it to the end, like we were told. But the last stop was some deserted open field. We were lost again. So we had to get in a taxi and have him take us to the museum.

Many of you might not have heard about the Rape of Nanjing. In 1937, the Japanese invaded China and the Chinese army fled Nanjing leaving the local civilians behind. In the span of 6 weeks 300,000 people were murdered and countless women were raped by the Japanese soldiers. The Chinese view this event as their holocaust. And this is one of the main reasons that the Chinese still have so much animosity towards the Japanese to this day.

To honor their dead, they have built a museum. It is called the The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders (it’s interesting to see how there is a little dig at the Japanese). The museum was eerily familiar. It reminded me of the Holocaust museum in Washington DC and of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. I’m sure the Chinese took ideas from both places. Some of you might remember that in Yad Vashem they have stacks of binders with people’s information. They had the same thing in Nanjing. They even had an open grave with skeletal remains within the museum which was kind of weird. It was very well done and I recommend that if you have the chance, you should go.

     

After the museum, we hustled to the train station and got on the train the Hangzhou.

The Real Trip Begins – Suzhou

On our first full day in China together, we headed out to a small town close to Shanghai called Suzhou. Suzhou is a very small city with some canals running through it. When Marco Polo explored China, he described Suzhou as the “Veniceof the East.” Let me tell you now, Suzhou is noVenice.

We took the high speed train which got us out there in less than 30 min. First we had to take of where we were going to stay for the first night. I was hoping that we could just show up to the hostel and book 2 beds for the night. What I didn’t take into account was that it was also the last day of national Chinese festival called, Dragon Boat Festival (not really sure what they celebrate though) so there were no rooms available.

Thanks to Becca’s help we were able to find a hotel not too far away. After we checked in we started walking around the city and exploring. We were trying to head to these twin pagodas that were not too far away. The problem was that we got a little lost (getting lost becomes an on-going trend throughout our trip). I blame it on a faulty map while Jen and Becca blame it on a faulty leader (ie. me).

We ended walking for more than 2 hours trying to find these pagodas. But getting lost is part of the adventure and if we hadn’t gotten lost we would never have found a cool Buddhist temple with nun-monks and watch them perform a ceremony.

We finally made it back to the touristy strip, which is very pretty canal street, where we just chilled and had coffee. At that point Becca had to head back to Shanghai, so we said our goodbyes and it was just Jennifer and I.

At night Jen and I went out for dinner on the main commercial drag. After dinner we found this area that had these fairground games. Of course being the natural basketball athletes that Jen and I are, we headed straight for the basketball shoot-out game. I won the first game by 2 points and was feeling pretty good about the victory. But of course we do best of three, so we played again, and Jen won the second game by about 15 points. So it came down to a third game and it wasn’t even close. Jennifer beat me by more than 50+ points.

  

Suzhou is not only known for its canals but for its gardens as well. So the next morning we headed to Lion’sGroveGarden. Lion’s Grove Garden is a rock garden built in 1342 by Buddhist monks for their master. But right before we entered the garden it started to rain, and I mean pour. So we bought umbrellas and headed into the garden.

Lion’s Grove Garden is a tightly packed maze garden made out of oddly shaped rocks. So you go in and out, up and down of these caves which eventually open up onto a beautiful pond. What became a pain in the ass was having to open and close our umbrellas due to the rain.

The garden was absolutely beautiful and well worth going.

      

After the garden we hopped on a bus and headed out to Tiger Hill. From Tiger Hill you can walk along a canal all the way back to the city center. Walking through back allies and markets was really cool. Just getting a sense of how people live in Suzhou was a neat experience. And once again it was raining the whole way back.

      

The most annoying thing about Suzhou was that it is nearly impossible to get a taxi. They say that the only place to get a taxi is at the train and bus stations. So keep that in mind if you ever travel to Suzhou.

That night Jen and I met up with my friends James and Linda. James was a teacher and Linda a TA at EF and since they had a long weekend for Dragon Boat festival they came down toSuzhou. It was nice meeting up with them for dinner.

So that was it for Suzhou. We woke up early the next day and headed to the train station. Next stop Nanjing.