China Trip, Summer 2006
Suzhou and Wuxi - 08/03/06
From Hangzhou, we drove to Suzhou where we visited another Buddhist temple and Lingering Garden. Both were nice, with the peaceful feel that I love from temples and Chinese gardens, but we didn't get to spend too much time in each.
We also stopped by the #1 Silk Factory in Suzhou, where we got a tour of the place, and then of course, got stuck in the tourist trap of the silk shop at the end of the tour. ...We still bought stuff anyway. From there, we drove to Wuxi and took a walk along Tai Lake, the 3rd largest fresh water lake in China.
Wuxi and Shanghai - 08/04/06
To finish our stay in Wuxi, we went to its pearl factory, really just another tourist trap to earn money. Afterwards we went back to Shanghai where we visited another garden. We also drove to the Bund which has a great view of the city. We'll be going back tomorrow night to see the city lights. We then took a walk down Nanjing road, mainly to window shop. We'll be doing the actual shopping when we have more free time tomorrow.
Oh, and the power went out in our hotel room (mine and my cousin, David's). Maybe too many things were on? But once I started to dry my hair - yeah, no good. It flickered back on once I turned off the hair dryer though...
Shanghai - 08/05/06
I've realized I get satisfaction from knowing that I can understand what people say here, but they don't understand me when I speak English. Today was mainly a day to just walk around Shanghai. We started the day by taking pictures of the buildings around the city, then walked along a street full of shops. Unfortunately, that street was also full of people trying to sell counterfeit things, and they would follow you as you walked, nagging you to buy the whole time. One freaked me out so much, because he wouldn't stop walking by our side, even stopping and just staring at us whenever we stopped, that I pushed my family into a bookstore to get away from him.
That was when I lost my patience.
I walked down the road, ignoring all of them, and they wouldn't push it anymore. However, one lady followed me, and when she put her hand on my arm, I snapped. As if a natural reaction, I quickly turned to her and yelled "fuck off" loudly in her face. She had a surprised and possibly scared look on her face and immediately went away. That felt good and I began yelling at these people in English, which seemed to do the trick. (They probably thought I was crazy, but at least they left me alone.)
We later went up to Shanghai's Oriental Pearl (that weird building with the spheres), which gave us a great view of the city. We then spent the night looking around and shopping on Nanjing road. Oh, and guess what, the power went out in our room again. This time, we turned on the TV, and everything went out. We called the front desk about it. They ended up sending up someone who just tested the light switches, who then told us she'd get real help. Next thing we know, a guy comes in with a huge bag of light bulbs. They pretty much missed the point.
