Shopping or Sightseeing?

After Wuxi, we went to Suzhou then to Shanghai, then finally back to Hangzhou to go home. It became rather apparent that this tour was coming to focus more on shopping than sightseeing. Each morning, we were taken to some sort of big shopping establishment, spent a few hours there (whether you're interested or not), have lunch there, then head to the next town to do a little bit of sightseeing, then off to the hotel for the night.

When we got to Suzhou (which they called "Venice of the East") that afternoon, we tour an old home of a wealthy family and then a short boat tour of Suzhou's canal in the evening. The next morning, they took us to a place that sold silk stuff, like clothing and bedding. We didn't get to see the small canals, arch bridges, and homes that were on the water. It's what makes Suzhou special and what I had been looking forward to seeing. We didn't get to see its real specialty either which was silk embroidery. It was such a disappointment!

After Suzhou, we went to Shanghai. We were given only an hour or so to tour a museum (a real museum). They had a exhibition of some Russian treasures like Fabrege eggs that was cool. The next morning, they took us to see the location of the World Expo in Shanghai two years ago. Nothing exciting I thought. We took a few pictures then headed back on the bus. Come to find out we were missing a couple of people! An older couple. Our full guide looked around and looked around, finally had to let us go on to the next stop while he looked some more. He ended up having to call the local cops. Anyway, the couple was finally found and all is ok.

The tour guides were not only guides but they were sales people as well because they get a commission. Rather annoying sometimes. This last part of the tour was more 60% shopping and 40% sightseeing. Sometimes if a couple people were interested, the entire group had to stand around and wait. Dad had enough of this yesterday when we were at another "museum" that sold jade, emerald, etc., and Angry Bird took another couple hours of everybody's time to haggle the price of something (to be fair, there were a few other people as well). Dad complained to our guides (Dad was ticked off!). We were finally allowed to go have lunch first rather than stand around at the side of the street inhaling second hand smoke. YUCK!!! At least Angry Bird was happy with his purchase and even more pleased with the deal he got.

We are back in Hangzhou to head home today. It's going to be an 18-20 hour travel day for me and one of my sisters. Dad and other sister are going back to Taiwan for a few more days. I must say I'm looking forward to going home to my own bed and clean bathrooms with sitting toilets rather than the squatting-style toilets!

In Suzhou

We got to tour some wealthy person's former home. Pretty cool. Looked like another movie set.

Girls can't come out when there are male guests. They had to stay upstairs and peek.

Suzhou's girls are supposed to be very pretty. #1 prettiest girls in China are from Yangzhou, according to our guide. Here we were serenaded by young ladies, for money, of course. I love classical Chinese instruments. I used to play the one on the right (not the pear shaped thing), or rather I pretended to play it in college. Hey, credit is credit.

In Shanghai

Shanghai Museum

These creatures are called "pixiu" (貔貅), mythical beings that bring good luck. Here are four forms of them (there are 8 all together) in front of the museum. The one up front here looks like it's eating a smaller animal.

Does anybody watch Avatar: The Last Air Bender? We think this is where they drew inspiration for the Aang. :o)

The China building during the World Expo.

This was our last, thankfully, shopping stop where Angry Bird and a couple others picked up some jade jewelry. Angry Bird was very pleased with his purchase of a jade necklace apparently at a good price. He said only emperors got to wear those things.