Day Fourty-Two

Yesterday was and experience to say the least. We woke up early, around 6:30am, and headed out to catch our train out of the city. Our destination, Suzhou, unfortunately, was completely booked until 10:30am. Since we had nothing else to do we booked the tickets for the late departure and adventured the Shanghai area north of the Shanghai's Suzhou river.

During our delay we meandered over to the Jade Buddha Temple. At the Jade Buddha Temple, also known as Yufo Si, we also had an awesome tea tasting experience. Upstairs on the perimeter of the temple we were given a great presentation of the different Chinese teas and herbal medicines. Our guide and waitress was well spoken in english and friendly as well. I ended up buying a small supply of medicinal green tea, (the proceded of the purchase were to go to the temple). On our way out of the temple we stopped at the feed the koi fish at the temple's pond. Supposedly, if a golden koi ate your food you'd get rich and if a larger koi ate your food your family would live long. I made sure a massive golden fish ate my fish pellets.

The train ride to Suzhou was only half an hour. Our first stop in the city was its Silk Museum. The Silk Museum exhibited ancient silk artifacts. While there we learned that silk was created nearly 6000 years ago. Although the museum wasn't that amusing we did get to see some silk worms at work and how silk products are made.

After lunch we visited a popular temple called Beisei Ta. The temple is best known for its nine story pagoda which we climbed to the top of. From the top of the pagoda we got a great view of Suzhou. Unfortunately the weather was pretty grimm and we couldn't see Suzhou in its magnificence.

Next stop was the Wangshi Yuan Garden. The Wangshi Yuan Garden was a mulititude of courtyards with rock gardens, ponds, plants, and trees. We relaxed near its central pond before walking back out onto the busy streets.

Before going back to the train station to come back to Shanghai I got a haircut, Jeff went to an english pub, we both had a snack at a nearby restaurant, and then we walked north through the city. Once we got back to Shanghai we relaxed and had some McDonald's. It was great.