Friday, August 1, 2008

Last Night In China

We got up this morning in the town of Wuzhen...we drove there after our tour of Suzhou. We first visited a leaning pagoda...like the leaning tower of Pisa...which is funny because Suzhou, & Wuzhen are compared to Venice, Italy because of all the canals. The little historical part of Wuzhen is like Colonial Williamsburg...but 1,000 years old and about 6 times larger...all along old canals. Oh yea...people still live there as well. It was really something else. Then four of us took a taxi to the night market which was pretty crazy, but a lot of fun.

Do you love this guy or what?

He was just watching us all walk by, from his window. We then drove to Hangzhou where we spent the night. We toured Hangzhou today and had a great time. We went to another Buddhist temple in Hangzhou, and it was really beautiful watching all the people walking around with their prayers and incense. There's something about watching anyone practice their faith that makes you stop and take notice. I tried to be as unnoticed with my photography as possible because of this. Many times I just held the camera in front of my stomach where it was hanging around my neck, and snap without putting it up to my eye...so that it didn't intrude on what was happening. The various Buddhas carved into the rock of the mountain were amazing!
We then travelled to a tea plantation and it was an amazing visit. We all loaded up on tea after a demonstration by our little guide there, "Grace." She was outstanding with her information about tea...it was her area of study in college. We then went to lunch and then headed to the West Lake for a boat ride, where we saw the THREE TOWERS in the LAKE (which you can see on the back of the 1 yuan currency). We then drove on a VERY BUMPY ride to Shanghai for about three hours. I do not like the roads here...it is like driving through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Northern Texas all together!!!! BUMP BUMP BUMP, POTHOLE POTHOLE POTHOLE!!!

We are staying here tonight..(went out and took my final photographs of the trip at the BUND again). We actually saw blue sky in Shanghai today as we drove in...and there wasn't a haze of smog of the city...so I'm going to take some more pictures in a few minutes... It is really amazing how much better the pollution is today/tonight than a month ago. Unbelievable. Getting ready for the Olympics has paid off I think.

This will be my final entry for the trip until I return home.
The picture below doesn't even look real.
What an amazing adventure.

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