Yesterday, I finally decided to go and explore a world outside of Shanghai. My sister's friend is in town from the States for the week and I was lucky to have a buddy to travel with. I'm even more lucky because he can read Chinese! Woo hoo! We bought a day trip to a city called SuZhou, about an hour bus ride outside of Shanghai. You're not going to believe how much this cost...about $25 dollars, which included a nice air conditioned bus ride to and from the city and all admission costs to the sites (about five parks and one temple). In addition, you get an all day tour guide who explains all of the sites. The group was about 35 people so it was a decent size, although I would have liked it to be less. SuZhou is famous for all of the gardens and temples and we were able to go to pretty much all of them. The only drawback... it was about 100 degrees outside yesterday. I could not stop sweating! I know... lovely image, but it was truly disgusting. The humidity was amazing...could barely catch my breath when we walked around. I kept telling myself "I can do it...this is good for me... I'm losing weight." The first location was a historical site, beautiful garden, and we were so excited to hear that we were going to get a boat ride for only $10RMB (equivalent to 5 cents). However, to our disappointment, the boat ride was less than 2 minutes (not joking either). For us foreigners who were on the trip (4 out of the 35 people), we didn't complain because we knew that for $10, we were going to get sh*t. The others weren't too happy...Next, we visited a Buddhist temple and it was amazing. It is centuries old and although I'm not religious, I had that nostalgic feeling when I walked through the temple. It may have just been the heat...ha. We were all then led to this large restaurant for lunch. Interestingly, the lunch was not included in our tour so we each had to pay $20RMB ($1US=$7.5RMB) so it was still cheap. But, we had to share these dishes with 10 other people. The table sat 10 and basically we were given 9 dishes and 1 soup to share. Kinda gross when you think of it because everyone just sticks their chopsticks in the dish and we all eat together. Thank goodness I had all of my shots before I left the States! Following lunch, we went to more gardens...I will have to post some photos soon. Haven't figured out how yet.
I must tell you at least ONE funny story from this trip. This is going to be gross, but here goes...this tour is what we call a "very local tour." It is primarily for local Chinese people, so you are not supposed to expect a luxurious trip. Knowing this, I didn't expect much, but I surely did not expect this...we were all standing around listening to the tour guide give her presentation when all of a sudden, i hear this loud "pffffffffff...pfffffff....pffffff." I was shocked to see that the guy standing next to me was passing gas! Right there, out in the open. I almost died. My friend who was traveling with me started laughing and cursing at the same time. It just amazes me how crazy these people are and how they are so inconsiderate. Of course, the two of us ran as far away as possible, but we had to laugh it off. I had to tell this story...sorry.
Anyhow, this was my trip in a nutshell. I still can't believe I'm living here but can't wait to move in to my new place tomorrow. Until then...
2 comments:
hey, how's the new place? when do you leave for Scandinavia? can i go with you? :)
I'm kind of skeptical of your math calculations in this entry. I would suggest hiring an editor to perform fact-checking duties before posting these pieces. I know a good one, and she will accept free stay at Hsiao Mansion upon visiting Shanghai as payment for services.
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