Surviving Hangzhou and Suzhou

We managed to catch the 1:00 bus to Hangzhou but couldn't believe the driver was in no particular hurry and took almost 4 hours to get us there! We finally arrived at the hotel which was a NORMAL hotel. Turned out it was only about 3 blocks from West Lake. We did some walking around that evening and decided to eat supper at C-Straits. That was a nice quiet meal and then it was off to look at the lake. It was so-o pretty at night! We wandered around and found an island with several restaurants and even a STARBUCKS and HAGENDASS!! (YEA!) We opted for the ice cream and boy was it great. There was a beautiful trickling waterfall and lots of colored lights. The evening was so relaxing after a hectic day.

As we started back to the hotel, we had to cross a busy intersection. There was a street vendor who had a most horrific smelling cooker going. We tried to skirt around it, but the smell was still awful at the end of the block.

The next morning we took a boat ride out to the islands, walked around some of the lake, and took a tram car ride the rest of the way. It was so relaxing and enjoyable. That evening we decided to try the hotpot/barbecue. Carol decided she liked that one since we chose what we wanted to put in it and the grill to cook the meat on was super.The last morning when we got up, it was raining. We decided to just walk around in the area and found the neatest outdoor market. We tried a jelly coconut (Jim, remember these from Jamaica?). We decided that was NOT our favorite thing...although it was okay. We caught the bus that morning for Suzhou. When we arrived at the Bamboo Grove hotel, Carol nearly fell to her knees and kissed the ground! She said "Oh Estee! A beautiful normal hotel!" I thought she would enjoy that at the end of the trip. We spent our time walking along the silk street and shopping, then going to the Master Of The Nets garden. Then we took a pedi-cab to another temple and to the Birds, Crafts, and Flowers market. After our shopping excursions, we couldn't find a taxi, so we had to take a pedi-cab all the way back to the hotel. :)

All in all we felt like we had a very good time there. The food was great (we had the western breakfast each morning and Carol was even game to try the Chinese restaurant one evening).

By the end of this part of the trip we were both so exhausted all we wanted to do was get home and collapse....which we did!

The First Leg of Our Trip

Hello to all of you who have been missing us! Carol and I have had a whirlwind of a trip for the past week. This post is about the Beijing part of the journey. We left Changzhou on Sunday evening at 6:30 and arrived in Beijing about 8:30. The first part of the trip was pretty uneventful until we were in the taxi heading for our hostel. As we proceded through the streets of Beijing and continued past the nicer part of town to the poorer and poorer sections, Carol began to get pretty concerned about where we were going to stay. I assured her that my flatmate Barbara gave the hostel a good recommendation. When the taxi driver didn't seem to know where he was going and I had to phone the manager for directions, her concerns increased. By the time the driver turned down into what appeared to be an alleyway in a questionable area, I thought I was going to lose Carol for sure. It turned out that we were staying in the Hutong area (Jim, remember?), which is a very old area of Beijing. I kept reassuring Carol and we finally arrived in the hostel. Carol was sure that we would not survive until morning. (At least we had a bathroom in our room). Upon awakening in the morning and looking out into the courtyard, Carol felt a tiny bit better. By the time a couple of days had passed, she was walking confidently down the tiny little roadway and catching buses right alongside me. We found that the people who lived up and down the street were very friendly and always greeted us as we passed. We went to Tiannemen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, (can you believe these beautiful fowers?) and the Great Wall!We even found McDonalds for that all important cup of coffee and we ate Peking Duck!

At the end of the 3 days, our waggins were draggin.

By the time we were ready to leave Beijing for the next leg of the journey Carol decided that the Hostel wasn't nearly as bad as she had first thought and we actually enjoyed our time there. :) We had to take the overnight train all the way to Shanghai since the hostel manager couldn't get us tickets back to Changzhou. Carol is hugging her pillow an getting ready to settle in for the night. When she gets home she will have all sorts of things to tell you gals at OSU about that train ride!!
When we arrived at Shanghai, we couldn't get a train back to Changzhou so we had to hire a taxi for the 3-hour trip. That cost us a whopping 765 RMB!! But we made it back by 10:30 am on Thursday and our bus wasn't scheduled to leave for Hangzhou until 1:00 that afternoon. We had a whole two hours to get our backpacks unpacked and repacked for the next two legs of our trip.

Well, that's enough for tonight. I must get to bed since I have to go back to school in the morning. More to come later.