This is the best hotel view we had on the trip!
Click to enlarge
Because I was up so late, and because the plan for the morning was just shopping, I elected to sleep in today. There fore I did not wake up until after 10:00AM. Aaah vacation. I woke up and elected to log on to the internet. I planned to keep it short, since there is a charge of 50¢ per minute for the use of the hotel’s broadband. After 30 minutes I had completed all my e-mails and I logged off. Then I showered and prepared for the day. About 11AM mom asked me where our laundry was. The girl last night said our laundry was going to be ready at 11AM. So I called down to the front desk and inquired. They said it should be ready by 12:30. We were naturally a bit frustrated by this since we were supposed to check out before then. Anyway, I told the girl at the desk just to send our laundry there and we’d pick it up before we left the hotel.
This is
the best hotel view we had on the trip!
Click to enlarge
Of course, since I had sent all my shorts to the laundry, I had to put on my long pants. That annoyed me since it’s hot out. Anyway, when we went downstairs, we were presented with a laundry bill of (get this) $80. For less than one full load of laundry, $80. $1.25 for a pair of socks or underwear; $2.00 for shorts, etc. Adds up I guess, but it’s still retarded. IF YOU COME TO CHINA, DO NOT GET YOUR LAUNDRY DONE IN A SHANGHAI HOTEL. DO IT IN A SMALLER TOWN.
A pic of Shanghai from our bedroom window.
Just left of
center note the Hyatt: 88 floors. The building on the right with the ball on
it
is the Shanghai TV tower. 3rd tallest TV tower in the world,
apparently.
Another non-fogging mirror. 8)
We went out with our group and walked across the street to a restaurant for lunch. I was a little sad because I was going to miss our tour group. Mom and I are the only people going on this next section of the tour; Marcia and her family will be staying in Shanghai for a few days, most of the rest of the people are going back to the US. Lunch was uneventful except for the exchanging of a few e-mail addresses.
Our (messy) bedroom in the Shanghai Atlantis
Shanghai again. Coolest buildings evar!
Our hotel, the Atlantis.
We said our goodbyes, picked up our laundry, and began our drive to Wuxi, under the expert care of Mr. Wang. He is a very nice man who speaks next to no English. That’s okay because between my Chinese and the dictionary on the dashboard we’re able to communicate okay.
Another beautiful Shanghai building
The drive is about 3 hours through the outskirts of Shanghai, then on a relatively nice freeway (100kph max) through rural areas that reminded me of southern Minnesota. Finally we came into Wuxi, and after driving along the grand canal for a while we stopped at a hotel where mom and I got out to use the bathroom; when we returned there was a man there, who introduced himself as our local guide, Leo.
The Grand
Canal as seen from the van driving into Wuxi
Leo and Mr. Wang took us to a small (2.5 acre) garden situated between two hills. It was designed in such a way that the hills looked as though they were part of the garden. It had a large pond full of koi, and an interesting walkway through a man-made um… dunno how to describe it, but like, a stone path with stone walls that went above your head, along your feet ran a small stream which I guess is diverted from a larger stream coming off one of the hills. Very peaceful. At that garden was also a group of five students from the local college playing traditional Chinese musical instruments. Three were girls, two of whom were very beautiful. While there, some other people came out and asked if we had time to have tea with them. I was down, but Leo said we didn't have time. 8(
Entrance to the garden
One of the lovely girls
The other one.
Mom sitting in the garden
From the garden we went to a place where they make teapots. They had many beautiful and ingenious designs, and a girl showed us several of their newest, one of them had a clever mechanism that included a magnetic switch; so that when you put the teacup under a spigot then tea would come out. That one was very expensive. I bought a less expensive but no less beautiful one, and took a picture of the pot artist holding it. There were also several beautiful girls at that teapot shop. I decided that all the beautiful girls are actually in Wuxi and Shanghai, and not in Suzhou as I had been previously told.
Me standing on a teapot at the insistance of our
teapot-factory-guide.
The idea was to show how strong it is. Nope, didn't
break.
After that, Leo and Mr. Wang took us to another garden which borders the lake for which Wuxi is so famous. This garden had many beautiful flowers and attractive fish ponds. These gardens are inspiring me for our return to Arizona. I took several pictures of mom at both gardens.
Mom and I in the West Lake Garden
I was very happy
there.
After that, we all went to dinner at a local restaurant. Originally they wanted to put Leo, Mom, and me in a small room off by itself; I said "Why can’t we eat outside with the other people?" Leo was surprised by this, he said "Well, there are people smoking out there." I said "We like to see people, a little smoke isn’t going to kill us." So we sat outside with Mr. Wang and enjoyed a meal which was probably one of the best so far. We were treated to Wuxi spare ribs, a local delicacy. We got two servings of those because they were so good. The rest of the meal was pretty much what we had been served at every meal, except for little head-on shrimp which we had only been served at that meal and lunch in Shanghai. Mom and I weren’t big on those shrimp, so Leo ate them all.
After that we drove downtown and checked into our hotel, the Wuxi Sheraton.
Sharaton Lobby
This hotel was very nice, although we kept getting tricked because the bathroom is a half-step above the rest of the room. I had been a little sick all day, but I was pleased to find that the internet was but 25RMB (~$3.00) for 24 hours! Much better than 50 cents a minute. Anyway, I was able to catch up with my email, and chat with some friends. Many hotel rooms have little pitchers that you plug in for boiling water, since you’re not supposed to drink the tap water straight. Mom used this to heat some of our bottled water and made us some tea. While we were on the subject of tea, I took out the teapot I bought for myself at the Hangzhou tea plantation and filled the sink with water to see if it would float nicely like one we saw of similar design at the teapot shop. The one at the shop was cool because it would float upright, and if you pushed it underwater, it would pop back up. Mine floated… upside down. Apparently I had been sold an inferior teapot. Oh well. Meanwhile, she had turned on the TV; one of the programs we were watching was interesting and informative; it told the story of an American married to a Chinese woman who was on a bike tour to raise money to help sick little Chinese kids get surgery. It was laced with propaganda though, which was kind of funny. For example, the narrator would say "On his journey, (whatever the guy's name was) found that people in Tibet were being treated very well by the government, not oppressed as he had heard in the West." lol Also, I was more than a little annoyed to realize that I had left the battery charger for my cameras in the van. I’m going to have to skimp on pictures and video tomorrow. 8( Anyway, eventually I developed too much of a headache to keep typing, so I took some Nyquil and went to bed.