22nd July 2008

Via nefarious methods we caught the local coach from the 'backdoor' of Zhouzhuong to Suzhou, and felt like we saw a bit of the real china, factories and the such like. Taxi to our very nice hotel, general showing palavers and then grabbed some insanely cheap and insanely yummy noodle-soup-beef-dumpling collaboration (9 Yuan!). David then viciously abandoned us, and we fended for ourselves, noting a costa coffee on the way, wandered to the 'must-see' silk museum. Which was pretty boring, but some parts were alright, we got to see some silkworms happily munching on some mulberry leaves, ignorant in the knowledge that once they get all cosy in a nice cocoon, they'll get boiled to death for the cocoon's silky goodness. We pranced around a bit in the silk shop before struggling through the baking heat to have a quick outside look at the famous pagoda (North Temple Pagoda) and then returned to the city centre to check out the dire Temple of Mysteries, surrounded by loads of shops, coca cola umbrellas and the golden arches. Swipped back to costa for lunch and vast amounts of Caffeine!

I stayed and chilled there, writing my journal and relaxing 'n' maxing until I decided to wander back to the hotel, but spotted David in our favourite noodle party shop. I said "Ni Hao" and got roped into getting an awesome prawn based version of the afformentioned dish. Then hotel to get bus to see the master of nets garden and night time dance/music/performance show. Very good, but hot and crowded. Home, sleep. WHAM.