Asia Adventure 2012: Shanghai

The skies rained all day on the final tour of our Asian Adventure; Suzhou located about an hour or so outside of Shanghai. With a population of 7 million, 3 million of whom live in Suzhou proper, it has one grand canal with many small canals. In the past, the canal system connected Beijing with Zhangzhou (passing through Suzhou) but now is no longer navigable the entire way. Suzhou accounts for 30% of China’s exported silk and all is spun here. Suzhou is known for its water town district and impressive gardens. The gardens were built by bright local scholars who left Suzhou for government administration jobs elsewhere and returned to build the gardens for their families. This city is also known for its softness; buildings, silk, language (men's voices sound feminine), water, etc. They also build a lot of electronics in this town and have many Singapore businesses.

Our first stop in Suzhou was the Humble Administrator’s Garden, built in 1509 by Imperial Inspector Wang Xianchen; one of those scholars who returned to Suzhou after retiring from public life. He was inspired by a Pan Yue essay which said “to cultivate my garden and my vegetable crop… is the policy of a humble man”, hence the garden’s name. At the entrance the sign says that after he died his “incapable son” gambled it away. Can you imagine? It is a spectacular garden filled with courts, halls, buildings walkways, gardens, ponds, etc. In one of the ponds are 36 pairs of mandarin ducks with wings clipped so they cannot escape. We noticed a couple of women walking along with a toddler who was just learning how to walk. The toddler was wearing a pair of pants with and open crotch seam. We had seen those types of pants before but never without panties or diapers. It was so cute to see a toddler with a bare butt crack toddling along and it is a common method used for potty training here.

Being so close to the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou Museum needed to have a short visit at least. There were lots of interesting items like a Ming vase from 1450 and an intricately carved elephant tusk with 100 figures on it. The museum was built around Prince Zhong's mansion with its amazing throne room and living quarters.

Steps away from the museum, we ate at the Wumen Renjia restaurant which is very well known and popular with tourists.

Then off we went to the Suzhou No. 1 Silk Factory where we saw the whole process of sericulture (rearing of silk worms) and silk making. From the basics of planting mulberry trees, to raising silkworms, reeling, weaving and quilt-making with silk. The double cocoon and single cocoons are used for different purposes; silk spinning and quilt making respectively. Of course, there is a huge silk shop where one can pick up a wide variety of products.

It seems we saved the best for last; Zhouzhuang Watertown in Suzhou. There are two sections, one authentic and one built up for tourists. We visited both. In the authentic section, despite the rain, it was busy with local people purchasing food and trinkets from merchants. We weren’t very tempted by the duck stomach or duck tongue, but the rice wine and fresh produce were very tasty looking indeed. After crossing a bridge over the canal and walking through the small streets, we found our way over to the touristy area and spent some time on Shantang Street which is filled with souvenir shops, photography stores, restaurants, and dozens of tourist boats.

We ran into a bit of traffic on the drive back to Shanghai along the toll route, but all in all it was a great rainy day. Ben jokingly said that it was only fitting that the sky would be crying on our last day in China.

Later that evening we ate at the Bi Feng Tang restaurant just around the corner from our hotel. It’s quite a popular chain restaurant with line ups down the street during peak meal times. Lucky for us it was late and we got a seat right away.