China Day 10

This morning we excitedly had breakfast at the western restaurant in our hotel in Suzhou (sue-joe). The best thing was the chocolate french toast. Pretty tasty. Also, the yogurt with asianpear, banana, and mueslix cereal mixed together was pretty spectacular. After breakfast we found ourselves helplessly on shopping tour of China once again. The first place we went was pretty cool though. The Master of Nets Gardenhad a little line of cheap street shops along the way into the place. I really liked this place. It had a bunch of windows that frame the scenery outaaide to make the garden outside the window look like paintings. Wonderful stuff. Bowen, Zach, and Polly continued perfecting the chinnie-chin theatre, and in theprocess found a magnolia tree ripe with Xin Yi Hua that I was very excited about.


If I had been thinking I'd have picked some since everyone is sick withexactly the ailment that the Xin Yi is good for. Why wasn't I on that one? Anyway, I was happy to see the little fuzzy guys in their natural element sinceit's so diffficult to imagine those little things coming from the flowers. There were also some very old looking bonsai trees of all types at the garden that were pretty cool.

At the end of the walk they had a pretty extensive gift shop which included a bunch of paintings. On this whole trip I haven't been temptedto spend 1000's of Yuan and buy and extra bag before we get to Hong Kong or our last 3 days in Shen Zhen to much as I did with these paintings at the Masterof Nets garden. There were so many beautiful paintings! There was one of a sunset on the water and a little boat... *sigh* I totally would have gotten it, but I've already spent too much money on who know's what and the trip isn't even 1/2 way over.. and we're not supposed to be having so much crap to lug aroundand all of a sudden I'm a big rule follower - what a weird thing - another story though.


The garden itself was beautiful and we could have been happy staying there all day probably,but we gt hurried along so that we could spend more time in the tour infomercial for the silk factory. They definitely had some nice stuff, but I'm not going to buy a giant silk comforter just to carry it around China for another 2 1/2 weeks only to find that it's being sold in Hong Kong for cheaper... plus I live in Hawaii. Regardless, they still make money off of us because although some of us are tired of getting ferryed to assorted tourist traps, others (who also complain that they aren't interested in shopping) walk in and spend $400. You can tell this is causeing some tension within the group, huh?


Anyway, after complaining about silk factories and eating, we continued on our tour of the sights of Suzhou. This included lunch and then a boat tour. The boat tour was a mild disaster. We got to the boat launch area, saw a really cool temple that everyone was more interesting in checking out than getting on a boat ride that we all were positive was only going to take us to a shopping island that we were to be stranded on until each of us spent all the money we hadon us plus some on the credit card. This disater went so far as certain people throwing around phrases like,"show me where I signed a contract that says I have to go shopping", "it's illegal to take people places they don't want to go against their will", "I'm going to call my embassy".. It was really embarrassingto see how we all behaved, and especially sickening because after all that fuss everyone was like "oh that was pretty cool".


But that fit was nothing compared to what happened later that night. Yuk. That's all I can say. Yuk to us, yuk to Jessica, yuk. If any of us are not ashamed of outselves then we as americans are worse than everyone says we are. It was that ridiculous. I'm so embarrassed I don't even want to tell the story here because it was so uglyand in a public place at that. The conclusion of the blow-up was that we were to suck it up and be adults no matter how far back into middle school we had regressed and go along with the rest of the tour. We have one more day and even if we do nothing but shopping, it's only 1 more day. What the hell else dowe have to do, especially when we have already paid for this thing?

One of the main problems that had caused this big blow up is that every day more of us are getting sick. This tour is getting run on 14+ hour days. We have to wake up at 630am to get on the bus to go non-stop all day long and not get back to a different hotel every night until 9pm. No one is able to relax and take care of themselves, much less get enough sleep while spending every night in a different place. It's really aggravating.
We'll see what happens tomorrow.