The McLellan Experience: There's still a slim chance

Donald and I have had many adventures but with the long days and staying out late it's been hard to share it all with you guys on time. On Sunday we headed to the ancient town of Qibao, just on the outskirts of Shanghai. Qibao means "Seven Treasures" and dates back to AD 960-1127. This town was overrun with Chinese tourists b/c of the holiday but we were able to see the city's charm through the hordes of people. We walked around the traditional old-style narrow streets and enjoyed all sorts of new snacks. Our favorites were the grilled oysters and scallops loaded with garlic and hot chilies and the bamboo filled with banana-rice.
On the way home we decided to check out some go-karting, took the Metro to a new area of town for us, walked about 20 mins and finally found the go-kart arena. On the way, Donald got to use his manly muscles when an older man on a scooter slipped and crashed on the street next to us. He hollered, but since we only speak English couldn't tell if he was injured. Donald went into Eagle scout mode and pulled out his strength to lift the heavy scooter off of the man's leg. He seemed very thankful for the help and didn't appear to be injured after he got up so we went on our merry way. We then spent the next 3 hours drinking beer and driving go-karts. I can't remember the last time that I've played in miniature speedy cars and wasn't sure if i would have fun but Donald was so excited to go. I ended up having a blast!
I bet you are asking why i haven't shown pictures yet...well, there's a reason. Donald and I may have "misplaced" the camera on the train to Suzhou on Monday and we're still working on getting it back or figuring out if we need to replace it. So sad, but it was only a camera and it can be replaced.

Monday we were off to Suzhou on a 7am train, hence how easy it was to "misplace" the camera. We were both tired from staying up late but managed to make our train on time. We took the fast train which was only a 20 minute ride and we arrived early to the 2500 year old canal city. The start was a little rough as we realized about 15 mins after exiting the train that we didn't have the camera anymore. This was a big bummer but soon enough we decided that we couldn't let it ruin our day. We walked ourselves into town and first stopped at the North Temple Pagoda.

We did have Donald's iPhone for some pics.

All nine floors we climbed had stairs this steep.

Do you see how tight Donald is holding on to the railing?!
He made it up all 9 floors, I'm so proud. We also beat the crowds which helped, I'm sure.

The view of Suzhou from the top floor of the Pagoda

I know one person who reads this blog that will already know this factoid about Suzhou (Laurie!): Fact, Suzhou is the silk capitol of China and has been for the past 4000 years. So we decided it was important to check out the Suzhou silk museum. Sadly, most of the "artifacts" are reproductions and really poorly lit. The highlight was seeing the live silk worms and actually understanding the silk making process. Did everyone know that the silk is harvested from the cocoon stage of the worm?! I'm not sure that the I ever really thought about the process but maybe i thought that the worms crapped the silk...I can't be alone in that thought, right?

These are real silk worms. We could hear them crunching, eating Mulberry leaves.

On the left, harvesting silk from the cocoons. On the right, silk weaving machine.

Then we stood in a really long line to get into the Suzhou Museum. The museum is housed in a modern I.M. Pei building (this guy is HUGE over here!). We saw lots of old artifacts found in pagodas and temples

Awesome building

Crystal ornament of a lion and cub
Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911

Carved out of a horn

Bronze wine vessel
Shang Dynasty, 1600 BC - 1046 BC

but the best of all was the exhibit by Luo Zhongli, a modern Chinese artist. His work was amazing. He did series of paintings is different styles throughout the years. It was amazing to see how they were connected yet totally different. Check this stuff out:

This one made Lou Zhongli famous

He always paints small town folk

This is the style that Donald and I really liked

Then if was off to find some lunch. I couldn't help myself and had to get some fresh tofu from a street vendor. Yum! They even put little mini dried shrimp on it. Donald found us a cute little cafe to eat at that was right along the canals.

Suzhou is known for it's famous gardens. There are about 12+ of them around town. We chose to go through the smallest one called "The Garden of the Master of Nets". I had to pick wisely b/c I knew that Donald could fade quickly if I made him look at too many gardens, it's not like I was traveling with Trisha or my mom (we would have gone to as many as possible!)

Trisha, this ones for you. This place allows you to right postcards
then pick any day in the future for them to mail it out.

Also, in season now is the hairy crab. I never really understood the name until i saw them live. Donald got a good pic as we walked around the city, check out the hairy claws.

After walking about 6 miles already by 6pm and with 3 more hours to go before we catch our train back home, we decided to take a pedi cab to dinner. It was crazy when we asked for the cost they guy said 150RMB, which was outrageous and we told him that and started to walk away but then he offered to give us the ride for 30RMB...we must have looked like suckers or something.