Still catching up to today’s date!
Don’t you love the city names? I am constantly amazed as we go along, that our guide refers to these places as smaller cities! Each one of them is much larger than Toronto and as I have said before, Loud, loud, loud!!! I have also developed an unbelievably large amount of respect for our bus driver, who navigates through the most extreme rush hours I have ever seen without any sign of losing his cool. We call him “Charlie number 1” and before you think, wow Garry that is amazingly politically incorrect, keep in mind that is how our guide introduced him to us. And take my word on it…He is number one. Although I’m sure he doesn’t understand I told him that I think he is” Elvis, king of traffic navigation”
On to more adventures. This morning (I have lost track of the days of the week, although I think Joani still has an idea of the date) we headed for a silk spinning factory,
where we were shown the entire process of making silk, from moth, to egg, to pupae, straight through to making sheets, pillowcases and clothing, including Joani stretching out silk fibres
to make a quilt. After this very interesting exhibition we were taken to the retail section of the establishment where I bought 2 dresses and a top for Joani. I always like buying clothing for her because she won’t spend money on herself and I love seeing her in these outfits from around the world. This was an extremely large complex that also had a restaurant enclosed so we had lunch there, boarded our bus and the ever reliable “Charlie number 1” drove us to our next city, Wuxi.
We had two stops before we checked into our hotel. The first was an extremely large theme park devoted to Buddha. Or as Joani called it “Buddha land”.
Buddha land was acres of beautifully manicured gardens with flowers, shrubbery, sculptures and devotion sites all honouring the big guy. Now I’m not sure if you know this, (I didn’t) but there were, in a way, two Buddhas. The original, and one of his disciples who, as near as I could understand from the explanation given to us on our tour, inherited his soul upon his passing. The original was the skinny one we see portrayed in the statues and the second was the more popular heavier version always shown seated, laughing.
The second Buddhas’ story sounds remarkably similar to our Santa Claus, as he was very popular with children, always carrying a sack of treats to give them, and the main statue of him in the park has children climbing all over him like he’s a miniature mountain in Walt Disney world. The whole park was a very cool experience. The picture of the water spraying is their interpretation of the birth of Buddha.
We then were taken (Charlie #1) downtown to a pedestrian shopping street in the heart of Wuxi. They are, as our guide is constantly telling us, converting more and more to western ways. This street had shops, restaurants, and bars with live music like you would see in any Canadian, American or European city and we saw tons of younger Chinese people out eating, shopping, and having a good time. It was another revelation, similar to walking down a boulevard in a European city. The last photo is of the canal beside this busy street.
Another full day. Quite an enlightening, educational trip so far. With the Yangtze River cruise, Beijing, and the Great wall still to come; it’s been a great trip already.
Garry
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