Today was another good day. We travelled from the outskirts of Hangzhou to Suzhou and are spending the night in Wuxi. Tomorrow we go to Shanghai... which is originally where I thought I would just spend a weekend before heading back to the US. What a mistake that would have been!

Not sure if it was option A or B from yesterday's entry, but I will end up going to Singapore after Hong Kong and so get to finish with my tour and spend more time in Shanghai.

We started the morning off at Lingyin Temple-- a Buddhist temple. It actually contains a carving in the rock wall of a happy Buddha that has been used as the basis for all subsequent Buddha's. For those who know my father, his favorite Buddha is the happy one (and if you know my father you will know why!).

Suzhou was visited by Marco Polo during his journey's and he placed it just behind Hangzhou in terms of its beauty... I agree with the declaration and the ranking, but still enjoyed Suzhou. We went to a silk factory and watched how they make silk. Suzhou was a leading city of Chinese silk because of its rich soil producing excellent mulberry trees (which are the food for silk worms). We also visited the Humble Administrator's Garden. It was created by a spurned Attorney General of the Empire. It includes some very interesting Chinese garden principles that are kind of hard to describe but do not necessarily emphasize flowers and colors in the same way Western standards do. Lastly we visited the North Temple Pagoda.

I am beginning to be able to distinguish more and more Mandarin. One of the key aspects of the language is the tones (a normal tone, a rising tone, a falling tone, a falling-rising tone, and a high tone). While my vocabulary remains limited I am much better at picking out the different tones of words. The Chinese speakers on my trip think my speaking is improving... I think they are just tired of correcting me and so just tell me I got it correct!!!

As I said earlier, tomorrow I head to Shanghai, the city I have been thinking about so much lately. I will have the opportunity to catch up with my college friend Susanne Gebauer while I am there. Great to combine catching up with good friends and making new ones at the same time.