Shanghai Day 2

Today started with a long bus ride - about 1.5 hours to get to the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou. I can't actually tell you why it's called that because there was nothing 'humble' about this place. It was really beautiful and definitely over-the-top. One person from our group got separated from the rest of us in the garden so we ended up spending part of the time looking for her. Once we found her, our guide (Jimmy) told us that he would be 'sticky rice' with her for the rest of the day! The garden was lovely and it was a great day. It felt so good to be out walking on a sunny day and appreciating the flowers that were already blooming. It's always so refreshing to see that first burst of spring every year!

 

After the garden tour, we had lunch (back to Chinese food), then visited a street market area. This particular area was a bit different than most street markets that we've been to as this one was along water canals. We didn't spend a large amount of time there (just 20 minutes), then we got back on the bus to go to Zhouzhuang. This is a really neat city that seems to have more water canals than streets (ok, not really - but there were a lot of canals). It's like having Venice in China. We took a boat ride through the canals - the boats were along the same lines as the gondolas in Venice. Our pilot offered to sing for us for money (of course), but we said yes and got to listen to her sing a few songs during the ride.

 

Then we headed back to Shanghai and decided that since our dinner was so delicious last night, we would repeat - so we went out for Turkish food again tonight! :) The meal was wonderful (again) and the 9 of us who went left happy and with full bellies. Perhaps an hour or so later, I was sitting in the hotel lobby checking email and the waiter from the restaurant showed up. He was rather agitated and was finally able to share with me that they had presented us with the wrong tab. We were given a tab with a total of 835 yuan (about $140), but our tab was actually 1290 yuan (about $215). Linda helped me get him squared away and said that she would work it out with the rest of the group in the morning since I wasn't going to see anyone the following day.