Suzhou Day Two

I have just about had it with standing around historic cultural sites with 30 other Americans, shooting photos of picturesque vistas. And that was what today was all about. Oh, and standing around in artisainal  workshops with the same herd of tourists, watching young Chinese do some amazingly painstaking task. We had that today too. I probably shouldn't complain, since the theme of this trip was made clear from the beginning, and looking at old things and workshops is the whole point. This is one of the compromises of group travel: you get to go places you could never go on your own, but you have to match your pace to the group.

First, another garden. I can't even remember whose it was, or why we were there.

Then, an embroidery workshop. They do amazingly detailed "thread painting" type embroidery on fine silk, some of it double sided. They lay in millions of individual stitches in fine gradations of color. It takes years to be proficient, and then as you age the eyesight prevents a very long career. Of course these masterpieces were available for purchase. For 10's of thousands of dollars. All of these photos were shot on the sly, as they warned us not to take any. I'm bad at following rules.

The next stop after a forgettable lunch was another garden. I stayed on the bus. 

Then we returned to Shanghai, and the local guide "Susie" took us on a very modern Chinese adventure. Cab to a random street corner, then through a literal back alley,  up stairs past a truly terrifying assortment of illegal electrical connections to makeshift subpanels. Then into locked rooms full of high quality fake designer purses, scarves and watches. There were young Chinese seated in the hall on stools, eating strong smelling food out of rice bowls, coughing and spitting on the floor. All the merch was still overpriced for me, being a non-designer type. A fake Channel bag is still overpriced at $200. Some of my fellow shoppers did fall for the hard sell techniques, and purchased a number of faux designer goods. I abstained, having my kind of plebe aesthetic. I mean, I shop at Penny's and Target!

Dinner was again on our own, and I ate at the soup dumpling restaurant next to the hotel. It is a chain, and apparently there's on in LA, as well as in Taiwan, Bangkok and a number of Chinese cities. I kind of flubbed eating the first one, forgetting that a soup dumpling is full of .....soup. Bit into it and spilled hot pork broth all over the table, my shirt and my lap. OK. Next one was popped into my mouth whole. Very delicious, especially dipped in hot sauce. And none of the locals caught my initial mistake, so aside from more laundry, no harm no foul.

I shopped for snacks in the "City Supermarket" on the basement level of the hotel complex, where they had lots of imported goods from Europe and the US. Barilla pasta, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Organic Valley boxed milk. All with labeling in Chinese on the back. I indulged in some sweet desserts, the one thing you never get in China. And a huge bottle of sparkling water. After all the rural travel, I kind of enjoy being back in an cosmopolitan city.