Most of this was written yesterday
It is Tuesday evening in Shanghai. Tim is at a dinner meeting and Abi is working on homework and assuring me she can "multi task" which means she wants the TV on while she works on Chinese. I should be working on my Chinese but instead I feel an urgent need to post my blog.

We went to Suzhou (pronounced Sue-joe) and Tongli (pronounced Tong-Lee) last weekend. All the tour books said that Suzhou was one hour drive from Shanghai. So....after about 2 hours in the car I started wondering why it was taking so long. I looked at the map and found that had gone south, then west, then north and then south again into Suzhou. So.....a trip that was supposed to take one hour took us 2.5 hours.

Immediately upon arriving in Suzhou, Mr. Zhong pulled into a city bus stop lane, parked the car, and went to get directions to our hotel. While we were waiting for him to come back, two men started fighting right beside our van. They were yelling at each other.....then pushing.....more yelling...more pushing......and a crowd gathering and we were starting to get very nervous....finally Zhong came back and we left before the first punch was thrown. As we drove away I wondered how these men can "save face". One of the mysteries of the culture.

To make a long storey short, we found our hotel after two more stops to get directions. No wonder it took this many directions because the entrance to the hotel was in an alley. This did not look good. We went into the hotel and discovered it was a very old old hotel. It was sort of an interesting place in a sort of rustic antique way. But...not exactly what we were looking for on our "get away" weekend. So.....we found another hotel that was very Western style and it felt like home. We enjoyed the weekend that ended with a wonderful outdoor Easter Brunch. Beautiful weather, wonderful western food, and amazing Chinese gardens.

The Pearl Pagoda Garden. This picture was taken from the top of the Pagoda. We climbed seven stories up a very steep skinny stair way.

Abi and Deb in front of the Pagoda

Very tall Pagoda

In the garden

Abi and Tim inside the Pagoda

Dragons in the bushes

The trees were in bloom in the gardens....very beautiful

Walk way in the garden. Each of these little stones are placed by hand.

Antique furniture in one of the homes in Tongli.

More gardens

Tim and Abi feeding the fish.

This sign was hanging on the wall in Tongli. Apparently they have a reception for all tourist complainers.

More antique furniture. This is almost exactly what our first hotel looked like. We really did not mind the bed in a box but we could not imagine curling up in the straight back wooden chairs to read a book.

This is in Tongli. Many of the Chinese painting have these bridges in them. This town is called the "Venice of Asia".

This is our boat driver. Do boats have drivers? I guess you steer a boat but boat steerer just sounds strange.

Behind the waterfall

This guy was so cute. I think he was about a million years old and he was asleep on the handle of the oar. When we got closer he opened his eyes and smiled really big.

Tim and Abi in the boat.

We bought a painting from one of the artist in the market. It was really heavy so Tim go a cart for Abi and I to ride in and carry the picture. Tim ran along beside us as we rode...poor guy...I think it might have been easier to carry the heavy picture.

The Artist

The art studio

Happy Easter Brunchers. The weather was beautiful so we sat outside in the garden.

3/4ths of the family Easter Morning. The hotel had an Easter egg hunt for the little kids. The eggs were very cute because they were quail eggs.