Last Day

So many days have flown by in a blur of fun. It's sad that I have to leave, but all good things must come to a end eventually. I haven't updated in a while due to lack of internet and lack of time. I'm now back in San Diego, with mom fast asleep on the couch. This is going to be the last time I'll update my blog. So let me recap the last few days.

We traveled to Hangzhou, about an hour away by speed train. It was so pretty and worth the train ride! From the train station we headed off to Starbucks (♥). Afterwords we headed off towards the lake, from there we took a boat tour to two different islands. The one southern side of the lake is the man-made island of Three Pools Reflecting the Moon. Which was really pretty! After the lake we spent the day wandering around Hangzhou, buying stuff. Before we knew it it was time to go back home.

The next day we went to Fudan University, were Judy's husband works. The tour was so interesting, and the big statue of Mao Zedong. Then we spent the rest of the day with Grace and Gina at the bookstore. To conclude our day we went to a vegetarian restaurant near a temple, which was so delicious!

We spent our few remaining days wandering around. However now my journey has come to a end. So farewell!

Thirteenth Day- 8:37pm Saturday

Today we journeyed to Suzhou, by a 45 minute train. We started out by renting a tour van for 150 yuan, then took off to the gondolas. It was so fascinating traveling down the river, seeing modern and old flash between your eyes. The driver of the boat allowed us to go on the top to film our surroundings.

After that, we went to our drivers favorite menu and had some delicious food. Susan, Judy and Mom were raving about the fish (which I refused to eat, I gave fish up). The driver got free food, and we spent the most we ever spent on a meal. This was despite the fact we specifically asked for non-expensive food.

Pan Men was our next stop. It was a beautiful garden, surrounded by trees and rocks. We gave the fish some lemon wafers, and ate a few ourselves. There was an area in which they trapped incoming enemy boats then they killed them. It was wonderful until we went to the bathroom. Lets just say squatting with a 4 1/2 foot wall is not my cup of tea.

Then we traveled to the nine story (north temple) pagoda, which I climbed despite having a sick stomach. The view from the top was absolutely breathtaking, you could see the whole city. We also viewed a small temple nearby and watched several monks playing Mahjong (which I can proudly now play).

Afterwords we went to the silk factory followed by some shopping! If you would like to view more pictures from today, click (here) If you would like to view videos from today, click (here)

Twelfth Day- 9:19am Friday

HAPPY NEW YEAR
I haven't been writing often, since we've been so busy! We did so many things! The day we got back from Beijing, we just hung out in pure laziness. On Wednesday we were supposed to go to Suzhou, "The Venice of china". With its many water canals, unfortunately the tickets were sold out so we wandered around and made our way to a temple, inside we found a amazing vegetarian buffet. Then we headed off to a famous book store were we bought a ton of cute books. On Thursday, we all slept in (we stayed up late watching criminal minds) so then we went to a noodle restaurant for lunch. We went back to Xintiandi, since Susan hadn't seen it. We found a lot of great bargins. This was followed by a lovely dinner and karaoke. Afterwords we watched criminal minds, and fell asleep.
That was a quick summary of what we have been doing.