Today we went to Suzhou to see a Pagoda in this heavily under-construction town. It's a pretty small place, you know, only four million people.
Today we had street meat for breakfast, something that most of you would cringe at the thought of if you could see and smell it for yourself. The vendors don't have refridgeration, and it if you get too far away from the wok, you can smell poo nearby coming from something else. Delicious! The food was quite good, though, especially for the price.
Suzhou is a beautiful city, with trees lining the mostly straight roads. The most identifiable trait of this city is the countless three-wheeled scooter taxis, and the equivalent bicycle taxis that putter about as well. They're a lot more fun than cars, since they get you so close to the action.
At the silk museum we saw live silkworms munching on mulberry leaves, which you could hear echoing throughout the room. Later we went to buy silk and got laughed at by the lady for trying to negotiate a government-issued commodity price which we weren't aware of.
Since this was our first day away from the hostel, we had to find a western hotel to drop the kids off at the pool. The western hotels are usually the only places that have decent toilets that are more than a hole-in-the-ground, and it's well worth the effort. I have a funny video that we took at the hotel here: [Come back later when I actually upload this video]
Coming back from Suzhou we met a girl called Lisa who teaches English in Shanghai. She helped us negotiate a good price for a taxi all the way back to Shanghai (1 hour) since the train tickets were all sold out. The taxi drivers in China have a reputation for being dicks, and this is certainly true. Our driver stopped at a toll station halfway to Shanghai and told us he wanted more money. Lisa argued with him for about 45 minutes, and he finally ended up dropping us off further from our destination than intended. Lisa was pretty cool though, so the experience was worth it.
We ended the day with a sandal buying escapade on the way back to the hostel as an aside to being lost. Brad negotiated a good price for a pair of "Cowboy of Western Region" sandals, while I had to explain why I wasn't fit to buy any sandals from the vendors. (I have size 12 feet, I had to take off my shoe to convince them they probably didn't have my size.)