An Airport Is Still Around Me

Hot Water on a Hot Day

 

July 20, 2015

By: Taylor

 

This morning we went and explored Zhouzhuang, the water town. It was fascinating. There were tons of little shops with people in them trying to sell you stuff. My mom and my sisters found these paintings out of silk of the water town that were neat. The host family bought us this traditional Chinese candy that was really good. It was like honey on two sticks. The mom in the host family told us that she ate it a lot when she was little.

 

Men cleaning the leaves out of the river in Zhouzhuang

 

This is our host family buying a treat for us at one of the little shops

 

In Zhouzhuang, we looked at a house from hundreds of years ago, when the water town was blooming. The people there must have been really rich because the house was very fancy. Instead of glass, the windows would have paper in them. This would mean it was very cold inside in winter. The lights were made from silk. Then we went to a short opera. Their voices were really high.

The opera in Zhouzhuang

 

We rode the bus for an hour and then stopped and ate lunch. It was okay but had a few uncommon foods such as duck bills, a whole duck with the head and everything, and fried eggplant. However, the thing I found the weirdest was that the water they brought us to drink was really hot and it was really hot out. They think drinking cold water when it’s hot inside hurts your stomach.

 

Then we arrived at Suzhou, a town that Marco Polo called the Venice of the East. The town was very pretty and was known for all of its fantastic gardens. Suzhou had ten five-star gardens in it! We were going to a garden called Humble Administrators Garden. It is a World Heritage sight and gigantic. We had an English-speaking tour guide who was awesome. He was very funny and knew a lot of stuff about the garden. It was built by this guy who retired from the government and felt that after leaving his post, he was just a humble administrator. When he died, his son inherited it. Unfortunately the son liked to gamble and he lost the whole garden in one night of gambling. Also, there were four pavilion,s one for each season because that is when it would be the prettiest. There was a room where the women would go when guests came because they weren’t allowed to interact. There was one room woman and men could go in together, but then the woman had to sit behind a wall and couldn’t talk. Also, out of the men’s side of the room there was a beautiful view. Out of the women’s side of the room there was just a big wall.

Here’s me at the garden

 

Then we drove three hours to Nanjing. It literally means in Chinese South Capital. It is one of the biggest cities in China. We had another interesting dinner which included lots of yummy fruit to start but also raw salmon. We were going to do Karaoke with the host family but we were all too tired and instead we just went to bed.