Yesterday evening we went for the Hamburg Airport to pick her up. Surprisingly nothing weird happened there. She did not try to force her way past the security checks no nothing. I was actually kind of shocked that she was not coming out with a police escort or similar, perhaps there is still hope for her. As it was already late when we got home there was not much time for her to pull of any crazy stunts. She only fixed herself some dinner and then went to sleep. Sounds alright except of her standard snoring. You know I wrote about it already somewhere but a starting plane is a joke compared to her snoring. In Suzhou I was able to hear her snoring through the wall as she had a room next to ours!
Why is this happening to me?
Today it also was eerily quiet with her. She prepared us lunch and nothing broke. I am wondering if it is really her and not some kind of cyborg. Okay she could not do any harm yet as I was closely watching that the kitchen would survive at least the first day. I even bought several sets of new kitchen rags which I will secretly exchange over the next three months, no need for disgusting kitchen rags which are so dirty that they might develop some life form suddenly. Nothing broken yet, sounds kinda boring don’t you think? Well she managed one thing today as we went to the lake nearby to dip our feet in the water. She was holding Nathan and went deeper and deeper in the lake until the poor little thing did not only had his diapers soaked with water but his shirt as well, thank you MIL.
What crazy stuff will my mother-in-law pull off this time?
Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time
I warned you in the last post that the torturous city tour did not end at day two with the trips to Yangzhou and Suzhou. Day three is the day when it really got out of hand with an insane plan for the day. It meant once again hours in a bus too small for humans, a howling monkey tour guide doing her best to keep us awake, tourist trap stops and spending too less time in the cities. Please not that this post is a bit longer as it was a very long day.
So I ended last post with the remark that we went to our hotel and were able to enjoy some eatable dinner. The hotel, as mentioned last time, was surprisingly good. In fact it was nearly a five-star hotel, everything was clean, no tobacco smell anywhere, a bathroom bigger than the first hotels main room and a nice view from our room at the 17th floor. My father and I were already looking forward to the breakfast as the previous days that part was never something good. Oh boy, we should never ever have hopes in China it seems. You see, first of all we went to breakfast at 6:30 which meant it was nearly one hour before normal breakfast time for this hotel. At first glance it even looked good until we realized that under nearly all the food covers at the buffet only emptiness was awaiting us. So what food was ready this time? Indeed, mantou and some more mantou BUT there I found coffee and even milk. Big mistake again. The coffee was undrinkable as it appeared that they used 1/5 with actual super strong coffee, 1/5 with milk (or something similar to it) and last but not least 3/5 of sugar. After one sip my stomach was in turmoil so I grabbed the milk and big surprise it was hot milk with a weird aftertaste. The time between this experience and the bus leaving for Hangzhou I spent in the bathroom…
A huge Buddha covered with pearls
Hangzhou was our next city on the agenda roughly 2 1/2 hours by bus. However after 30 minutes we stopped at a Pearl Museum. It sounded very nice and started off so well. There was this museum guide explaining the history of the freshwater pearls in China and how one scholar figured out how to cultivate them successfully back in the day. There were wonderful pearls on display, a dress full of pearls worn by Cixi 慈禧 and even a Buddha statue covered in pearls. As you might guess it was just the beginning which was nice at this museum because as we were walking to the next room we were suddenly in the biggest pearl selling place I have ever seen. First there were several rooms filled with hundred if not thousands of tourist at the different pearl selling stands. It was so loud and crowded, just so unbelievable how the whole scenery changed from a nice museum tour into this tourist trap within seconds. After we managed somehow to get out of those pearl selling rooms we were out of nowhere surrounded by vinegar selling stands then in the next room it was all about clothes and and and. We went from room to room, from floor to floor for about half hour until we finally got out. I am not kidding that they basically had everything to sell there what you might find in a huge mall, from jewelery over toys and clothes to food.
Main square at Song Cheng
After this wonderful tourist trap stop we went on with our journey to Hangzhou. I don’t think I need to mention again how comfortable this trip was. The first destination in Hangzhou was Song Cheng, a large theme park with the architectural style based on the painting “Along the River during the Qingming Festival” by Zhang Zeduan. Once again it was just huge there and despite the terrible weather (yes, it was still raining) it was packed with people. My wife loved this place as she had watched before an episode of “Hurry Up, Brother or Running Man” 奔跑吧兄弟which was shot in that theme park. I must say it was really nice there but of course we had just too little time there. The nice howling monkey reminded us once again that we had 60 minutes on our own there until the show “Romance of the Song Dynasty” would start. This gave us only time to visit few things there such as one of the great haunted houses (my wife is still scared) and a couple of amusement rides for Nathan. The show itself was incredible and what was even more incredible was that it was just huge there, the biggest theatre hall I have ever seen. All in all this was once again a place you could easily spend an entire day to see it all.
West Lake with the Leifeng Pagoda in the background
Again it was time for a bus trip for a half hour to reach the West Lake. There a little “ship cruise” was planned and while waiting for the ship/ tiny boat we could enjoy the beautiful scenery there. We could see the Leifeng Pagoda and the Jingci Temple on the opposite side of the lake. The ship cruise itself wasn’t that interesting except that we saw one ridiculous ship which looked like a giant dragon. As our howling monkey got lost in the park trying to find the way back to the bus we passed by many interesting spots within this park but sadly it was raining the entire time and thus I could not take any pictures.
View from one of the bridges in Wuzhen
Now then to my favorite part of this day. From Hangzhou we drove roughly 1 1/2 hours to Wuzhen, a wonderful little town. As the schedule was completely messed up we arrived there around 7pm instead of half day earlier. At first I was afraid it would be another tourist trap as I saw pretty much millions of busses in front but as soon as we went to the check-in area it was empty. All visitors have to leave the old village center till 6 or 7pm and only the inhabitants, inn-guests and workers can stay. We had some delicious dinner there (the best food for the entire trip!) and then had to find our own inn rooms in the old village center. The view was just incredible as during night-time all the houses and bridges are covered in lights. After getting our luggage to our guest rooms we went for a little tour around to take some pictures till most of the lights were turned off. I can only recommend visiting Wuzhen or even stay in one of the guest houses within the water town as it is definitely a place I would love to stay for a couple of days.
With this a very long day came to and end. It was certainly chaotic and only towards our last destination we could finally relax and enjoy the surrounding for a bit. After this night in Wuzhen only two days remained however they will be in one blog post as it is all about Shanghai (and some annoying side stops…).
Some very old dress
Big pearl
Someone tries to take a picture of my grandson? I need to be in it!
SongCheng
My dad…
Wonderful fake mountain
A few padlocks at the bridge
Delicious fake corn
Randomn bridge in SongCheng
The small theatre hall behind us
and the hall in front of us
a few of the busses at the parking lot
No idea what this even is
West Lake
Wuzhen at night
More Wuzhen!
and more…
randomn drunk person after the big lights were turned off
The road in fron of our guest house
Have you ever visited Wuzhen?
Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time
From my last post you might remember that I wasn’t too fond of the city tour. You know being stucked in a small bus with an insane tour group, a tour guide with the voice of a howling monkey and last but not least my mother-in-law are not the best combination for an enjoyable holiday. But it all can get even worse…
The second day started early in the morning. We had to get up at 5am to get breakfast at 5:30. Too bad though that the hotel usually doesn’t provide breakfast till 7am so they only had a few things ready such as some cakes from the previous day and mantou, tons of mantou. Reason for this early time was that we had to go still to two other cities on that day. In our original plan we would have gone to Yangzhou already during the previous evening, making this second day much more relaxing but you know who cares about a tour group plan anyways as this one was changed all the time. At breakfast we realized that it wouldn’t be such a warm day so we put on some warmer clothes as the temperatures had dropped from 26 degrees celsius down to 18 degrees and the tour guide advised to take umbrellas with us. This all was not a problem, yet.
Arrival at the Slender West Lake
The bus trip from Nanjing to Yangzhou was nothing special, just the usual trash flying around, the howling monkey tour guide screaming into the microphone for 1 1/2 hours and the terrific driving skills of the bus driver making sure that no one was able to sleep. In Yangzhou we went straight for the Slender West Lake which is a wonderful place despite the ocean of tourists marching around. It all started pretty well there as I could take some great pictures of the flowers and area but then it all went south when the clouds decided to create first some drizzle and then a downpour. Now the umbrellas we packed extra for this trip became very handy except…except that MIL had put them all into the suitcase which was in the bus as she thought that we wouldn’t need them (because why would she listen to a lowly tour guide).
They all have umbrellas and they all are rushing for safety
Somehow we manage to not flow away with the water during our 3h stay at the Slender West Lake and were allowed to enter the bus again. By now our clothes were soaking wet and it was cold, very cold while as all other people in the tour group were fine as they had the umbrellas as advised by the tour guide. From the Slender West Lake we drove to Suzhou, a very lovely 4h bus trip. During this bus trip the rain got less again and once we arrived in Suzhou at the Tiger Hill we were ready to go to Yunyan Pagoda which is also known as the “Leaning Tower of China”. But as soon as we had left the bus and walked 100m the next downpour started and we just went back to the bus. Sure we had this time umbrellas but we had just no energy to do this with such bad weather. Only half the tour group went to the Pagoda and they all didn’t look too happy once they were back with wet shoes.
One of the main buildings
Next on our list was the Taihu Wetland Park in Suzhou. It was planned that we stay there for a few hours going around the area but due to the bad weather we only took a 20 min boat trip around the channels. By now we were just so exhausted and cold that I did not even bother taking pictures anymore. We only wanted to get to our hotel and rest. Thankfully our howling monkey tour guide showed some mercy and we went from the Wetland Park straight to the hotel which was surprisingly even very good. Right next to the hotel we found a shopping mall where we could eat some dinner after surviving hell during lunch time at one of those infamous tour group restaurants.
Flowers
#Nathancuty with his new friend
More flowers
Oh look, flowers
Flowers?
Flowers!
Did you had bad weather ruining an entire trip?
Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time
Crazy Chinese Family 