Suzhou

Hello Again,

Last weekend Jen and I went to Suzhou to celebrate our anniversary. It's been 5 years since we got together! Suzhou is very famous for it's gardens, rivers and riverside houses and it's silks. Unfortunately it rained for the entire day on Sunday, which was our only full day there. That really cut down on what we were able to see, but it was alright. We were able to do some shopping on Sunday in the rain.

On Saturday we went to the Fishing-Net Master's Garden. It's a relatively small garden built by a high official of the Southern Song dynasty after he retired.

Suzhou is known as the "Venice of the East".

On Monday we went to the Humble Administrator's Garden, which is one of the most famous gardens in China. It was built in 1509.

There was a Bonsai garden inside the Humble Adminstrator's Garden. There were more than 1600 bonsai here. The oldest one was 400 years old.

A weekend in Jinshan

Hello All,

So blogger is finally co-operating again and we were able to finish posting about our February vacation. Now we can get back to more recent events. Hopefully there are still some of you out there who have not given up on waiting for new posts!

When school started up again in March Destiny did not return. A new teacher, Susan, came to take her place. Susan has been in China as long as we have (since late August), but was previously teaching in Jinshan, a district of Shanghai. While she was teaching there Susan made many fabulous friends and Jen and I got the chance to go meet some of them a couple of weekends ago.

We were very lucky to get the chance to stay with Susan's friend Huan Ju (Her English name is Rosemary) and her daughter Lily. It was such a great experience. Rosemary was so generous and helpful and we had a really great weekend with her and her daughter.

This is Susan, Lily and Rosemary.

We went down to the beach where we took this boat out for a spin. As you can see here Lily was taking a turn at the wheel.

After the boat ride we walked along the beach where many shops were selling interesting things like this. Unfortunately it would be a little hard getting this dragon made of shells back to Canada in one piece.

Later we went to a park, which had a few things to do like bumper cars and this viking ship.

More from Beijing

Here are a few pics from our day in the forbidden city after my mother and brother left. Twenty four emperors ruled from this palace over a span of 500 years ending in 1911. There are 9999 rooms in the palace. It is called the forbidden city because only the royal family, concubines, and eunuchs (castrated men who carried out various duties) lived there. Anyone else required royal authorization to enter. There were usually 6000 people that lived in the forbidden city at one time, 3000 of which were concubines.

At the entrance to the Forbidden City.

These branched interlocked cypresses symbolized loyal love. The last emperor and empress of China had their picture taken in front of these trees.

Beijing

Hey,

Beijing was the last stop of our February trip. We only had a couple of days so we visited Tiananmen Square, The Great Wall, ate at a famous Beijing duck restaurant, and did some shopping. The Great Wall was definitely the highlight of our trip.

Here is me and my family at Tiananmen Square. The weather was hazy but we were all smiles.

The Great Wall

The next day when we went to the Great Wall nothing but clear skies.

Here is Josh with the Great Wall stretching into the distance behind him.