Next, we visited Xitang, an ancient village in the Zhejiang Province. The town is crossed by nine rivers and is inhabited by families who have lived there their entire lives.

We all paid to get in, and then later on realized that there’s a back way entry where we wouldn’t have had to pay. The money made from tourists’ entry fees is split among all the families in the village. That alone is nearly enough for them to live year round. Their other money comes from either running a small business in front of their home, or even running a hostel service in their home. This would be great for a person or two who are traveling and want a taste of the culture. It is so impossibly cheap to live in these hostels. Just 15 yuan per night ($2) and that includes bedding, internet, tv, and showers. For an extra 8 yuan, you get a fully home cooked meal (8 dishes, 1 soup). The great thing about staying here is that at night, when the tourists are all gone, is when the town is the most beautiful. People go out in their boats, drink, play cards, chat, and even row up to see a live performance.

Some lotus plants were growing in this corner. This side was blocked off from the rest of the rivers.

Water used to be the main channel for trade, transportation – pretty much everything.

There are little steps everywhere that lead down to the water for washing clothes and other potential uses for the resource.

Here you can see an older lady washing clothes.

Besides clothes, towels, and blankets, salted meat is also hung up to wind-dry. It’s one of the “specialty” foods of the area. You can pretty much get a small plate of it at any eatery here as an appetizer. I personally wouldn’t order it, but it’s not bad.

Delicious lotus leaf wraps a la dim sum

More dried meat… there’s fish, duck, chicken, pork, goose, etc

A fairly young girl running this shop selling little small miscellaneous botique items

I love how weathered these houses look

More fresh wraps still steaming hot

Restaurant on a boat

Making some flour candy things

Rubberband guns

A bar…

Stinky tofu is everywhere here! Personally not a fan…

Me showing off my lotus leaf wrap. It’s not made with rice like the kind you get at dim sum. These were made from corn flour. (mom eating stinky tofu in the background)

The restaurant that we ended up eating at. Looked like one of the nicer places on the outside. Turned out to be my worst meal in China by far. In a poor setting like this, it’s best to eat fresh street food made for passerbys than go to a restaurant with slow business who might have food sitting around longer.

Sea sponge thingamajigs too

View from our dining room

Psycho Tom Cruise ate here too

These flower cake things were delicious. Kind of tastes like soap and smells like faint perfume, but tastes delicious!

White cut chicken and river snails. Snail is one of those things that I refuse to try no matter who tries to convince me otherwise.

A coulple then came in to offer to sing to us and play music while we ate. We obliged for $20.

A lot of motorcycles have built in gloves to fend off the cold. Many of the personal bikes here have small electric motors.

Cooking something with tree to provide a unique taste/smell.

Fish hung up for wind drying

Woodcutter

We then left for Hangzhou. It was quite a drive and it rained the entire way there.

This shitty hotel had glass doors for the bathroom, what a terrible design!

At night, we ate with my mom’s old pal. This meal was amazing. Hard to recall what we had now, but it was indeed amazing.

That’s it for now… too tired to continue!

Part 7 comes directly after viewing the property from the last post. I decided to split it up because that one was pretty picture intensive (well, all of them are actually), but also because too many pictures takes too long to load.

Suzhou is famous and known globally for their silk production. Shops line the city selling anything from blankets to scarves. You have to be careful though, because a lot of the shit is fake, even if it’s just as good. For example, you could find a “silk scarf” that is 0% silk but looks and feels 100% identical to the real thing. A lot of these are sold as real but only a local or someone in the know (I’m in the know now, details laters) could tell the difference. The other thing is price. A square scarf is listed at 35 yuan but a local can get it for as cheap as 10 yuan. You just gotta know your shit and not be afraid to lowball.

Engrish…

Of course, me being me; I saw a great business opportunity here. I won’t reveal too much publicly, but I think silk scarves and lingerie could sell well here. Definitely something that I am looking into pursuing.

So I took some pictures…

This car looks funny -_-

We then visited a gallery designed by famous architect I.M Pei. Of course with my parents being in the art field, some of the places we visit are geared more towards them, especially with their sculptor-friend guiding us.

This is a pillow. Hard pillows were used during the hot summer days. Not sure who’s head is tough enough to endure that though. Not mine, for sure.

This is a pretty gnarly looking elephant tusk. The art itself is simply stunning but something about it creeps me out.

Fan art… hehe

This is what emperors wore.

Overall, the gallery was okay. I’m not a big fan of art galleries at all, having tagged along to way too many as a child.

After a short drive, I found myself at yet another old Song dynasty “house”. Didn’t snap too many pictures at this one. The most amazing thing to me is how old the stuff is, and how accessible it is. In America, if anything is more than 100 years old, it’s velvet-roped off and considered an antique.

A short walk later, we visited our last one…

Walking through stuff like this never gets boring

Place selling silk blankets

More engrish

…and the place with my horribly underexposed images

These rocks are so odd, some of them look like people

A fake boat

Didn’t snap too many pics there either…

We decided to grab some lunch

We went to a noodle place that was alright. Something light and quick since we had been eating crazy gluttonous meals non-stop. I had noodles with lamb.

We visited the famous Tiger Hill. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Hill,_Suzhou)

Although I was pretty tired and reluctant to take too many pictures, this is one of the prettiest places on Earth that I have been to. It’s natural beauty and varied “settings” are simply breathtaking. The air seems so fresh, and with rain beating down that day, everything else just seemed so irrelevant.

We were offered rides too

Thousand people rock?

Double well

This thing leans nearly as much as the leaning tower of Pisa (which came afterwards).

There was instant longing for a wider lens.

Mother nature tried really hard when she built this place.

This place had a teahouse too. Surprise! We decided to take a break here. Dry up a bit, enjoy some really special green tea. I personally preferred this tea to the $1500/lb tea we had the day before. This green tea is grown on Tiger Hill.

With some dried fruits…

Filling up water

Walked back to the car…

Spotted a riced out Mazda6 too…

We had a nice dinner that night and went to bed early. We were going to Hangzhou early the next day…

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Finally got around to part 6… been so incredibly busy the past few days that I’m now 5 days behind!

Really wish I had a 5D MKII and a better lens to capture all this stuff, especially the night shots where ISO3200 + f/3.5 = FAIL!

I believe I am now writing about Tuesday, February 2nd where we are still in Suzhou in the canals running through Lake Tai. You can see how old the buildings look in this town.

We bought tickets to visit the old “house” of a high-up government official from the Song dynasty. The Zhejiang province was the capital during this time period. Places like this are over a millennium old and are architectural masterpieces.

Every little detail in the garden is strategically thought out and brilliantly placed to create something that is like a private park.

The place is LARGE and there are rooms for everything like this “listening to the sound of rain pavilion”
Personally, I’m a fan of rain and I think a room like this would be great for working or relaxation. Too bad a room like this in LA couldn’t exist. This part of China is very tropical and wet so rain is very consistent throughout the year.

The interesting floor designs are as such that you can walk barefoot and get a massage at the same time.

Conference room…

This place has been used for to shoot many movies… there were also artists there drawing with a crowd gathered around admiring their work.

Me…

Old school locks

After lunch, we decided to explore more of the city.

The fog was so heavy that we couldn’t even see the tops of the buildings.

After this, we decided to take the new Shanghai subway (modeled after the Japanese system) to the outlet malls. It was a really long street/strip that was so crowded, I can’t even think about it because it drives me crazy.

This jade was SUPER expensive!

There are ads for the Shanghai expo all over the place

My mom and her friend are short… check out that old lady on the right!

“Hey guys, I drive an SZS6503B7″

It was time to head back to the hotel…

We discovered this muslim run place near our hotel. They were serving some bread stuff and BBQ lamb kabobs.

These guys were freaks… in a bad way, treating customers as if they were owed something.

Still… it was extremely delicious

My dad’s birthday is on the 4th so he got some cake.

The view from our open elevator

We were going to visit my grandpa’s brother. He’s 90! I remember he visited us in LA about 10 years ago. He traveled something like 1800+ days in 10 years and was in extremely high spirits with lots of energy. I guess in the past few years, his legs have weakened, he requires self shots for diabetes, and his hearing ability has also drastically declined. Kind of sad that the body fails before the brain, but such is life.

Here we’re all chatting in their bedroom. They can’t go far from the house for fear of something going wrong, so they’re in the bedroom most of the day.

At the restaurant…

He had forgotten his shot, so he rushed back home to quickly administer it. (The restaurant was within walking distance)

The food came on… and we began eating when he came back


some DELICIOUS fish!

“shrimp on the rocks”

Overall the dinner was very appetizing. After dinner, it was raining so we walked them back, said good-bye, and taxied back to the hotel.

The next morning (Monday), we checked out early and took a bullet train to Suzhou. Had some more of those pork bun things for breakfast before we left.

Some shots at the train station…

Our second class seats were pretty nice, wish we could get these on the long ass airplane rides haha.

The train went over 200 km/h at some points… not as fast as I was expecting.

Finally we got to Suzhou and took a taxi to the hotel.

We checked out the hotel quickly before my dad’s friend picked met us and picked us up.

These rooms were nicer than the Shanghai ones and they were only about $30 USD per room per night. In Vegas, each room would’ve cost nearly $200. My dad and I get a room and my sister and mom get one.

We headed out in my dad’s friend’s car to explore Suzhou. He’s a really great host, really personable, great stories, etc. We first went to the countryside (rural areas in china are called nong-chun). These are mainly all poor farming families… but this is the BEAUTIFUL side of china.

Many of them open the doors of their own homes and welcome in travelers for super cheap… under 20 yuan per night (less than $3 USD) and that includes hotel-like accommodations, fully cooked 8 dish, 1 soup meal, and more.

Here’s the “restaurant” that we decided to eat at. It’s actually just run by a family so they essentially serve home-cooked meals except we get to order from a menu. It was a decently sized place but we were the only group there eating. This time of the year, and this economy means things are pretty slow.

The place was right next to the Taihu Lake (one of the largest lakes in china http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Taihu)

See those tangerines in the basket? We bought 4 full bags of those and it was 20 yuan (just under $3), very delicious too!

We got the best seat in the house! Literally eating right next to the lake!

We had one helluva meal for $30. Some of the best cooked fish I’ve ever had. The fish only exists in that lake and cannot be raised by man. It is illegal to fish during the summer months since that is growing season. Perfect timing for us!

Time to leave the area and head over to the next.

We went to visit an architect’s wet dream; housing that belonged to the uber rich of many years ago. (It’s now a private exhibit). This place was only a couple miles away from where we ate. Amazing that from the rural countryside to the super modern part of Suzhou is only separated by about 15 miles. (More on that later)

The stuff we saw here is traditional Suzhou architecture. This part is also preserved by the Gov’t. For good reason too, there is SO MUCH FLAVOR and it just oozes of style!

One of the trademarks are black walls…

Check out the floor design

The bedroom…

The smaller white flower petals have white porcelain (from broken bowls and dishes)… creative way to utilize waste

Oddly shaped ROCK

Imagine if you could have a courtyard styled like this!

Roof tiles

Chess room

The secret treasure floor

(stairway to get up there)


The secret hiding room

Kitchen
well…

Chopping board

Mom re-enacting

After that, we continued onto… (next post)

The next morning, we woke up pretty early. We had some great breakfast from a place across the street from our hotel… Actually when I say “we”, I mean they went and brought me back some food since I stayed up late the night before.

Then I realized that I was out of clean briefs and socks… and it was 15 yuan to wash EACH article of clothing. Fuck that!

…we were right next to a huge wholesale shopping center. A lot of the world’s stuff is made in China, so the stuff from the source is DIRT CHEAP. It’s Chinese new year soon so naturally many shops were pushing random new year’s celebration stuff.

The place on the right is where I ended up buying my socks… 12 pairs in total. I LOVE the fact that you can bargain here. It always makes you feel like you’re getting a bomb ass deal, even if it’s just average. Ended up being about 10 bucks, which is not bad, but later on, we found a place where it was less than HALF that!

More shops…

It is of course the year of the tiger…

Here you can see everyone’s transportation parked outside.

…and here we are inside the packed wholesale market. There is every article of clothing imaginable and lots of common household items like nail clippers, chopsticks, etc. The more you buy, the better deal you get.

These were actually pretty interesting… stretchy tights that were made to look like jeans. If you want the ultimate skin-tight jeans look, then these are for you. I’m surprised that skater boys in America aren’t wearing these yet… guess they haven’t trekked across the ocean yet.

…hit up a hat shop too

and i just had to buy this cap because it had flappy ears! how COOL is that?!

…all kinds of tools

Finally, we escaped and met up with another one of my mom’s friends. I spotted this cute little dinky car.

Here’s a shot from outside the supermarket (FUYOU Street Merchandise Mart)

We then went down into another shopping district that Shanghai is famous for (can’t remember the name)

Bunch of nice “higher end” chopsticks… I know right? A shop JUST for chopsticks

Random obama sighting

Deep fried shrimp, quail, and crab on a stick (didn’t try these, had them before)

Tang-yuan on the street

More quail

A canal ran through the place… this is actually all really old. It’s places like these that are protected and people aren’t allowed to build large skyscrapers over.

This was a little stand selling small turtles among other things (not as food). Letting them turtle…

Check out the old designs in the wall

Candy stand…

…we couldn’t resist and bought candy cranberries on a stock (this place is famous for these)

Awkward bhudda thing that was always looking at you from every angle.

More classic chinese design

My mom decided to buy some of her old favorite snacks. She went to college around here and has good memories of eating these.

Interesting aisle of art. Each stand had something different. Here we see little figures made of straw (all 100% by hand)

This guy cuts paper into a shape/picture of you.

Little small dough figures of you

Tin can craft and drawings by hand

Metal calligraphy and caricatures

Obama mart? random

This might weird you out. Little hens on a stock and on the right, some beef soup. Yes, that is a cow’s skull.

The 3 females together. Mom’s friend was 5 feet tall at best. She was a really sweet host though.

Made entirely out of soda cans…

Candy!

Dried everything: from fish to beef, and everything in between. This stuff is actually some of my favorite, I’ll probably have some when I get to Guangzhou.

Finally it was time to eat lunch. We were actually pretty full from breakfast and the candy cranberries. We had to eat at the famous steam bun place.

Here’s the line outside for carryout.

We ate inside. There’s an interesting social hierarchy in this restaurant. There are 3 floors and the same food is served on all 3, but the top floor is nearly twice the price of the first floor and the 2nd floor is in between. The difference is that the top floor has better chairs, more space, less people. The 1st floor is REALLY hard to get a table at and is chaotic for being a restaurant. It was also more “authentic” so we ate there, to say the least.

We first sat down on the 3rd floor before moving down, here you can see outside is completely overcast. They haven’t seen blue skies in a LONG time. It’s a combination of the humid weather and air pollution that has literally blocked out the sky.

As we headed down to the first floor, I got a snap of the 2nd… there was still waiter service here.

On the first floor, you don’t get menus, you only get bowls if there are any available, and you have to go up to order… Excellent.

The food was pretty good.

We got going after that to see more of urban Shanghai. That will be in the next post. I don’t want to have hundreds of images in one or it’d take forever to load.

Out