Woke to an astonishing, sci-fi vision of Shanghai dawn from our hotel window. The city is a futurescape of skyscraper architecture.
A long drive to Suzhou and the complete contrast of the Humble Administrator's Garden. Jenny and I took ourselves off alone to take some photos and were pissed off when Michael, the guide, failed to turn up more than half an hour after the agreed time and I had to go and find him. No doubt my tearing a strip off him in front of the group caused him to lose face but his excuses were feeble.
We went to a silk factory, seeing the production from silk worm...
...through unravelling the silk thread from single cocoons...
...to spreading the silk from double cocoons to form blankets.
We went on to the classic Ruigang pagoda.
And the Panmen Gate, the last of its kind in the city wall.
Before taking a boat trip through the area which caused Marco Polo to call Suzhou the Venice of the East (why is it every town with canals is called the Venice of the...?)
On the way back into Shanghai, Michael, in answer to a question from Jenny about getting to the Jinmao Tower the following evening, gave a river cruise the hard sell and rudely said that wasn't what he was talking about when Jenny tried to get him back to the point.
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