I am nearing the end of my Jiangnan trip. Time flew by a lot when I was on this trip and it felt like a little sad to say goodbye. I started to know the people in my tour group and we eventually became new friends. By the end of my trip I exchanged wechat invites with them and share pictures with them. So we are in Wuxi and we left off with the Wetlands park in the last entry. There really isn't much to see in Wuxi so it wasn't very memorable for me. We didn't stay there either and we spent most of our time "shopping". Since I didn't find it particularly interesting, I didn't take any photos for the Wuxi part of the trip.
In the morning after breakfast, we were taken to a place that sold freshwater pearls. For the most part, my mom and I didn't think they were worth buying. There was a set of purple pearls that we wanted to get as a gift, but again it was the prices that didn't agree with our wallet. As usual, everyone is ushered into a large room for a long talk about pearls and then set free to buy what they choose. There was a small section selling pearl products such as pearl supplement or pearl powder. I found it scary that some people were buying them by the boxes. Multiple boxes. During this time, a few of us just sat in the lobby chatting for 2 hours and left empty handed.
After this long time, we were then driven to a place that sold zisha teapots otherwise known as purple clay. This type of clay is unique to the area of Yixing of Jiangsu province. It is popular used to make teapots because of its ability to absorb liquids. Therefore it is often advised that you have separate teapots for different teas and to clean teapots with water only. We were given a long talk again, but we were also shown some amazing teapots. Not only were they great to admire, they are also beautifully crafted. The guy hosting this talk called himself a "student" studying the art of teapot making, but I honestly really doubt it by the way he talked. We were mostly being sold these two highly expensive tea sets, each over 1000 RMB each. They were done with the best craftsmanship and were in a combination of colors. Typically teapots are of a solid color, but these sets had two or three colors. They also try to sell us these glazed cups which had absolutely nothing to to with purple clay teapots. We settled for a zisha cup for 150 RMB.
After lunch, we took our long bus ride to Suzhou. The afternoon was mercilessly hot. The sun made the white buildings glow and it hurt my eyes a lot. We were transported to an old district of Suzhou. All the buildings had traditional black tiles as roofing. The streets are a bit more narrow and everything is old. People of Suzhou enjoy this antique style and dislike the rowdiness of the cities.The old district we visited is another tourist wonderland. There are so many specialty shops to walk into. Our Suzhou guide Mr. S led us into a kind of snack shop. All the snacks and foods sold in the store are local specialties like sesame candy or almond cakes. His suggestion about the sesame candies was extremely good. Sesame goods are incredibly popular in the Jiangnan area and almost everyone buys them as souvenirs. The candies are not too sweet or sticky, yet not overly baked. They are the perfect chewy consistency. We bought baskets full of snacks and I think it may have totaled to around 200 RMB. If you ever come to Suzhou, buy or at least try their sesame candies.
The scenery is very picturesque. A city along the waters lined with cafes and bars. There are very traditional shops selling stuff like decorations and trinkets. One of the old ladies in our group, 86 years old, was enjoying her deep fried chicken wings. The more modern looking shops are coffee shops and American styled open pubs. If we were given more time, I would have scoured every store in this small district. It was very crowded that day with other tourist groups. We left the old district by boat. Each boat had about ten passengers and our rower would sing a local folk song as he rowed.
We ended our day at Ou Yuan or Couple's Garden. It is a mansion complex belonging to a government official and his wife. For a fairly lowkey official, his home was quite grandiose. I got really bored with the explanations so I didn't pay attention much. Ou Yuan is place worth visiting if you want to see Chinese architecture. The guy even had a miniature version of a famous mountain made from mountain rocks obtained from that location because his wife said she wanted to see the mountains.
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