Shanghai is great, but one month in a city without leaving is a little much for me. So Kim and I took a trip with a few friends down to Suzhou, also known (quite inaccurately) as the "Venice of the East". Don't get me wrong, Suzhou, like Venice is beautiful (and touristy), but a city has a few canals and then all of a sudden its "The Venice of the (fill in the blank)". More memorable than the canals are the beautiful gardens with scholars' stones big enough to walk through and small ponds and streams filled with koi. In the picture above I'm standing in front of the "The Temple of Mystery". Don't I feel stupid for forgetting my fedora and bullwhip. Although the temple has an adventurous sounding name to the Western Ear, it is actually a Song Dynasty Daoist Temple. Three 55 foot giant golden statues greet you as you enter, and there are numerous other beautiful statues of Daoist deities around the periphery.
The Master of the Nets gardens are supposed to be the most beautiful in Suzhou, and I don't doubt that claim. Here are some pictures:
This is our friend Sue, the PE teacher in a maze of scholar stones.
This is a statue outside the "Temple of Mystery":
...and this is a guy on a boat.
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