The Maglev Train

April 25, 2012

In the morning we were going to the airport on the Maglev Train.  It is a magnetic train that is the fastest train on earth. 

I was really excited to be able to ride this fast train! 

The magnetic train goes 14 kilometers in 7 minutes.  That is flying at 279 mph or 431 km/h.

Pop Pop and I thought it was fun.  

 

We were at the Shanghai airport in a flash-just about 7 minutes.  Another train went by so fast you couldn’t even see it! It was just a quick blip.

The roof of the Shanghai airport is held up by long cables running through big white posts—like giant needles with thread going through them.  It was interesting.

 

  Now we were on our way home.  It has been a very exciting trip!

The Venice of China - Suzhou

April 24, 2012

We went on a trip to the city of Suzhou, a city on Lake Tai.  The first thing we did in Suzhou was to visit a garden that was once owned by a rich family hundreds of years ago in the 17^th century.

The garden had lots of bonsai trees. A lot of people think the Japanese invented the bonsai.  It was really the Chinese.

There were big rocks in the garden. I climbed some of them.  

We sat and looked at the garden because it was raining.

Next we went to visit a silk factory. They showed us the cycle of a silk worm.  The male silk moth only lives one day after mating.  The female moth only lives a week after laying her eggs. 

 

Silk worms only eat mulberry leaves. They eat a lot of leaves and grow and grow.

The baby silk worms grow very fast.

When the silk worm matures it starts to spin silk thread around itself to build a cocoon. 

People boil the cocoons and unwind the silk. 

 

After the silk factory we went on a boat ride on the canals of Suzhou. They call Suzhou the “Venice” of China.

The houses are built on the side of the canals and the people use boats like we would use cars.  

 

Our boat was very low to the water.  The bridges are low so if the boat was tall it would get smashed. 

One woman was washing clothes and another one was wetting her mop to clean her floor.

Because the town has so much silk there were lots of wedding dress stores in the town.  Some of the wedding dresses were red.

That night we had a dinner to say good bye to everyone.  We will be leaving in the morning to come home.

Temple and the Jade Buddha

After lunch we went to a Buddhist temple where 70 monks live. 

There were lots of statues.  Some were of nice people and some were people who seemed mean and mad and evil.

They had a big bell they used for praying.

Outside people were burning incense. The Chinese believe that the white smoke carries their prayers to heaven.

The temple is famous because of the Jade Buddha. They would not let us take any pictures of the Buddha.  We found these pictures on the internet. 

There are two Jade statues.  This is the reclining Buddha.

 

The bigger Buddha is called “The Jade Buddha” but I call it the sitting Buddha.  

After seeing the Jade Buddha we went into the monks’ teahouse to drink tea.  They had ten different teas you could use for medicine.  The lady made the tea for us.

The first tea she served was tea #1 and it was the best tea.  It was kind of pinkish and tasted like mangos.

I liked it so well that I bought some to bring home with me.

That night we had another theater dinner.  This time it was to see the show of the Chinese acrobats.  It was amazing because the Chinese have some of the best acrobats in the world.

Yuyuan Garden

April 23, 2012

The Yuyuan Garden used to belong to a rich family.  Chinese gardens are different from our gardens.  When you see a regular US garden you look at the yard and see the entire garden. Chinese gardens seem enormous because they are divided into little garden rooms.  They use rocks to represent mountains.  They use a lot of special rocks.

 

Only the emperor can have a “real” dragon.  This rich family had “fake” dragons. “Real” dragons have five claws.  So the rich family could not have a dragon with five claws or they would be executed.  So, they made dragons with only three claws and called them “fake” dragons.

 

This dragon has a pearl in his mouth which symbolizes riches and money.  If you look below the dragon’s chin there is a three-legged frog.  This was a story about getting money if you are not the emperor.  The frog sits under the dragon’s mouth and licks up wealth from the dragon's saliva. Gross!

 

Noni and Pop Pop liked the garden.  So did I.

In the famous places we could see people who were getting married having their pictures taken.  They would stand in front of beautiful scenes and a photographer would take their picture.

 

In Chinese gardens and houses they like to make doors and windows like picture frames.  A doorway to a garden is shaped like a picture frame so when you look at the door it is like you are looking at a picture. 

They make the windows look the same way.

For lunch we had Mongolian barbeque. At a Mongolian barbeque place you pick out the vegetables, meats and sauces you want to eat.  I picked out carrots. 

 

Then you take them to a place where the cook puts them on a big round stove and cooks them.

The cook was not careful and mixed my carrots with meat he was cooking for somebody else. I ate noodles and rice with soy sauce.

Naturally, Pop Pop bought ice cream for dessert!