The latest from the journey

note: this is Chris's sis-in-law, McKay, posting for her, since they can't get on to blogger from behind "the great firewall of China". Here's the latest from Chris and Mike:
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Today was a nice dry day. Not to warm, not too cool and the rain sort of washed the city clean for the day. We thought we would take the dry day and take a trip to a nearby town called Suzhou which used to be China's top silk producing city. It's old town is like a little Venice (so they call it) with canals and little bridges. We took the bus (40 cents NZ, so less than that US) to the train station and got the fast train to the city. We walked into town a bit and visited a 9 story pagoda (the largest south of the Yangzi) and a cool lil garden with Turtles and carp that Mike and Lucy had fun playing with. We visited a silk museum with old silk weaving machines that are amazingly complex looking! The city reminded us more of the city in Taiwan that we all lived in and we liked it. Sort of quaint (only 5 mil) for China's standards. Then we got one of those cool old guys to pull us in his cart (seems cruel but that is his livlihood) to this other part of the city with the canals and more gardens. I can't even begin to describe the traffic here....eeeeek! Red doesn't even mean stop, it means keep going and squeeze your way across. It was quite a distance he pulled us for about 2 NZ dollars. Then we went into these beautiful gardens and got on this boat to go down the canal. As we were going, she started to sing...beautiful but rather odd as the trip went down the canal a wee ways and then right back. The gardens were surrounded by the walls that fortressed the city in and the old entrance to the city and another pagoda. Really lovely, peaceful gardens. Wouldn't know you were in a city of millions. Then Mike read about this other bridge that was meant to be one of the greatest bridges in China with 53 arches so we thought we had to go. It was another few kms from where we were so we started walking to another main road and waved down a tuk-tuk (one of those motorized scooters with covered seats for 3 or 4) and Mike explained to her the bridge and she kept trying to tell him it wasn't very nice and then that it didn't exist. She also stopped a few times to ask where it was. The clutch didn't really seem to be working very well on her tuk-tuk so we didn't go very fast and one we got going she tried not to stop (even through red lights) but people don't drive nearly as fast here as they did in Taiwan and everyone manages to get where the are going somehow...by squeezing by. So we finally make it to this bridge and it's like a dwarf path over the canal...big deal. One of the nicest bridges in China eh? Not so sure about the Lonely Planet China. After that, it was time to make it back to the train station and to some dinner at our little eating joint next to the hostel with the best steamed dumplings. Great day. We all really liked Suzhou a whole lot. I think we are going to try and connect with our friends here in Shangai, go for a river cruise on the Pudong, and check out the Art Museum. We are thinking we might just stay in Shanghai another few days. The hostel is nice and it's cheap and it's a good home base. Oh and everyone rides electric mopeds and scooters here...they are so quiet. Nothing like the noise of Taiwan....thousands of scooters blasting off. Here it is more of an electric hmmmmmmmm.