Continuing this amazing journey ... A day in Suzhou.

On Wednesday, we were taken to Suzhou, a major city in Jiangsu Province.  It is east of Wuxi but west of Shanghai and is known for its canals, bridges and classical gardens.  It was named the 'Venice of China' by Marco Polo when he visited it during his life and they say that he was assigned the title of Consultant to the Chinese.

The first place we visited was The Humble Administrator's Garden.  The Garden dates back to 1513 and is considered by many Chinese as the finest in all of Southern China.  The Garden became famous because of a popular poet long ago wrote about the Garden and is now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This is Xu PeiJuan and Hu GuoMing.  In the family, they are considered to be Molly's aunt and uncle.  

This is Xu XiaoHong and Xu BeiChun.  They are one set of Molly's foster parents and she called them Mama and Baba when she lived with them.  Molly used to go around to the people telling others that she was so lucky because most Chinese children only have one mama and one baba ... but she had two mamas and two babas.

The older woman below is Molly's official 'foster mother', however, she called her Nai Nai, which means grandmother.  Her name is Wang You Xian.

This is the Bonsai garden within The Humble Administrator's Garden.  

So pretty ...

We went to the oldest road in the center of the city.  It's along one of the canals where we saw several of the old-style canal boats.  This was such a treat!!

There were many shops with the local foods.  Yes, those are chicken feet in the stainless steel bowl bottom right.  Molly used to LOVE to eat those ... not so much anymore!!

And the world should take note ... and be proud ... !!!

We went out for lunch after visiting The Humble Administrator's Garden and it was a place sort of like a cafeteria where you just choose the various dishes that you want to eat.  

Well, I selected the dishes shown below.  The dish nearest the bottom of the photo ... I thought were noodles.  After we sat down to eat, I was asked if I LIKE it ... I said, "well, I know it's not noodles now that I've eaten it but please don't tell me what it is."  

I was misunderstood as they thought I say Please, tell me what it is ... and guess what??

It is a plate full of mogu - MUSHROOMS!!!  

AAAAHHhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Okay, it really wasn't that bad ... but this doesn't mean that I will be eating mushrooms once back in the USA.

In the afternoon, we went to the Hanshan Temple, a Buddist temple and monastery.

The architecture is fascinating and it is very interesting to observe the various Buddists who come to honor their beliefs.  

We learned that many of the temples have become commercialized and use different areas as a tourist attraction to make a profit.

(hmm, sounds like the temple in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus)

It was very pretty to look at and we did enjoy learning more about ancient China.

This is Molly's second set 'mama and baba' ... the woman on the far right is the mother of this foster mama.  They are Xu Beixing and Chen Caihong.  

Chen Caihong (Caihong means 'rainbow') is our primary connection to the family.

She is interested in learning English and I am interested in learning more Chinese.  She and I communicate with each other and share the goings-on of our two families.

This little girl, from the neighborhood, visited with us and she sang us a song and then she showed us her daily exercises that she does in school. 

I was very excited about this and asked her to show me how to do the exercises.  It was my motivation to burn off some of the million calories that I have consumed because of all the food that the foster family is making us eat!

I wasn't very good at doing the exercises ... but I sure gave it my best shot! 

Brynn definitely enjoys when the other children are around! 

In the evening, when we arrived back to our hotel, we found this plate of fresh fruit was left for us.  The people working in the hotel have been very kind to us; it has been so amazing.  

On the plate was an apple, banana and this pink, spikey, floral-looking piece of fruit.  We were not sure what it was but we certainly knew that we should try it. 

This is what the fruit looks like on the inside.  We learned the next day that it is 'Dragon Fruit'.   

Afterwards, we left a note ... I wrote in my not-so-good-but-it-will-have-to-do Chinese characters, "thank-you".

We can never stop saying "thank-you" ... we have so much to be thankful for.