Because it took us so long to get to Suzhou (pronounced Sue Joe), we only had time to take a boat tour on the Grand canal and the Circle Canal before we checked into out hotel and called it a night. It was reminiscent of Venice, Italy.
On Monday, the 1st of May, on our way to the Humble Administrators Garden (not at all humble, but very grandiose) we walked through this great shopping area. Many of us snuk out of the garden area, as we'd already seen the Lingering Garden and the Digging Tiger Springs. We were more interested in seeing the ethnic shopping area.
We were very interested in these very colorful fruits. They were very vibrant, so we decided to try them. As it turned out, they were actually small, green peaches that had been dyed and soaked in some brine/pickling juice of some sort. Not very good. With all that dye in them, they were probably slightly toxic. Most of our purchase got thrown out.
At some point in our touring, it may have been the first thing we did on Sunday morning, we were taken to a silk factory. Not actually a factory, but a place to show the tourists how silk was made, and then we were given a large block of time to buy their pricey silk clothing. It was a big tourist trap. We didn't fall for it though.
Above, you'll see the mulberry trees that the silk worms feed on.
And here's a picture of silk worms.
This lady sorts the silk cocoons.
They join about 7 silk fibers together to make one strand or thread of silk to weave into fabric.
This is not a picture of me and Cynthia Pulley trying to decide which silk blouse we want to buy. We're standing there talking about how expensive everything is.
This man was popping corn and rice the old-fashioned way. He pumped air into the box on the left, which kept the flames going in the black container on the right. It was pretty interesting! He'd probably be really interested in seeing how slick our hot air poppers work.
No comments:
Post a Comment