Well, yesterday was pretty cool. We visited a lot of touristy-type places -- a
silk embroidery factory, some famous gardens, wooden fan factory, etc. Every place had an
attached gift shop, of course. I didn't spend anything but some folks spent some major
money. $8000 for a silk embroidery wall piece? man... I guess if you can drop a few
thousand for a trip to China, chances are you have a real job and can afford to spend
some real money every now and then. I'm biding my time -- get me to the weapons shops so
I can make my purchases and then see how much I have left.
Last in the afternoon was Tiger Mountain. Very cool place. Took a bunch of photos -- sure hope they come out. It was the first very cool ``Gosh, I'm in China now!'' place we've gone to. Giant pagoda on the hill, leaning like the Pisa tower. And a lot of small canals, stairways, bridges, stone fields, bonsai arboreums, etc. all over the rest of the hill. I was getting really sick of the tourist thing but that made it all worthwhile. 300 year old bonsai trees!
Clearing near the tower.
Base of tower with Grand Master Thé
Another tower shot.
Bonsai garden.
300 year old Bonsai.
Weird thing about the restaurants we've gone to -- they'll give you some water, tea, soda, etc, to start off with, but after two bottles they charge you for it. Except for beer. No charge for extra beer. A couple times we wanted more bottled water and had to pay for it, but if we wanted beer it was free. Beer is cheaper than water? Huh?