Another mountain nearby Suzhou. Sissi’s boss wanted to show us this place and then onto Dongshan where she has her home. The mountain was very busy because there is a three day holiday for the Qingming Festival or it’s sometimes known as Tomb Sweeping Day. The paths on this mountain have all been constructed and sometimes steps have been carved out of the rocks to create a series of steps. I guess this means you can go in any weather but I much prefer to walk on a natural path.

The climb was easy compared to Lingyanshan, the only saving grace I guess was that the rocks had some interesting shapes and many had very old traditional characters engraved on them, although I have no idea what was being said but the designs were very interesting.

It was a very short stay here and then we headed to Dongshan once more, I used to like going here but I feel that I’ve seen way too much of it this time through other folks eyes and my more simple approach is far more appealing I feel. I’m very grateful of course for being chauffeured and dined and it can be quite the experience but I’m feeling a little bit worn out.

The Boss’s house is very nice, an old traditional home with large gardens filled with all the usual characteristics with the main feature being the large pond filled with many large gold fish and the like. A great place to escape the chaos of the outside world and as we sat there drinking tea and having a snack with the sun on my back I was very much at peace.

I would have liked to have gone home after that respite but I didn’t realise that this was going to be a full day experience. We moved next door to a restaurant/bar which is another business that the Boss owns. We sat at a very large dining table and were served with many local dishes, apart from seafood thankfully. Sissi had mentioned that I was not a lover of food of an aquatic nature and they had been kind enough to leave that off the menu, however what we received was very delicious.

By 7pm I was almost falling asleep and I had had enough. The Boss took us home and it took about an hour, mind you there were some interesting and sometimes scary decisions being made. 15 minutes after arriving home I had washed my face and cleaned ma wallies and I was off to find the land of nod, which I found fairly quickly.