Yesterday the sun came out and it finally looks like the weather has changed for the better. It was still a bit fresh in the morning when I went to the park earlier, because there were still white frosty patches of grass that the sun had not devoured yet.
The meeting point was at Mudu, the end of the line for the metro and the gateway to Taihu and beyond. There were about 12 of us meeting here and after 4 of us arrived we jumped into a “Didi” (Chinese Uber) and made our way to Guang Fu. Our good friend “Photo Guy” has organised the day for us. As his name suggest he is a photographer and he often comes to the Album of Suzhou events which this was today. Today however he had organised a gaggle of photographers and the foreigners were the “models” or subject matter for the day. Our every gesture was being captured by high resolution cameras, whether we were picking your noses, or scratching our arses, you can be rest assured that there would be a lens focused on you. However it is a small price to pay, I mean sell out your dignity for a great day out.
No it wasn’t that bad at all, it was really great to get a guided tour through the Qing Dynasty temple which is by far one of the most interesting in the Suzhou area. The temple grounds are vast. At first glance it seems like your average temple with all the usual things in place but then you go passed the Buddha shrine and out through the back door where it leads you to another garden rising slowly to a small tea house and it’s only then that you realise just how high this temple sits over the surrounding area. Below us suburbia and the spell is broken briefly but if you quickly turn around again you will be facing up to the multi story pagoda. Just in front of us is the tortoise pond and in the middle there is a giant stone tortoise connected to the banks of the pond by a series of large stepping stones and of course we all decided to put our lives and dignity on the line by making a crossing and posing for the camera.
The pagoda does not look very old, but at least we were able to climb to the top of it using the small internal staircase. The view from the top is very good, although the view itself was a little bit disappointing.
We left the temple and headed for lunch. As we walked through the car park we came across this old lady sitting there in the sunshine watching the world go by. I asked her if I could take her picture and she said ok. I then asked her how old she was and she told me that she was 92 years old. She seemed such a happy wee soul and I think very surprised to see so many foreigners. At first I thought she may be the car park attendant, maybe she was I forgot to ask……………
We then headed to a small restaurant and we all paid 100 rmb for lunch, but I did not enjoy it very much. Guang Fu is close to the lake and so most restaurants will offer the bounty that the lake has to offer and I’m not too keen on much that comes out of the ocean or the sea or the lake for that matter. Now if it was fish’n’chups then maybe I would have been a bit happier, but seeing the poor wee fish lying on the plate, mouth open, eyes looking skywards, and its flesh exposed for all to see is not my idea of lunch. Neither are the chicken feet, shrimp, fatty pork and the several dishes of oily vegetables that were dished up. Luckily there were some dumplings on offer and so I scoffed them. Quick Fact: I happened to comment on the oily vegetables and the young lady beside me said this…….”in days of old many Chinese families would use way too much oil to show that they had wealth, that they could afford to waste oil which was such an expensive commodity and so this is where the tradition comes from” Well now that everybody is better off than before, why can’t the Chinese become more frugal and be kinder to the planet and themselves and use less oil………..I for one will be very happy.
After lunch we headed to one of the largest collections of Plum trees. At this time of the year the plum blossom is abundant and it comes in many different colours and it attracts thousands of visitors. Everywhere you look phones are being used to capture the beauty up close and personal and it’s almost impossible to take a picture of just the plum blossom without getting a human photo bombing your attempt. I tried to take one picture of the blossom up close and noticed afterwards that a wee bee had photo bombed me.
It was a long day but it was great. It was good to catch up with a few friends that I hadn’t seen for a while. It was a really good day and even as we squeezed onto the bus with the other million folk it just wasn’t that bad. We were squeezed together like sardines. The driver was terrible but what’s new. I had left the house at 8.30 in the morn and I got home at 7pm and I was absolutely exhausted and also starving. After a snack and some mindless TV I headed off to bed and had no problem drifting off to the land of nod…………………