day: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 epilogue

06 Jun 2007

to Tibet - Day Nineteen:

We returned to the canals in the bright morning. Tickets to see old houses and gardens. Patterned window shutters, wavy roofs with heavy shingles. Kind of what you see when you think Venice in China. Very old with a remarkable amount of wood use in comparison to the masonary dominating the rest of the country. A lot of food shops, smoke shops and local crafts shops. I devoured a box of sweet nutty rice flaps in lieu of a decent breakfast. The only cheery folk were another group of young Chinese tourists looking to get their picture taken with Jason. I'm surprised the Xitong people weren't demons that would have eaten us in our sleep the night before. Maybe someone died. The shoe shiners were extremely agressive and one was driving at shining my synthetic running shoes. I've never heard someone say "hello" with such anger to insist that you needed your shoes shined.

We eventualy we got out of there and were bus trapped for another few hours before arriving in Suzhou for more canals, food, an embroidery shop, food and an sandalwood store. This was the most sold out i had felt by any tour guide ever. Our night off didn't start until we were checked into the hotel at about nine. By this point i was pretty burnt out on gift shops and bullshit and the mood in Xitong earlier in the morning had set me off for the majority of the day. We took a walk that was fine but not spirited enough to make it back to the skatepark that i had seen on the way into town. I had yet to see any skateboarders or signs of skateboarding in China.

joel

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