Day 2: Still Suzhou

Woke up the next day by a morning call at 7am & not by sunshine :( Still in the vicinity of Suzhou (city with a population of 6 million) and heading to the famous Suzhou No.1 Silk Factory Co. Ltd. The tour guide apparently said that Suzhou has the prettiest girls in all of China but I have only seen old women and just OK girls...was Tertipu! Maybe her plan to wake us up.

Anyway no pictures were allowed to be taken inside the factory & production area. Sadly I had to use other pictures (not taken by us) but looks almost identical, just imagine/visualize lor.

• Step 1: To sort and treat the killed cocoons with boiling water to separate the filaments bound together and to easily locate the end of the thread. One cocoon can generate a thread of about 1km!
• Step 2: Combine the threads as one is too thin so workers locate the end of 8 threads and unite them before putting them into the spinning machine.
• Step 3 & 4: These are then weaved before being stretched to be stocked as a pile. The pile can be used to make high quality silk items like beddings, quilts & women underwear. Did I say underwear?

Yes, we did made some grand purchases here but not going to disclose more because it is PnC haha. Lunch was awesome at a place called Zhou Xin where we had some 'very the keat' Ramen with fortified pork belly (see for yourself). Again the ramen is drenched in oily soup, a culture of standard Chinese food in China.

With no time to waste we forged ahead to Ruiguang Pagoda which has the longest history considering it was built during the Three Kingdoms period. At 43.2 meters tall, it is a structure of seven storeys built using bricks and wooden beams. There's also the Tiger Hill; gardens with waterfall near the auspicious Light Pagoda.

The famous historical landmark Pan Gate Scenic Area estimated to be around 2,500 years old. It is part of an ancient city wall that surrounded and protected Suzhou from invaders during the Warring States period.

Outside the water gates, we went for a boat ride on Jing-Hang Yunhe (Beijing-Hangzhou Canal) which is a series of waterways in eastern and northern China that links Hangzhou to Beijing. It is the longest man-made waterway (1,747km) to supply grain to capital cities and large standing armies in the north and was built using raw man swt, no machines! Truly a magnificant second wonder only second to the Great Wall.

The last stop for the day was a shopping district of Guan Qian street, center of Suzhou commerce. Books sold in China were darn cheap, the Chinese seem to have more purchasing power than a standard Malaysian when it comes to reading hence the books are 50% cheaper than ours. This explains why Msia pirated DVD is insanely cheap. Because we like to watch TV more than read le.

Back to the hotel after a boleh boleh dinner, at least it was not Ho Au one.