Soo Chow

So after the cruise we were met by Kevin, our 5 minute guide, and driven to the airport, where we flew to Shanghai in buiness class-so nice! Too bad it was only an hour! And we got the same food as everyone else, which consisted of pickled vegetables and menthol gumdrops. Ew. We then had an hour ride to Soo Chow where we arrived at about 7:30 at night. We checked into our hotel and went out to dinner, but it was really frustrating. We were on "bar street" so there were a million places to choose from, but no one speaks any English, so we were reduced to hand gestures and it is very hard to explain menu or food, apparently, so at that point I was at HALT so I went back to the hotel but the fam went out to Korean or something. The hotel we stayed in was cool, but the beds posed a problem. The next day we learned that the harder the bed the better made it is, according to local custom, but for the other ladies in the group it was a bit like the princess and the pea, or Goldilocks perhaps, and a bed made of wood just wasn't comfortable.
Anyway then we headed out to see a garden which was beautiful, and which has a twin (replica) in the Met in New York. That was interesting and a really beautiful spot. We then went to a silk factory where we saw the production of silk from the worm to the comforter. It was really amazing, but the most incredible thing is that here in China labor is so cheap that handmade silk is cheaper than machine made! We also learned that Chinese people sleep on pillows filled with silk worm poop, because it is cool and smells good. We saw the production line with women working with all these spools of silk-it takes 8 coccoons to make a single strand of silk. Then there are looms that make the actual fabric. The hardest color to produce is yellow. But at the university scientists are messing with the genes of these worms to try and make them produce colored silk straight from their bodies! That wacky DNA!

After lunch we came to Shanghai where we checked into our hotel and had the afternoon to explore.