Day 7

Today we left early again.  The first place was Suzhou.  This is a city where there is a lot of gardens and spiritual gatherings.  It is another "water city" which helps greatly with the irrigation of these gardens.  A direct place of interest is the Humble Administrator's Garden which covers about 13 acres.  It is the largest garden in Suzhou. There is an amazing amount of rock sculpture here.  Everything from small stones sculpted in flower beds to huge sculpturs big enough to walk through.  And when I say "walk through" that is exctally what I mean..  You walk in, out, over, under, up, down and through these things.  They are literally "honeycomb" rocks with stairways carved into them. Tons of flowers, acres of greenery and pond after pond with fish that rival the King Salmon of the Skagit River in size.  It is truly a tranqual place.  I think if I ever decided to leave Priority (or if they decide for me!) I would ask to be a gardener there.  I could truly spend time here. Next on the list was the Beizi Buddha.  This is a huge Buddha with a grin the size of a small alley.  He is about - oh, maybe fifteen feet tall.  I would say all in all about the size of a two car garage.  You used to be able to rub his belly but now they have him roped off so you can only get about six feet or so from him. Behind him is tha Pagoda.  This is truly a wonderfull site. There are eight floors and unlike the last one we were in there are no elevators or escelators.  It's all about the stairs folks.  This was awsome!!!  Eight floors and although I am sure some renovation has taken place it truly looked authentic.  You will see in our pictures that every flight meant smaller openings and steeper stairways.  Diane took a pic of the top of the Buddha from every floor.  Lost of winning about the stairs but finally we were at the top and oh my god!  What a view!  Amazing to be that close to that much history. We came back down the four thousand stairs (after Diane wrote our names on the wall.  Imagine the punishment for THAT in this country!  Execution for sure!!!!) and met up with Mr. Lo again who took us to Tiger Hill.  I'm not sure of the offical Chinese name for this but there are a couple of things at this site.  One is a story and history of swords which I will explain later when we put our video together. The other is the Pagoda.  This it truly history in itself.  It was unsure and unagreed upon exctally when this was built but the general idea is "Thousands of years ago" so that gives you a basic idea.  There is a realy cool story behind this tower that I will share later but essentially it has been "leaning" since the Ming Dynasty and they believe it is because there is a tomb below that may be collapsing.  They now longer allow the public in and when you see the pictures you will see why.  The Chinese Government is still unsure of what they are going to do with it - tear it down or restore it - but since they have gone to the expense of attaching cables and wires to it so that people can still see it without it falling on their heads I would say that at some point they will eventually restore it. We left there and after a two hour drive home had dinner with Pete, Diane and the kids.  Finishing this and off to bed. Have a good night everyone. "Wan Shang Hao" everyone.