Weekend in Wu Xi

Well, last weekend Eric and myself took a trip to a town called Wu Xi. It's about two hours away by bus.
It's located right on Tai Lake...just like Changxing
But it's much larger and much more developed.

We met up with a friend that I made in Yang Shou. Her name is Claudia and she's from Austria.
She is teaching German and English in a school about an hour and a half away from Changxing.
Claudia went to Wu Xi a few days before we got there and had already mapped out the hot spots to see for us.
Soon after we got there, we headed over to the lake and took a boat to a nearby island.
This may have been Eric's first time at feeling like a real star.
There must have been a dozen people taking our picture here.
Well, you have a blond haired girl and a guy with hair on his face...and well...I have blue eyes...LOL.

The boat was packed with Chinese tourists.


Here is the line of people waiting to get back on and go back to the mainland.


I haven't figured out the whole "peace sign" thing yet?


But they all do it..."PEACE".


Eric is striking up a conversation with some new friends that he met on the boat.

As usual, everybody wanted to have their photo taken with a foreigners.
One person would ask" Can I take a photo with you" and then another and another.
I'm gonna start charging for this...5 yuan a photo.


Lots of candles and incense.

They had some incredible artwork.
This thing must have been 40 feet tall.


I didn't notice it when I took the picture,but it looks like Eric is about to get pounded by this giant stone man.


Yes...I got to ring the bell.

This is a Taoist temple.


Young Taoist priest.



Jabba the Buddha.


They look really old and neat, but they are made out of wire and concrete...probably not over a couple of decades old.(The statues...not me!)


Claudia had here own fan club...




You can barely tell where the lake ends and the sky starts.



Eric was really getting used to being a celebrity.
He's had a lot of people stare at him in Changxing. But I think this is the first time he has had complete strangers come up to him and ask to have their picture taken with him







After a few hours we headed back the the boat and to the mainland.


Heading back.

Some people were just exhausted.


Others were still wound for sound!


We were all starving so we set out to find a good place to eat.
We found a wonderful place called "The Amazon Cafe' and Buffet".
It was the best food I've eaten in 9 months.
The had what is called Brazilian BBQ.
They had these guys carrying all kinds of meats around from table to table and you take as much as you could eat...or more.
Nobody walked away hungry!


The next day we had Starbucks for breakfast and then found our way to a local street market.


This would look really good without the "Sprite" sign.


Eric likes tea, so he shopped around for some good tea.
This whole street was lined with tea shops.


Here he found a good deal on some of his favorite tea.

By the way Eric bought himself a new camera...he got a pretty good deal too.
He picked up a $500 camera for about $250 with a 1GB memory chip thrown in too.
Anyway...Claudia took us to huge supermarket where I found...MUSTARD!!!
They also had cheese, pasta and spaghetti sauce...and green olives!!
So, with my new groceries and my friends, we headed back to the bus station where we found...NOT one bus going to Changxing!?!
So we walked over to the train station...Mayo...(that means "none" in Chinese).
We ended up having to take a taxi back to Changxing...2 hours.
Just guess how much that taxi cost us...In America...probably $300.
Here...350 Yuan...about $40.
It wasn't ideal, but it got us home. We all had classes the next morning so we didn't really have much of a choice.
And then Claudia still had another hour and a half to go back to her town.
Thanks for hanging out with me this weekend guys!!


Jim