Traveling Adventures

Hi everyone,

We had a great time this week, although it is a little cold. We traveled by train from Shanghai to the city of Suzhou (40 minutes away). It is a lot like Venice with it's little streams and inner city waterways everywhere. We went on some boat rides and took a lot of photos of the place.
It is in the center of China and far from Italy...but the atmosphere was great and we enjoyed it. We even went to the Zoo together. We enjoyed the food here. It is good. People are friendly and we just went walking everywhere.
We stayed in the Youth Hostel again and it was a great, a cheap tourist experience. The cost per night was about $19. -- or just less than $20. It has an American feel and even offers a free American breakfast every morning you stay there.
There are a lot of interesting people staying here from all other countries... We met some of them and talked with them. Some are students in colleges here learning Chinese and who are travelling from other cities for winter break vacation.
When we arrived in Suzhou, we were really excited to find a TGI-Fridays inside one of the large hotels here today. We took advantage of that and enjoyed green Salads and Pasta primavera to die for..twice...Here is Dana trying on wigs, so fun.
The next day, we took an official Chinese bus tour about one hour away to another city called: Zhouzhuang. The travel guide spoke only Chinese, but we did not care. We found two male students from Hong Kong on the trip who we hung around with the whole trip. They helped us a lot. Gypsies need a lot of help.
This city is even more Venice and a great tourist attraction. We spent the day there and toured another Buddhist Temple and then the silk factory on the way back. We seem to go to at least a Temple every time we go on tour.
We are feeling great and enjoying each other. Life is good. Trying to stay warm and happy too. We are flying south tomorrow.. to a city on the sea called Xamen. Google it to see what it is like...We are staying at the Bay Inn Hostel.
10 days there then we will go to Shenzhen and then Hong Kong for our BYU China Teachers conference. We will go to the Temple there too.
We enjoy being companions. We enjoy the gypsy traveling life -- we go where and when we want, where ever we want to turn, go, or stay longer, we can and just do it.We have met so many nice people and everywhere we go, we can truly say that we have left our mark on China. We have not seen it all, but we hope to...
Off we go.

Jay & Dana Thelin
Suzhou, China.