What can I say...sometime you just stumble upon a blog worthy moment.  This flower dance was a part of the grand opening of the Gardens By the Bay which we briefly toured but with crazy crowds and epic Singapore lines everywhere we decided to save the full exploration for another day.

Meaghan and Jake were here in June for an adventure filled month exploring around Asia. They spent some time with us in Singapore, using it as a home base while they also explored Vietnam and Bali.

Suzhou is known as the Venice of the East because of the myriad of canals that flowed through the city.


There is a famous Chinese saying: "In the sky is Heaven’s paradise, on Earth is Suzhou and Hangzhou."  Translation: Suzhou, and neighboring Hangzhou, are the closest things to Heaven on Earth.


After hours of walking around the city desperately searching for food someplace where we could read the menu that was not KFC - one of us (for once it wasn't me!) hit a moment of VERY low blood sugar and we had to make a quick choice between chicken feet vendor or mystery bun vendor.


We obviously went with mystery bun which wasnt bad.  Still not too sure what we ate, I think it was some kind of sweet black bean paste, but it was sweet so served its purpose as a sugar boost.



Wish we had found these rental bikes earlier in the day.  There are rental stations all over the city which would have saved hours of walking and quite possibly "the sugar crash". But overall we had a wonderful day exploring "Heaven on Earth" Suzhou.

The Humble Administrator's Garden (another of China’s official UNESCO World Heritage Sites) was originally built in 1509 during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).  It is one of the four most famous gardens in all of China.

It was initially a private garden of a former government servant named Wang Xianchen. It was said he intended to build a garden after he retired and just do some gardening work like planting trees and vegetables there - to live the of a humble man by him. Hence that is the name of the garden.



Love love love that in China (and also most of Asia) you find couples and families that dress alike.  You never know...if we live in Asia long enough Kingsley and I may just become "one of those couples".

The garden contains 48 different buildings with 101 tablets, 21 precious old trees, and over 700 Suzhou-style bonsai. It was also bursting with people. Many who were more interested in snapping our photo then the landscape but overall it was beautiful.


Kingsley and I don't typically have a huge attention span for museums or gardens but we found the ancient trees, rockeries, waterways, pagodas and pavilions, to be peaceful and calming despite the Chinese paparazzi.
 

We took the G (bullet) train from Shanghai to Suzhou for a day trip which was quite the adventure.


We had NO idea what to do or which line we should be in.  So we just got in a line and hoped for the best.  Thankfully the guy in front of us in line spoke english and helped us purchase the correct tickets.

Once we had our tickets secured we walked around looking for some lunch.
KFC was the only brand that we recognized/looked appealing. So although we had already eaten there once that week we went again.  Did you know KFC's in China (at least the locations we went to) don't serve french fries or soda?  Sides with your chicken include: bread, corn or chinese soup and drinks are chinese tea or soya milk.


Everyone waits in the main terminal - then exactly 10 minutes (and I mean exactly) before your train arrives you can enter into the gates that take you down to the train platform.
The train trip only took about 30 min - it was amazingly empty and incredibly clean.