CRR09 Day 12, Sunday - Tiger Hill

Fresh dumplings greeted me this twelfth morning of the trip. Woody joined us for a cup of coffee and off we went to Hu Qiu Shan/Tiger Hill. Hu Qui Shan is home to the leaning Yunyan Ta Pagoda. The seven-storey octagonal pagoda was built in AD 961 and is said to be sitting on top of the legendary grave of He Lu, King of the Wu dynasty during the Spring and Autumn period (770-464 BC). He is also the founder of Suzhou and his statues can be found around the city. Before its recent modernization, Yunyan Pagoda could be seen for miles from every direction. Now, one can see glimpses through the many high rises filling city streets. The upper portion of the pagoda was struck by lightening and re-built 300 years ago. Tiger Hill also contains many gardens including the beautiful Banzai garden which is home to the annual banzai competition.

Lunch today consisted of sweet and sour pork, ma-po tofu, noodles, eggplant, steamed egg, local river fish, and many vegetables. Fully satiated and rested we were ready to shop. Woody was scared at the thought of shopping with us so he escaped back to his hotel. Our host girls also returned home to do homework leaving the rest of us on our own. Not going into detail, let me just say that shopping was successful . Some alteration can be made on the spot while other more complicated changes are done overnight in the store workshop.

After a dinner of fried rice, soup, and many vegetables we had a lesson on cursing in Chinese and English. Many words were spoken that I will not repeat here. As the saying goes, “What happens in China stays in China.”