Today’s tour involves a two-hour drive to Suzhou. The city is over 2500 years old. It is one of the best places to view the Grand Canal, built from Hangzhou to Beijing (over 1700 kilometers), and finished in the 5th century. That’s really old! We arrive, and begin the tour with a short visit to a famous garden. After the garden visit, we went to view the Grand Canal. It’s an engineering masterpiece, considering when it was built.
We had lunch in a local noodle shop (our request), and then went to the Suzhou Silk Factory Exhibition. It was a large series of buildings with various stations demonstrating the process of making silk. We saw the silkworms, the cocoons, and ultimately how the cocoons were converted to thread and fabric. It was interesting. After the tour, we were, of course, walked through a large store with every type of silk product available for purchase. I’m sure the guide gets a percentage if any sales that are made. The big push is for silk duvets, but clothes, scarves, and ties are also readily available.
Sorting silk cocoons for quality
Cocoons are soaked, then the end of the thread is found and threaded into machine where it begins to unravel the cocoon.
Judy and Courtney (FaceTime) shopping for pillowcases.
After the silk tour, we make an hour drive to Zhouzhang and the “Water Village”. It’s a picturesque area with canals, boats, and small shops. When we finish at the water village, we make the drive back to Shanghai, arriving around 5:30. It’s been a long, but interesting day. We’re tired of driving, but it was worth it. As with any tours like these, we only scratched the surface of seeing the area. A person would have to live in the area to really see it all, but it’s nice to get a taste for what’s here.
