Had a very leisurely start to the day. I went and had a swim at around 8am and then had a shower and we went off to find breakfast. Ended up at an outdoor cafe on the corner of Paterson St and Orchard Rd. Had a really nice meal and coffee and juice for around S$30 (A$22.50) which we thought was excellent value. Did some more shopping and then retired to the room for a rest as the heat really tires you out quickly when you are out walking in it continuously. Went ...

We both had a bad night's sleep. I woke at around 1:30am and was awake for some time. Dad woke several times. Anyway, I clung to the bed waiting for the alarm, but at around 4:45am (dad was already in the shower) some idiot caused all the traffic outside our side of the hotel to honk their horns continuously for around 10 minutes! What a wake up! Then dad busted the zip on his trousers and had to open his case to find another pair. This was 10 minutes before we h...

Today was to be our last full day in China. It started the usual way with breakfast in the hotel, which was good and then we set off for the 3.5 hour drive back to Shanghai. It was interesting that we had originally thought that there was urban area all the way from Shanghai to Suzhou and from Hangzhou back again but I realised that what we were actually looking at was farm houses, they just looked like apartments, because all along the way we saw lots of cultiva...

This morning our bus took us first to a Buddhist temple and gardens, before a tea house and then lunch. The Buddhist temple was ok, but I am a little over them by now. Lots of Chinese milling around with handfulls of newly purchased joss sticks which they burn to show respect to Buddha. Most aren't Buddhists, they are just having a shilling each way! Quite funny really. It is one indicator of just how superstitious they are! We then drove through some lovely coun...

Breakfast was not anything out of the ordinary and we departed on the bus and headed to the Humble Administrator's Garden. Hmm. Well, make your own mind up. It was all very nice but I think this is the wrong end of the trip to be showing me gardens. Beer gardens would have been better received at this point! Anyway, we dutifully plodded through and I took a few photos which I think are quite nice. After that we managed to find a place that served Chinese food for...