After getting back to Suzhou, we spent a few days resting here at home and then the exploring began! We've seen quite a few gardens and pagodas, a silk factory, witnessed the awesome Chinese New Year celebrations and hung out with some great friends.

The gardens never disappoint. The ancient architecture is so beautiful and detailed. Every post, every wall, and every roof is carefully decorated with patterns, birds, dragons, flowers, etc. This kind of attention to detail is lacking in modern architecture, I assume because it takes great time to do it right, but in my mind, totally worth it for aesthetic value. We have yet to climb up a pagoda with Jamie, but hopefully in the next few days we can either do North Pagoda or Tiger Hill.

We were guided to the silk factory. A few days ago we embarked out into the freezing temperatures in search of the silk museum. What we were lead to might have been better. I rickshaw driver stopped us on the sidewalk and told us to follow him. He led us down this alley and into the door of a silk factory. We never would have found this otherwise, but after this has happened several times and always yielding good results we now just follow without question. A man met us at the door and gave us a tour of the place. We learned about the different kinds of silk worms. Apparently Suzhou has famous silk worms because these worms, for whatever reason, produce more silk from a single cocoon than any others in China. Suzhou is famous for its silk and jade, and people from all over the country come here to buy top quality products. He then took us into a room where they had the silk cocoons being soaked in water and then unstranded by hand into a spinning wheel that wound up the individual silk thread. A single cocoon can produce about a mile of thread! We also learned about a kind of cocoon, called a twin cocoon that has two moths instead of one inside. For some reason these can only be done by hand, so we were led to another room in which a woman was removing the bugs (which are saved and used for paint pigment) by hand and pulling the cocoon over a frame to stretch it. We were able to push on these after being stretched and surprised to feel how strong they were. Silk threads are very strong and soft. They have a similar protein structure to human hair only much stronger. They also have rooms where groups of women pull sheets of silk to make blankets. We were able to purchase a few things, including outfits for the kids and a wonderfully warm 100% Suzhou silk blanket for our bed. Raw silk is softer than cashmere and has become my new favorite fabric! I will be buying up quite a collection of silk from now on because I will never be able to get good quality silk like this for the prices we are getting it for anywhere else! All you women back home expect to get some nice silk when we return this summer for a visit!

The Chinese New Year was awesome! The vibe in the air was very busy and exciting. Lots of people were traveling around to see family and enjoy the traditions that have been passed down through generations of Chinese. They eat specific dishes this time of year and of course setting off fireworks is the favorite form of entertainment. In China, fireworks are often heard year round, however, we were all treated to a real show new years eve around midnight. It sounded like a warzone outside and so we moved from the living room to the balcony to see how it was. We walk out and there was a 360 view of fireworks on every horizon. It was amazing to be in the middle of it all. The lights, the banging, the firework smell, and the beautiful display set before us. We all agreed that we'd never seen anything like it before. It is one of my favorite memories now. I know I will look back and remember the way it felt and how special it all was to experience.

Yesterday (new years day) we went with some other American friends to the historic Shangtang street in old Suzhou. It was packed, first of all. I must have passed like 2 million people yesterday! Although at this point, I'm pretty much used to crowds being around always….We did a little shopping and had lunch on a canal. We are going to head back in a few days to do a river canal tour in a boat (when it's not so crowded). We also stumbled upon some street opera, which was beautiful. I got a video of it, but haven't watched it yet. If it's good quality I will be sure to add it to the blog.

That's pretty much it at this point. We will have more stories and pictures to share soon! Lots of love to all back home!