Time in Tongli

Another day trip we took with my mom was to Tongli, a water town south of Suzhou.  We’d heard good things about Tongli, but I was a bit skeptical.  I really like a part of Suzhou called “Ancient Street” (which in an earlier post I think I referred to as my Chinese Galena) and it was going to take something special to compete with Ancient Street.

Not sure what meat that is,
but we'll just keep on walking by.

Carving combs

Beautiful Tongli

 

Love the wooden bridge connecting the
two buildings.  It's fun to close your eyes and
imagine what life must have been like.

I shouldn’t have been so worried, Tongli was really fun and the whole family enjoyed it.  It is a very big area covering many city blocks and because we went during October holiday it had an extra dose of education thrown in.  Jamie called it his “New Salem” experience (we do seem to keep drawing parallels with familiar places in the States...).  It felt nice to be doing touristy things right along with the Chinese on holiday.  Chinese parents were talking to their children about the performers, artists and reenactments. just like we were with our girls. 

The paper cutting man.

There were alleys of little shops, food vendors, traditional Chinese musicians, a man specializing in paper cutting, another man who was weaving straw into animals, canal rides and lots of restaurants.  

When I think of traditional Chinese, this pretty much
sums up what I'm thinking.

I really, really wanted to sit by the canal and have a meal, but I don’t think our family has been here long enough to “stomach” (literally) that experience yet.  It looked so peaceful and families were eating together and enjoying each other’s company.  So, we settled for a boat ride instead (think River Walk in San Antonio) and that was the highlight for the girls.

Yup, she's 2 going on 3, can you tell?

Three generations of girls along the canal

Table after table of diners

Diners eating along the canal

Chinese outdoor Opera stage

An interesting side-note, in the middle of the town square was an opera stage.  Around the sides of the stage and the seating area were channels that held water.  Apparently by having water around the stage, it improves the acoustics for the people in the audience.  No need for a microphone!

Enjoying Stinky Tofu

Hairy Crabs, a delicacy around this area.

Food prep

We did sample some food from the vendors such as roasted chestnuts (yup, I hum the song to myself every time I see them), candy coated in sesame seeds, and some fried dough.  We stopped at an Italian coffee shop along the canal to eat some ice cream, which is always a safe bet if we’re unsure of everything else on the menu.  While we ate Italian ice cream, we listened to Cuban/Latin music and watched the Chinese stroll along.  A very eclectic experience!  This is where LBean tried the purple ice cream that was tarot root flavor.  A two thumbs down in LBean’s opinion.  And, we passed on the stinky tofu (while holding our breaths).

The view of the ice cream shop from our boat.

LBean fell in love with Batik too

I also managed to do a little shopping as well, which is fun.  If you read the What’s That? Wednesday post with the ceramic piggy bank, I bargained for that in Tongli.  I also discovered an entire shop of batik clothing and fabrics, I love the blue & white patterns. In one store I bargained for some scarves, one for me and the rest for Christmas presents.  Jamie and my mom purchased some water color paintings of Tongli by a local artist.

LBean practicing her business skills while Daddy
& Grandma shop for some water color paintings

As we walked along I saw or ran into several expat families that I know.  In fact, one family lives in our building about 10 floors down.  We’ve been here just long enough that we can be out and about and see people that we know.  It’s a good feeling.

What's That? Wednesday: The Shanghai Fabric Market & the Joy of Halloween

For Halloween this year we took advantage of the affordable sewing talent in China and had costumes made.  Suzhou has several tailors that are popular with the expat crowd and Jamie and I plan to use them in the future, but for this project we headed to the Shanghai Fabric Market.

I wish we had pictures of the interior of the building to show; it's really hard to describe in words.  The building is very large with 3 floors of small stalls and rooms just filled with fabric, dress forms and pre-made dresses, coats, costumes, suits, ties, and scarves.  It was almost too much for me to handle.  Oh, the possibilities!

We had a recommendation from friends on which stall to try first.  It had lots of sparkly fabric and tulle, very promising for LBean's costume.  I was a bit over-confident in my negotiating skills and when I balked at the original asking price and walked away (to try and get the woman to call me back and agree to my price), she let me walk away.  I couldn't believe it! I wasn't too worried because there were hundreds of other places to try, but every time the asking price was at least double what the first woman had quoted.  I was getting a bit discouraged and decided that maybe we would just try have the costumes made in Suzhou.  Not only were the asking prices too high for LBean's costume, but we weren't having any luck finding the right fabric for EBean's costume.  At this point I decided that what I really needed was a Hobby Lobby craft store.

Finally, on the third floor we discovered a small stall making bathrobes and other things out of soft, fuzzy material.  It was perfect for EBean's costume.  We showed the stall owner a picture of EBean's costume and he quoted us a price that was exactly the same as the quote for LBean's costume at the first place.  That sealed the deal...we would get EBean's costume made there and I would go back and eat crow and have the first place we visited make LBean's.

LBean getting measured for her costume.

I love this photo because our driver and I have the same pose!

After we ordered the girls costumes I decided to go and just "see" how much it might cost to get a Scarlett  O'Hara dress made for myself.  I wanted the green velvet dress from the movie, without the curtain rod for you Carol Burnett fans!  The asking price was at least half what it would cost in the States, so I decided to go for it.  The woman did up her asking price after she measured for the length of the dress (perhaps I'm a little taller than her average customer), but it was still a great deal.  This woman was making my childhood dreams come true!  And, now for the next 30 years I will be Scarlett O'Hara for Halloween.

Even though we spent more for the girls costumes than I had planned, the "deal" I got with my costume more than made up for it.  It was a really fun experience!

LBean's finished costume (without the wings)

LBean's inspiration photo

EBean as Hoho the monkey from the tv show
Ni Hao Kai-Lan

EBean's inspiration photo

Meet Scarlett

My inspiration photo

I'm back...

Waiting, not-so-patiently, for my mom at the airport.

It's time to ease back into the blogosphere after a two-week vacation, a recovery week (the vacation from a vacation week), and a week of sick children & sick mommy.  The beginning of October brought our first visitor to Suzhou.  My mom came for not just one week, but for a full two-week stay!  We were excited to show her around our new home and introduce her to some of our favorite spots in Suzhou.  The first week of October was a national holiday here in China and Jamie and the girls were off from school and work.  Taking advantage of the time, we became tourists in our own city.

                                        

                                                       A few happy tears!

On the first Sunday she was here we took the bus to church and then ate at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Suzhou, Casa Zoe.  On another day, we took in the sights on Walking Street and ate cotton candy and did some shopping.  Because it was a holiday, there were many locals out and things were pleasantly crowded.  Another holiday special was the smell of stinky tofu wafting around, nothing says vacation like foul-smelling food!  I made it a priority to introduce my mom to my "purse guy" and we nabbed a very traditional Chinese meal (or not) for lunch at McDonald's.

Next time mom gets some cotton candy too!

Looking down on all the people on Walking Street.

Cross that off the bucket list

There are a few publications in Suzhou that expats follow to stay connected to the activities in town.  One is called "What's On" city calendar (http://www.whatsoninsuzhou.com.cn/) and the other is Open magazine.  Each month a few local expats are featured in Open magazine and our realtor approached us about being in the magazine.  Many times the expat families will mention the realty company in the magazine, so it's good advertising for the realtor.  I said yes as a favor to our realtor who has been fantastic.  I really didn't think anything would come of it and I forgot about it.

EBean's interest in the
magazine is waning

At the very end of September I got a call from Open magazine and we were asked to be featured in the October issue.  They wanted to do the article in the next two days, and were we available?

Thankfully the person who did the interview was my friend and photography class teacher, so it turned out to be a really fun experience.  The last part of the interview was to get our picture taken for the feature, but the girls were so tired (Wednesdays are LBean's late night at school), and we didn't get any family pictures taken that night. So, I had to come up with some of our own photos to be included with the article.


I fired off a quick email to my friend Kara back in the States and asked if she would be okay with us using the family photo that she had taken last fall for the magazine.  She was great and said "no problem!"


I jokingly told someone that now that we've been in the magazine, it's time to move back...that's all we came for.  Actually, I just went to the grocery store this week and the cashier pulled out last month's Open and pointed to the picture (she thought EBean was the big sister).

The featured photo (karakamienskiphotography.com)

What's That? Wednesday 11/2/2011

Mmmm, this week's What's That? Wednesday is yummy "purple bread".  When we first moved here I was perusing a bread store at the Incity mall and saw a loaf of bread that was a very interesting shade of purple.  Because I have two young girls at our house, purple bread seemed to be the perfect after school treat.

The girls were hooked from the first slice.  I couldn't accurately describe the tasty swirl running through the middle, but it was slightly sweet and very good.  It wasn't until the October holiday when LBean ordered some purple ice cream from a shop in Tongli (that listed the English names of the ice cream) that we figured out that the purple flavor was tarot root.  LBean was not a fan of the purple ice cream and we kept asking her "how bad can it be, it's ice cream?"...it was bad, the flavor was way too strong.

Of course we should have known the mystery ingredient was tarot root!  C'mon why didn't we figure that out earlier?!  Actually we knew that tarot was popular in China and we had a tarot root pie from McDonald's (like the little apple pies in the States) at Family Day in September, so we shouldn't have been so surprised. Here's to tarot root!