After a filling lunch De Yue Lou we slowly headed back back to our room for our regularly scheduled afternoon nap. That's a photo of the North Temple (Beisi 北寺塔) Pagoda, reputed to be the oldest pagoda South of the Yangtze river.
Exhausted I immediately fell into a deep sleep back at the hotel. When I awoke it was already dusk, and the Missus was ready……. for some shopping! We walked along and browsed the various silk shops. While the Missus was looking at some silk, I noticed this in one of the glass cabinets…….
I thought "what a neat stuffed animal"! Until it moved!!!! And holy smoke it was a live cat just chillin' lying inside the glass case…..
Purchases in hand, it was time for dinner…… it had gotten a bit cooler over the last few hours, and a slow drizzle had started. We wanted something nice and warm in our bellies, so passing this hot pot shop made our dinner decision easy.
The place seemed to be doing some pretty good business…….
The Missus ticked off what She wanted…. we were in the mood for more vegetables, so that's the way we went.
We went with the "lamb bone soup"…….
There actually was a pretty good sized leg bone, with a decent amount of meat attached to it in the broth, along with cucumber, carrots, napa cabbage, and bean curd strips. The hot pot had a nice lamb flavor, making frozen bean curd a perfect ingredient. The only meat we had was fatty sliced lamb.
This shop also had a sauce bar, with all the usual suspects; fermented bean curd, etc….. and a couple of spicy options. I believe the sign says that you can have two choices, but we noticed folks just going ahead and helping themselves….. "so when in Rome" and all that.
I loved the mixed wild mushrooms…….
I did a good job of gnawing all that meat off the bone, and we finished two refills of the bone soup….
It was just the right thing for the moment. We left with warm full bellies, the rain had passed, and we took the long way back to the room.
We were up early the next morning, and caught a 5am cab to the bus station…. the very green bus station…..
Suzhou's bus station wasn't quite as nice and clean as Hangzhou's, and the restroom were pretty horrific, even by China standards. You could smell the latrine from the other side of the bus station. I don't know how the toilet paper vendor (yes, you either brought your own, bought some, or…. well, let's not go there) could stand it.
Soon enough, we were on the bus headed for our next stop…. Nanjing.