Liralen's Adventures Through Life

I woke up unable to speak because of my throat. I was tired, but felt mostly lucid. I was also absolutely determined to be able to go on the extra trip on the first, the next day, as we'd paid extra for it, and I really wanted to see the Garden out in Suzhou. I knew that there was going to be a lot involved today, so was careful about where I spent my energy. It helped that the breakfast buffet in Shanghai was one of the best that we'd seen up to that point. One of Jet's favorites at this stop were the baked buns topped with roh soong (a slow cooked pork that was cooked until it fell completely apart and even further until it dried to crumbles of sweet/salty porky goodness) and butter. There were also three kind of rice porridge, including a pumpkin one that I fell in love with. They also had fresh longan and three kinds of croissants along with paper-wrapped muffins of all kinds. I did realize that I was beginning to long for American food, but it might have been as mu...

I woke up feeling really awful on this morning, and while I went to breakfast with the boys, I was coughing like crazy. There had been no sneezing, whatsoever, but my lungs were not happy with me. We didn't have to get our luggage together for pick up until 10, and the group wasn't leaving the hotel until 10:50, so the boys had planned for a morning walk after breakfast along the river. I told them that I'd go a short way with them, but that I really needed more time in bed than time outside. I'm glad I did it, but even happier that they got some time to wander the city. It's a beautiful city, and runs far more at the pace I love than the BIG ones, I think... still... I got a little time to look around before going back to collapse on my pillows... We found our taichi practitioners, the ones we hadn't found at the Temple of Heaven park were all over the river bank earlier in the morning. With the female retirement age set at 50, there were a lot of ladies th...