The Most Under-Impressive Segment of the Trip

After leaving Suzhou, we headed to Wuxi, the town with no tin.  Our local guide, Christina, explained that's what Wuxi means - no tin.  When we arrived, we went straight to The Three Kingdoms City TV production lot.  We had a little time to walk around the lot and look at the props.  One of our group was taking pix of the soldier replicas with a Snapchat filter.  You'll just have to imagine the bunny ears on Chinese warriors, though, because I don't have Snapchat.

To top off the evening, there was a show regarding one of the wars between the various clans.  This show was done in the ring.  The Chinese do an awesome job in their stage shows, but this show on horseback was highly disappointing.  There was no synchronized riding, no trick riding, no specialized skills. It was mostly just one rider at a time galloping around the ring while the rider swung around a lance or some other prop.  The horses were well trained to not shy at all the flags and other distractions.

Then, we headed to the hotel.  It was a nice room, the Swiss-Belhotel.  There was an extra telephone in the bathroom.  I guess that was for when nature calls.

After getting settled in the room, we had just enough energy left to take a taxi to the local mall, where Chrissy found some hair bows that she liked and I checked out the Big Mac.  Once again, it tasted like a Big Mac.  Some of the other members of the group said they got other McDonald's sandwiches, and the cheese tasted a little off, but the special sauce apparently covered up any changes.  The biggest difference to me was that the fries weren't nearly as salty as they are most places, and I couldn't get a salt packet to add.

We woke in the morning, had another buffet breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and proceeded to the pearl factory.  They no longer provide a tour of the pearl farms, only to the showroom and sales room.  There are no pictures allowed in the pearl showroom.  In the front, they have the cultured or seed pearls  In the back they have a room in which they sell the natural pearls.  When the saleslady decided to put a US$5000 necklace around my neck, I jokingly told her that if it falls down my shirt, I get to keep it.  Imagine my surprise when the necklace fell!!  Unfortunately, it didn't go down my shirt, so ...

Because it was raining, we passed on the boat ride on the lake in Wuxi and headed straight to Hangzhou.  This was the one place on the trip to which I have no interest in returning.