Bowling Day/Ice Skating Day/Enjoying ESP Day/Hogmanay
2007-12-29 @ 10:53 p.m.

Today, we visited two gardens and took a lot of nice pictures. Mostly scenery, because you know my philosophy about taking photographs - the best pictures are those where people aren't the focus of the composition. Randomly, there was an English couple on the tour whose neighbour studied at Warwick and now works in Singapore. Such a small world. Downtown Suzhou is quite different from Shanghai, much less heavily developed. (There is nothing to boast about having lots of tall buildings and skyscrapers if these all look more or less the same!) We also visited a silk factory. Lots of worms die to give you your silk pyjamas. Kind of makes PETA seem hypocritical. Maybe it's because the worms are deliberately reared, so nobody kicks up a fuss. In which case, it only seems eminently sensible to start farming foxes and our other furry friends. I mean, the only people who can protest against animal cruelty are vegetarians. (You go, Vaish!) If you're arguing killing is cruel, it's cruel regardless of whether you're after the meat or the pelt. (I take the much more apathetic position that I don't really care as a general rule. I like my chicken breast and assorted fishes, so I guess I'm less cruel than a lot of you. Haha...) We also went to Zhouzhuang, a water village. According to the tour guide, it's not the one where Tom Cruise filmed the very impressive Mission: Impossible III. That was Xitang. Wikipedia says otherwise, stating that filming took place at both, in addition to Shanghai. Zhouzhuang is postcard-perfect, but very commercialised, which is the inevitable fate of tourist attractions as they become well-known.