So here's part II. Just to be fair, this is Sabrina typing this one, but I did dictate from John's description to keep it authentic.

Okay, so after lunch and pictures with the goldfish, we toured the famous garden. It was built during the Ming dynasty in the 16th century. The five-acre park features many pavilions, ponds, and “rockeries” with strangely-shaped rock.It's ’s pretty easy to get turned around. The park is enclosed with a “dragon wall” featuring neat carvings of , well, dragons intermittently along the top.
This picture starts to give you an idea of what "garden" means here.






After a very enjoyable and sweaty stroll, we ducked into the famous Huxingting Tea house. The prices were exorbitant, even by American standards, but we didn’t mind one bit because the atmosphere and air conditioning was thoroughly enjoyable. Imagine sitting in a traditional Chinese tea house overlooking beautiful gardens as a light rain fell outside. It was truly one of those lifetime experiences you will never forget. Despite the wonderful surroundings, the highlight of this tea experience was when Sabrina decided to try one of the hardboiled pigeon eggs that were served with the tea. To my amazement, she deftly removed the shell, popped it in her mouth, and ate it. All the while showing a slight smile, like it was actually enjoyable. I, on the other hand, had the convenient excuse of eating too much at lunchtime, which our tour guide easily acknowledged.
See picture below.

( Just a quick note about tea here--there's a lot of histortraditionalitiona with tea here. Our guide said he didn't know a whole lot about it, but what I did notice in the tea room is that there is the "cheap" tea like we had--green tea leaves put at the bottom of a cup and you pour hot water over them for each new cup (a challenge to not ingest leaves until you get the hang of straining it with your teeth against the cup) and there was "fancy" tea where a sort of tea bag is placed in a clear tea pot and it "blooms" into a flowery-looking thing and you pour tea into these itsy-bitsy cups and drink out of those. Did I mention we got the non-fancy stuff?)

After an enjoyable hour and a half in the tea house waiting for the rain to stop, we decided to go for one more stroll around the area. We wrapped up our shopping and headed back to our side of town to the restaurant our host had reserved for us—authentic Sichuan cuisine.
We arrived around 5PM, and had some time to kill before the dinner show later that evening. When our guide asked us if we were okay with spicy hot food, we should have known what we were in for! Sichuan-style food is prepared with lots of garlic, red chilis, and peppercorns. Good and spicy!!! We started with a cucumber and pork appetizer in sauce and a gelatinous-noodle with spicy sauce. Then we were served fried chicken pieces (bone in) in a sea of chilis and a beef stew. The last two items were cubed tofu in a spicy sauce—my favorite—and a fish cooked and served in oil. For dessert we were served watermelon and cherry tomatoes. We went through a lot of Tsing Tao beer as the food was hot!

Then came the moment we were waiting for: the magic show. I don’t have a really good way to describe it that makes it sounds a neat as it is, but basically this actor is dressed in a traditional costume and does this “dance”? were she changes her mask without you being able to tell she changed it. Doesn’t sound as neat as it really is. Oh, yeah, and then there was the fire-breathing part and that was really cool.

After a full day of shopping, eating, and more eating, we were exhausted and returned home. We postponed our trip to the Bund until later in the week. More details to come!