Day Eight: Gift of Life Visit to Suzhou Hospital and Garden

Today we piled into 2 vans and our hosts, Terry and Kim Fee Cheah (KFC), took us to Suzhou to visit the Suzhou Kowloon Hospital. The hospital was about an hour outside of Shanghai, and was quite a contrast to the last hospital visit we had. This is a private hospital and has only been open for a year. We met with Dr. Li, who is the hospital administrator. He gave us a tour of the hospital, and the first place that we went was to visit with some children who had recently had heard surgeries. Next, we got dressed in scrubs and got to visit the ICU and one of the operating rooms. We felt like the interns of the television show Gray's Anatomy. We had lunch in a private room of the hospital, in which our brave Patricia and Amy both tried duck tongue! It was a wonderful hospital visit, and many of us had never been inside of an operating room, so that was quite interesting.

We headed to the Humble Administrator's Garden, which is about 600 years old. These gardens were filled with lakes, streams, bridges, pagodas, and PEOPLE! Amy mentioned that for her entire life she has been facinated by these gardens, and the stories behind them, and how amazing it was to be experiencing with such history.

The Humble Administrator's Garden was originally built in 1509 during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). It was initially a private garden of a former government servant named Wang Xianchen. It was said he intended to build a garden after retired and just do some gardening work like planting trees and vegetables there, which was said to be the life of a humble man by him. Hence is the name of the garden. The garden was created upon the old relics of a resident and a temple. Water feature is the main background and its natural landscape includes small forests, hills and rock formations. It also has man-made pavilions, halls and parlors. Unlike the Grand View Garden and other famous gardens in Beijing, it is representative of the Ming Dynasty building style.

Then the evening closed with another diverse vegitarian meal. Each time we sit down at lunch or dinner we are blown away with how many different dishes we have had and not one of them has been the same.

Thanks to our hosts for the day, and yet again, and other wonderful day.