The First Day in Suzhou

I knew meeting at 7:30am was trouble, that's why I suggested 7:15am. Someone else didn't agree, and someone was even later than that, so we ended up rushing to the train station after breakfast and checking out. The taxi driver on the way to the Hangzhou train station seemed to give attitude, plus the run to the train in fear that it would leave the station without, had me fuming for the first bit of the train ride. I can't stand it when other people make me late for stuff... especially when the person responsible then says "next time, let's try not to be so rushed next time". Grrrr....!!

The express train went from Hangzhou to Shanghai to Suzhou, with a few stops along the way. With our pre-booked soft seating into a fairly empty train car, we travelled much more relaxed than our previous train ride. Leaving around 9am, we arrived at the SZ train station at 12:20pm, and to our hotel just before 1pm.

The Sheraton Suzhou Hotel is AMAZING. It's not very tall, only 3 - 4 floors, but it spreads over a large block and looks amazing. As our taxi drove up, it looked like we were approaching a tourist interest spot as the hotel looks like a traditional chinese fortress. The previous hotels I've stayed at in China have been high-tech with fancy amenities and look cool and modern. This hotel is a breath of fresh air with its exquisite decor, but also has a fair amount of the fancy in-room things.

After we dropped our things off, Gord, Jan, and I took a cab to our first tourist destination, The Humble Administrator's Garden, one of the four famous gardens in China. Between this taxi ride and the ride from the train station to our hotel, we concluded that there are more people walking the streets, more people biking on the streets, and more cars on the roads than in Hangzhou. Traffic was intense.

At the garden gate, we paid for a "General Ticket" which allows us to visit a fair number of gardens over 3 days (although we're only in town until tomorrow). I decided to pay extra money for a guided tour, which wasn't really worth it, but I did get more historical stories out of the garden scenes. The Humble Administrator's Garden is absolutely astonishing. These are the kinds of places that cause me to have 1000+ photos at the end of my vacations. The amount of thought and care that went into the building of the H.A.G. is evident, from the low buildings that allow a near buy pagoda to be seen over the garden walls, to the meticulus detail and views of the garden from every angle of every path. We spent some 3 hours walking around, observing, relaxing, and taking pictures. Lots of pictures. Unfortunately, 3 hours was longer than we had expected, and we were kicked out with the closing of the garden for the day.

Because we spent so much time in the H.A.G., it was most likely that the other gardens in the city would be closed as well. So we went to a shopping centre (a 4 block x 4 block shopping area of stores). Our first stop was a restaurant. The one with its building edges lit in red turned out to be empty other than a table of people playing MJ. The one with its building edges lit in pink seemed fairly popular and we decided on that one. Dinner was awesome. Szechuan food. We had about 6-7 dishes, with several hot dishes. The bill came to 149 RMB (about $24 CAD) for the three of us. What a steal, by our standards.

After getting completely bloated with spicy foods, we headed back to the street and walked around. About 1 hour later, we left and went back to the hotel, and called it a night. Tomorrow, we'll try to see what we can to wrap up this city and move on to Shanghai, my final destination in China.

Kevin Out.