China Trip: Day 8 - Day trip to Suzhou

Suzhou

It never stopped amazing me how many people were around everywhere, even at a train station on a Sunday morning. We got on a train for Suzhou. The trip out there took about 30 minutes. I didn't know it was going to be a fast train until we got up to speed. It looked like we were going almost as fast as the Japanese bullet train. After getting off the train at Suzhou, there was quite the scene outside. We forged through massive crowds and to a gridlocked road where we got on a bus, and slowly made our way out of there. What a madhouse.

Suzhou is known for having a network of canals, which were built centuries ago to facilitate more efficient trade. Marco Polo apparently called Suzhou the "Venice of the East". We visited the "Master of the Nets" garden. Among all the gardens in Suzhou, the Master of the Nets Garden is considered the most "balanced" in terms of its use of water, rocks, plants, and timber. Then, we went over to the Pan Men Scenic Area, which houses the nearly 1,000-year-old Ruigang Pagoda, gardens, and the remnants of an old city gate. From there, we got onto a boat and cruised through some canals and back towards the train station. People live right on the canals. We did the madhouse walk again back to the train station.

The train back to Shanghai was a regular, slower train, and it took about an hour. Along the way, you could see what looked like a mixture of tenements and rice paddies, and poverty-stricken areas, where people appeared to be living in crumbling buildings, and under tarps, surrounded by piles of garbage. At least that is what it looked like from a moving train.

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Part of trip: China Trip 2007

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