Sweltering Suzhou

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After a full recovery from our three nights in Nanjing we made our way to Suzhou for a few nights. Suzhou is known as the 'Garden State' in China and our hostel was located in the historic part of Suzhou and was a maze of canals, small teahouses, eateries and walled gardens.

Suzhou was a lot smaller than most of the big cities we had been to so far and it was really refreshening to sit back beside the canal without any hustle or bustle. The only downside of Suzhou was the heat. It was so hot, approaching the 40's with near unbearable humidity making it almost impossible to go out during the afternoon - or the morning or evening for that matter.

While gathering information on what to do in Suzhou we came across a bar called 'The Drunken Clam' and being Family Guy fans we couldn't refuse a visit especially as their slogan was 'Come in for a treat, Wake up in the Street'. We weren't disappointed. When we arrived to see a fully working replica of the 'Drunken Clam' sign. We feasted on a couple of huge, and extremely tasty, subway style sandwhiches.

The next day we went to a performance of traditional Chinese Opera which was given by the local students. It seemed like a mixture of drama and comedy sketches. The costumes were amazing and although we couldn't understand a word that was being said it was a real pleasure to watch.

We couldn't leave Suzhou without a visit to one of the walled gardens that it's famous for. We got up early to avoid the heat of the mid day sun and headed to a nearby garden. The heat was still sweltering at 9am when we came across a Chinese film crew. If it hadn't been so hot we would have probably stuck around to watch a couple of scenes of what looked to be a Chines style period drama.

Then it was off for our short train journey to Hangzhou for the ecilipse.

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