Advertisement
Chocolate Bread Thing
Thought it was cinnamon at first, but still good and only 4 yuan - had to get some food for breakfast before the train!Waking up at 7am for the train at 8:50am was a bit more difficult than I thought it'd be, but I managed to get out of bed. Ted, Ethan, Parker, Joey, Brendan, Sam, Matt, Sean, Scott, and I left as group and shuttled to the Shanghai Railway Station by metro. This is when Ted and I figured out that we had gone to a completely different rail station, haha. We found the entrance without too much trouble - thanks to Sam being able to read Chinese characters and arrived in our waiting lounge with plenty of time. Ethan and I bought some bread to munch on. The train there was only 40 minutes and was very smooth. Ted and I met John, see pic, who was on a business trip in Shanghai, China for Motorola and had the day off, so he too was heading to Suzhou. The train stations were packed and it was plenty of fun pushing through the crowd to exit, but still a relief once we finally got into the open. Bus tour advertisers were peddling and haggling like hell to try to lure our group, but we just threw repeated "Bu Yao's" (no want) at them,
ha. We also passed a huge moped park. Though in hindsight, renting a bike, moped, or bus would have been friggin sweet, it was some good walking, until we found out how to use the local bus system.
We tried to find the visitors center and ended up heading into some surburb area under construction then had to walk back and found it right next to the Humble Administrator's Garden, so guess where we first went!? It is the biggest garden in Suzhou and one of the four great gardens in China. It was a bit packed because of the dragonboat holiday, but it was still scenic enough to be tranquil (despite waiting for pictures too, ha). The garden was huge and beautiful with very creative stone works and mortaring, Suzhou-style pavilions, and some gnarly trees and paths. We spent about 2 hours in the garden but could have spent 3-4 if we wanted to really relax, but it was time for some food. We hit up a noodle joint Sam saw where he had to translate for us (which I thanked him for), it was really good.
Afterwards, we trekked back to the North Temple Pagoda we
Some Kid
We had fun messing with this kid as he took pictures of us and then we started to take pictures of him, ha passed earlier...and passed again without noticing cause we headed down the wrong street, but finally we found it. It cost 25 Yuan to enter/go up. Matt, Joey, Brendan, and I payed and it was well worth it. Great views, calming breeze, above the pollution - ha. The stair pattern kept changing sides so it was fun to see who get to the next flight first, though we tried to take in the view at each different level also. We visited the temple behind the pagoda and saw where people would light incense/sparkers and then do a ritual (bow three times) and either make a prayer/wish or use it as an offering I think...though the only monks we saw were in the garden earlier, ha. There were some huge fireworks things in one area and I didn't take too many pictures cause it didn't feel right. The other group was still waiting for us when we left and we all headed to the Panmen Gate area...ended being much too far to walk, so with the help of Sam the great we found the right bus (2 yuan!) and arrived near the right place.
We passed by a second pagoda, the
Ted and Me
on the train Southern Pagoda which had a large walled in area with a lake and some scenic spots. It cost more and the Pagoda was not as high, so Matt, Joey, and I didn't do it again. Instead we found a random alley and walked down it! We saw some locals playing Mahjong and Chess intensely along with a local meat market. There were huge roosters, live eel, live shark, what looked like very contaminated meat, and other goodies. We got plenty of strange, intrigued, and offending stares, but you get used to it. Though it was fun pointing out people that were pointing/looking at us...and trying not be seen - like people from restaurant or bus windows, ha. We headed toward a fruit market where Scott only bought ONE banana and then went to investigate some stairs I saw which turned out to be the Wumen Bridge, the largest stone arch bridge in Suzhuo, which overlooks the Grand Canal - the largest ancient canal/artificial river in the world! We relaxed in a park near it, took some pictures and then I decided I HAD to try walking up and down the bridge stairs despite their slight slant because they were so
John
The Motorola Employee close to each other in height....and for once it actually worked! I got up 8 stairs and went down 15 stairs, great entertainment for the locals and fun tourist pics. I also took a bboyin pic at the top of the bridge. It was almost as tranquil as the garden, if not more due to the lack of people and other tourists.
We met up with the other group and ate at "If You Italy Love Must Here". The food looked okay, but Ted and I were gonna wait till we got back to Metro City to save money and headed back to the rail station. At first we thought we may be able to walk there, but after 30 minutes and only one inch on the map...we decided to throw away our anti-tourist pride and to finally just ask some people about the buses. We picked the 3rd bus correctly, took another 40 minute train ride back to Shanghai on a bathroom smelling or movie popcorn smelling car, ate at Metro City (where I got jiffed on my rice!) and then started studying for Chinese 2 quiz tomorrow...should have done Diff Eq though
Check Facebook for my
The Train
Got up to speeds of 198 mph orso videos!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.105s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 12; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
