Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

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I'll begin with the cliche. There is and old Chinese saying 'In heaven there is Paradise, on earth there is Suzhou and Hangzhou'.

I spent the last weekend with Teresa exploring the so called Venice of the East. We cruised the canals, cycled the cobbled waterways and explored the city in true backpacker style. With the sun blistering, the humidity threatening to melt us like wicked witches we arrived in Suzhou worse for wear but early and wanting to get out and about and eat!

The hostel, Suzhou Mingtown hostel, part of the YHA was too perfectly situated. It sat on a quiet stretch of canal in the city centre, there was a steady strean of human traffic strolling up and down the canalside and occasionally the tooting of a moped horn or the tring of a bicycle bell. The canals, bridges and buildings were beautiful, how you imagine China to be, curling eaves on rooves, latticed woodwork, uneven paved cobblestones, dark wooden boats floating on the river with song of the river women in the air. Two words; picture perfect!

Friday we wandered in search of the foreign bookstore, postcards and trinkets for home. For the first time in China I felt like a tourist, I felt like I was on holiday, no pressures, nothing to do but explore. We spent the afternoon giggling and planning Saturday.

Saturday was unbelievably action packed, by 9am we had eaten hired our bikes and were on our way to the zoo. I've heard lots of bad things about zoos in China and I can understand why, the elephant enclosure was tiny and the elephant itself sat and rolled over like a dog on command. Apart from this I honestly had the time of my life. Lions and tigers and bears...
I'll let the photos speak for themselves, animals are animals after all!

After the zoo we headed to the silk museum, which is sat on part of the original silk road. It was a small place and half the museum was under construction which I'm sure means that it is usually much more fascinating. However in saying that we watched men weaving on ancient and traditional silk looms. One perched high knotting the threads of silk in perfect rythym with the man weaving the thread into a beautiful piece of silk. I also discovered the process of gathering the silk from the silk worm and how they raise the silkworm/moth and held a wiggling squirming silkworm.

Our next stop was North Temple Pagoda, a beautiful 9 storey pagoda in stunning grounds with the most amazing views of the city. By this time we were gently toasted by the Chinese sun and slowly turning pink, we were tired and after climbing 9 storeys we were ready to return our bikes eat and get ready for our river cruise.

The cruise began with much disappointment, it was expensive, all in Chinese and the views...well apart from the setting sun theres not much to say. As dusk drew and night fell my camera died and we were serenaded by traditional Chinese songs, made friends with a Chinese couple and were given a pack of cards with images of Suzhou.
A rickshaw, a taxi and 60RMB later we were exploring the nightmarkets, stopping ourselves buying puppies and shoes. It was midnight by the time we arrived back at the hostel worse for wear, grumpy and ready for bed.

Another bus back to Huzhou and the graduation ceremony drew a close to the summer term at Wuxing Experimental Middle School and began my holiday.

Sorry this entry is rushed but I'm now in Wenling teaching a summer camp and am so busy...more on that next time!

Zai Jian!

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