Blogs from Suzhou, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China, Asia

Asia » China » Jiangsu » Wuxi » Suzhou November 23rd 2014

Geo: 31.3, 120.62Our breakfast at the Pan Pacific Hotel was as elaborate as all the previous mornings with the addition of ice cream. Yes, Brennan had mango and "yum" ice cream for breakfast. The hotel had a 10-acre garden with ponds filled with koi, pagodas, foot bridges and flowers still in bloom. The downside was that we only had a few minutes to walk around the grounds and it was our first day with rain.We were loaded onto the bus and headed to the Garden of the Master of Fishing Nets, dating back to 1140. While driving, Jo told us how the city of Suzhou was situated at the south end of the 1100 mile Grand Canal that begins north of Beijing. The canal provided transport of goods, connecting the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. Suzhou now ... read more

Perfect Weather

Asia » China » Jiangsu » Wuxi » Suzhou March 25th 2014

Street Cleaners in the Rain

Lucastravels

Geo: 31.1547, 120.723So far the weather has been perfect, no rain in Warsaw and Moscow, brilliant sunshine in Siberia, overcast but warm and dry in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. Today was our first rest day with nothing planned and it rained so nothing lost either.The leaflet of Tongli where we are staying describes the town as;"Tongli is small but the lane is very circuitous, deep and quiet. The geography of cultural and historical relics also complicated, in order to make tourists who visit here for the first time enjoy themselves".We have avoided making fun of the rather odd translations on signs as we are extremely grateful for all the effort made to make foreigners like us feel welcome, but the above was on a leaflet given to hundreds of thousands of tourists a year, you would ... read more

Water Towns

Asia » China » Jiangsu » Wuxi » Suzhou March 24th 2014

Hotel Garden

Lucastravels

Geo: 31.1547, 120.723As previously advertised we are spending a couple of days doing very little to get our feet rested from all the sites and museums. We are in a town called Tongli which is one of the "water towns" to the east of Shanghai (for some reason it gets the district name of Suzhou from the Travelpad mapping tool). Tongli is supposedly full of old historic houses built around a system of canals, a bit like the Dutch villages in the north of Holland but with shorter people and no cheese nor windmills.I say supposedly as most of the houses are reproductions. Whether the originals were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution or it is just the Chinese way of restoration (knock it down, rebuild using concrete made to look old and new wood). Whilst they ... read more

Joyeux Noël

Asia » China » Jiangsu » Wuxi » Suzhou December 25th 2013

I found that in the french concession in Shanghai

Beo

I wish you all a Merry Christmas. xxx Je vous souhaite un joyeux Noel à tous. La bise.... read more

The Ancient Gardens of Suzhou and Wuxi Buddhist Temple

Asia » China » Jiangsu » Wuxi » Suzhou July 24th 2010

House in the ancient garden

Johnny speaks

I'm writing this July 25th, Chinese time, because I was too tired last night to write it, but its from yesterday: We had an awesome touring day yesterday. I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep so I went down to find the hotel's gym. No one really spoke English but I could say enough for them to figure out what I wanted. I'm understanding more and more and more Chinese. We eat in the hotel restaurants a lot, because they're usually big, nice, and have enough room for all the guests. I met Jie's dad and he's really nice. So anyways, we always eat with about 5-8 people. Last night we ate in a hotel restaurant with friends of Jie's dad and I could understand a lot of the conversation, and sometimes when ... read more

Boys Club

Asia » China » Jiangsu » Wuxi » Suzhou October 16th 2009

Ming taking the photo

Mariah Beth

Today was supposed to be a light day of a little sightseeing in Wuxi then back to Nanjing. It turned out to be a little different than that. Instead of doing much sightseeing we visited another school in a city south east of Wuxi called Suzhou then we were taken to an ancient house once lived in by a very wealthy and important family. It was nice, but the translation from the tour guide was a little lacking so we eventually just started wondering around on our own. Soon after leaving we headed back to Nanjing which turned out to be a 4.5 hour bus ride and we were all hurting by the time we arrived at our hotel in Nanjing. The whole time we were in Wuxi, Martin, Ming and I had been talking about ... read more

Brief history of China

For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A...more history

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