"Are We Even in Suzhou?"

Our overnight trip to Suzhou turned out to be a dud. We did not do many of the things on our scheduled itinerary. Our schedule said that we would be visiting 狮子林, shopping on 观前街, visiting 寒山寺, 枫桥古镇, and 留园, but we only visited 留园 and another temple with the Happy Buddha.

Beforehand, I was very excited for this trip because Haley's brother, Stanley (NSLI-Yer in Suzhou), said that 观前街 is an amazing place to shop. There are many stores, and the items are, apparently, incredibly cheap. I brought so much money with me to Suzhou because of this. When we got to Suzhou, however, our plans were changed because of our tour guide. Instead of going shopping, she made us go KTV-ing...which is ridiculous. I don't want to come off as complaining, but if we wanted to go KTV-ing, we could have done so in Hangzhou (which we already did on our 2nd day here). All of us were obviously quite upset because shopping in Suzhou was something a lot of us were looking forward to. Being the troopers that we are, however, we agreed to KTV and stayed there until 9 pm. Afterwards, a couple of us left the KTV place and searched for somewhere else to go. There wasn't really anywhere to go, though, because our hotel was in the middle of nowhere. There were no sidewalks and the buildings were dilapidated-looking. The whole area was just sketchy...even the KTV, which looked like one of those KTVs where "things" happen (escorts and everything). We did not feel safe at all, so we just walked back to the hotel and watched movies on Matthew's computer in the lobby. The hotel was quite okay; it's not the best, but the bathroom was amazing. It felt so good while I was showering that I did not want to get out. Also, the beds had actual pillows and mattresses. No stiff bamboo pillows/beds! I slept like a baby last night. It was amazing. The only thing I don't like about the hotel (and all of China) is that everyone smokes here. There are literally no non-smoking areas at all. (The hotel is so odd. There's a "1st, 2nd, 6th, and 8th floor--no in-between. On the 8th floor, there are two elevators. The left one leads to another building that is different from our hotel. Michelle and I learned this the hard way when we spent 10 minutes in the left elevator trying to get to the lobby of our hotel. Finally, we figured out that we had to use the right elevator to get to the lobby. Also, on the 6th floor, there is a "work-out room" in the middle of the hallway. Technically, it's one bike set right by the elevator). 

KTV in Suzhou

The lovely work-out room, as designated by the Chinese sign in the top left corner (which I happened to cut half of it off, but it's to the right of the curtains)

Next morning, we checked out of the hotel and set out to another temple (the one with the Happy Buddha). It was interesting, but hot. We walked around, took pictures, listened to what our tour guide had to say about each thing (I understood maybe 10% of what she said because she was speaking too fast and I couldn't comprehend her Chinese), rubbed these dragon statues for good luck, bought more ice cream, and talked to some American teachers who were teaching in China for a month. 

After leaving the temple, we had lunch at a dim-sum place, which wasn't too bad. Then we went to a street market to do some browsing and shopping. Unfortunately, I did not see anything that I wanted...but Matthew bought himself a coin collection and Michelle bought herself a key chain with her Chinese name engraved on it. There was also a Dairy Queen along the street shops, but it was really expensive. 

To sum it up, our trip to Suzhou was a disappointment. We didn't get to see as much of Suzhou as we had wanted to because our tour guide kept changing the itinerary, which was just ridiculous and stupid. Whatever. Suzhou seems like a pretty and interesting city, but we weren't exposed to much of that during out visit. I have more pictures to post, but the email size limit prevents me from doing so...so I'll just put it in another post. Apparently, a typhoon is supposed to hit the Zhejiang and Fujian province tonight, so we're all staying inside and preparing for big rain showers.

Until next time, 

Christine