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Ni hao true belivers! Welcome to the fourth installment in my spring festival series of blogs. Thus far I've documented my travels to some of the major cities in China; Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai. However when we left Fukang early in January we had no idea where we would be heading after Shanghai. We made the decision to visit the small city of Suzhou just west of Shanghai, famous for its beauty and it's canals. Unfortunatley my camera was MIA at this point so I did not get any pictures of the wonderful Suzhou however i'm sure I can paint a picture with words just as pictuersue as the real deal. Our journey begins in Shanghai though, as all good stories do;
Journey part four:
Train length journey: 1 1/2 hours Total: 51 hours travelling
Distance: 65 miles Total: 4270
On the morning of Febuary 2nd we awoke in our Shanghai hostel packed and ready to go. We headed down stairs excited to know that we were on the move but sad to know we were leaving a whole eight volunteers behind us. I sat and munched on a nun bread contemplating all that had happend in the past week, the relationships i'd developed with people and when I would see anyone again but excitment for the move to somewhere new also buzzed in the back of my mind. We said our goodbyes to everyone, Linda and Vivek included, and made a move to the train station. This train was far less hectic and rather enjoyable as the journey itslef only lasted an hour and a half giving us a chance to relax after the incrediable buzz of Shanghai for the week. And that is really why we went to Suzhou; to relax. We knew it was going to be a wild time in Shanghai, we were spot on, so Suzhou seemed like a good place to kick back for a few days. Once we arrived we hoped on a very fancy subway and arrived in the area our hostel was located.
I did not excpect to arrive at this famous fifteen mile canal however. Suzhou is famous for this canal and the intertwining canal routed that surrounded it so there were Chinese tourists absolutley everywhere. The hostel itself was pleasant enough when we arrived, if not lacking a little on the facilities front. They did have three wonderful Samoid/labrodor crossbreed drogs which were nice but it did mean there hair went absolutley everywhere. We were located in a room in a courtyard just down the street from the hostel. In there were six beds, exculsivley project volunteers, and just enough room for me to squeeze into the room with another person standing sidways. There was no space for bags and it was rather cramped but, as it was just somewhere to sleep, it will do gap-yah volunteers like ourselves quite nicley.
We headed out into Suzhou to get to grips with the place (and find a cash point) and it was a much, much larger city than I had first imagined. The city center had all the typical wetsren brands and many of the major Chinese brands and was all rather exspensive, which I was not excpecting. However five of us decided we would wander down into the back alleys of Suzhou and see what we could find. This invloved wandering into a maze of apartment complexes where we frequentley encounterd more and more dead ends, much to our dismay. We did find that no matter where you go in Suzhou there is a shop. Even in the flithiest of little canal routes and housing complexes we found somewhere to buy a drink. After hours of meanring around these streets we finally got onto a main road, which just happend to be right next to our hostel. We walked down and enjoyed a nice coffee in 'cafe 49' which was a cafe right next to our hostel room. It had lots of western books, a very homley feel and a 10% discount as they were associates of our hostel. We sat there and chatted for hours about the usual mix of politics, philsophy and music. Tim also had a go on the piano they had providing some wonderful improv for us to enjoy as we chatted. It was a very pleasant and, most importantly, relaxing afternoon.
That night a few people made use of the rather well stocked bar the hostel had (which included many weatern drinks) whilst Me, Tim and Alex (reffred to as Price-Thomas to avoiud third person narrative confusion) went on a walk into Suzhou by night. Suzhou was incrediabley beautiful at night as, ebing a city, the whole thing was lit up and seemed to shine brightly down from aboveas we gazed up to the nights sky. You could see plemty of stars in Suzhou, which made a change from all the other cities we'd been to. We manged to walk quite far outside of down onto one of the major rivers running throuhg the center of Suzhou. We crossed many arched bridges and under many more before deciding to haed back and call it a night. During that day it did appear I developed a cough so I kept a few volunteers up, i believe, chocking in the night.
The next day it was rather wet and dreary (and very cold) so we headed to a park just up the road from our hostel. Weirdly this park had many pictures depciting cartoon torture scenes. We couldn't read most of the characters so I honestly have no idea why. It was a rather starnge park with stone thrones set about the place and a giant TV screen playing adeverts over the whole place but otherwise pleasnt enough. Once this was done Me, Tim, Price-Thomas and Jacob decided to rent bikes from the hostel and see what Suzhou was like by road. When we payed for the rental the premise was you choose a bike from the collection they have. To sum up the quality of the bikes the first one I sat on, quite literally, broke in half. The frame clean broke so I decided that was not the bicycle for me. After several more similar incidents we manged to aqquire four, sort of useable, bikes. We set off racing through the back alleys of Suzhou and I felt invigarated. I had forgotten how much fun cycling is as I hadn't had a chance to do it in four months due to the weather in Xinjiang. I felt alive.
We managed to spend five hours out on those bikes and managed to do so much. For the first few hours we just cycled along the river ways and roads, across bridges and along narrow paths until eventually stopping at a Lanzhou resaturant for lunch (which was delicious) then heading off again. We managed to reach the far outskirts of Suzhou where there is mostly abandoned apartment blocks and empty shops. We did come across a temple come museum displaying many old stone carvings from across the dynasties of China. These were rather intresting and we managed to spend a full hour there. The next part of our journey was probabley the most adrenaline filled of all my time on spring festival though. We decided to head back to the hostel by follwoing street signs and managed to find ourselves, on bikes, on one of the busiest central roads in Suzhou. We were zooming along on our rather poor bikes, whizzing in and out of traffic at speeds I questioned the bike could take. There were far to many occasions of 'rubbing bumpers' with buses, cars and other bikes to count. It was extremley fun although, at times, it did feel like at any second I could die. I shall have to cycle more. After this rather fun but heart pumpomg activity we headed back to the cafe for the same old, same old. That night we did very little but chat and have a few in the bar.
Our third day, our last full day, in Suzhou we decided to do something a little touristy and headed to the 'humble adminstators' gardens, one of the 'five most beautiful gardens' in China. What was so humble about this guy I would love to know as it was a rather large and luxurious garden. They had many diffrent varities of plants, areas of grass and lots of rather 'humble' little huts along the way. I'm sure it would be a beautiful garden given two diffrent circumstances; had it been summer and had there not been thousands of people pushing and shoving there way around it. Something that will never cease to amaze me is ther Chinese's incrediable ability to be uncivil to each other for no good reason. Why push and shove to go around a garden path? There was no space for them to go anywhere once they had got past you anyway, just another see of people. After an hour or so of wandering this place we decided to make a swift exit. Outside was a rather nice collection of street stalls selling good food at cheap prices so we ate there insteasd of a restaurant. I had a rather nice Rou Jan Mor, subsquentley nick named a Roger Moore, which is a bun filled with spice and sliced meat as well as an ice cream. Bliss. After this we wandred back through the city, taking a simiar route to the day before but on foor, and got to see a lot more of the city of Suzhou.
Once back at the hostel we kicked back for a few hours and relaxed as I think all the activity was starting to get to people after nearley a month on the road. Many people settled into the bar again after we'd eaten but Me and Tim decided to head out into Suzhou by night once again to see what we could find. When walking the 'fifteen mile canal' we had always taken the touristy route towards the city but we decided to head the opposite direction away from the city center and along the waters edge. This was one of my highlights of Suzhou though, it was very nice to walk and talk with Tim but as well as this we got to see a very diffrent side to Suzhou before we left. There were lots of small houses and temples litterd along the riverside, all very dimly lit and it all felt quite surreal. There were a few terrifying moments though. For one people were setting of fireworks meteres away from us on the riverside making it feel like we were in a war zone. At one point we rounded a corener to a small pier to find a little firework right ahead so we swiftly headed back as it shot off into oblivion. They were all rather pretty though so that made up for it. On the way back we decided to cross the river and make our way down from the otherside. On our journey back we encountered many dead ends and dangerous paths we had to cross. At one point we went under a small ditch/tunnel under a road to find a man in a suit ominsoley looming on the otherside. It did feel like a very mafia scenario, like we had stmbled upon something we weren't meant to see. We quicked our pace after this encounter as we made our ways into winding back alleys not quite wide enough for two people before finally arriving back at the hostel. We relaxed with the group but there were more goodbyes to come the next day when we would make the next step of our journey to Guilin.
There you have it folks. Suzhou is certainley unique compared to all the cities I have been to thus far; certainley nowhere quite has the winding paths and waterways like Suzhou does. Is it the prettiest city in China as the guidebooks say? Well, it is pretty. It is very pretty. But I am sure there will be prettier as I travel farther and wider. It was certainley a relaxing few days and spending some quality time with the other volunteers was fantastic. A special mention to cafe 49 as that place was one of the nicer cafes i've been in in China. I think I could have spent another day or two in Suzhou but no more; it's not a city I would ever live in though as there isn't really anything to do that is spectacukarlly diffrent to anywhere else, other than the river ways ofcourse but I can't see myself navigating them by boat. Closested I would get would be me in a small bucket wading along them so goodbye Suzhou, you served us well but Guilin awaited us.
Until next time dear reader,
Excelsior!
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