June 6th – 20th 2016: Part 3
Rachel’s Suzhou
By now we were old hat at using the trains. And this time I had a good view out of the train window, having beaten Renee to the window seat even though it was her seat number. She went to sleep anyhow, and missed the fact that the train reached 264kph.
The scenery once more was certainly shrouded in the grey smog and still the high rise rushed on amid rice paddies.
Suzhou would only have been about an hour and a bit from Nanjing so it wasn’t a really long trip. And once we arrived we headed along the long platform and through the station to the exit, with that wretched bag!
Rachel had been one of Thomas’ students who had graduated English language classes and was now in college here in Suzhou studying French. I’m not sure what I expected but she was a lovely person and her English was still good even though her head was now filled with French. As we exited the gates we were met by her smiling face, not hard to miss two foreigners getting off the train at lunchtime and her arms reached out to take ‘that wretched bag’. I was mortified, how embarrassing letting that young woman take over. She bravely lugged it onward uncomplaining and luckily the taxi rank was just there outside the station.
Once we had dropped our bags at our hotel she showed us the short walk into town and just as we left our hotel a young man was letting off large firecrackers on the footpath, actually there was no footpath. From here she took us for lunch so we enjoyed a nice meal at a restaurant in town. Then she took us round the museum. It was designed by a local man who also designed the hexagonal buildings in front of The Louvre.
This filled our afternoon nicely and after tea we had to say goodbye to Rachel for the time being as she had to go into Shanghai the next day. She waved us down a taxi (from the middle of the road once more!) and we jumped into the cab blocking the road completely both directions, and headed back to the hotel safely. But we would meet up with her when we reached Shanghai again.
Our hotel was OK; we were on the 2nd or 3rd floor. The room was nice and at least it didn’t have a Perspex (see through) wall dividing the toilet bathroom from the bedroom like one of our other hotel rooms had. No turning the light on when you went for a pee there! But the bed was a complete disaster apparently the Chinese sleep on very hard beds, hardboard being a favourite. And hardboard was exactly what was under the sheets and on top of the mattress! When it came to sleep it wasn’t good!
The next day Thomas was meeting us as he had caught the train from Lu’an and we originally expected to meet him around lunchtime. We walked into town and spent the morning in the gardens. We paid the entrance fee and passed through the gates.
The gardens were filled with all sorts of Chinese buildings and lovely pathways through different kind of flowerbeds. It was also filled with tourists, and it was impossible to take a photo without a tourist in it, or walk unhindered! A bit like the Ekka, it was a holiday apparently and this was a popular spot!
Once more we walked kilometres before lunch. I did manage to buy some souvenirs here too. It is a shame Thomas was unable to get a room at the same hotel as us, not sure why but anyhow his was across town and he decided to clean up so we eventually met up for tea.
Suzhou had lovely canals running through and there was a lovely walk down into the old town full of shops and places to eat right by a waterway. We had a long search for somewhere nice to eat; being very indecisive we eventually came to a restaurant that looked like it was acceptable. Our out of home food search was one constant trial, China is full of ‘fast’ food but nowhere could we find vegetarian for Renee, nor food that wasn’t spicy for Thomas!
This restaurant had a large advertising board outside listing the menu, and hilariously one of the items was called a hairball, I think pork , but what it was really in Chinese I couldn’t say! So for that alone we went in. And what we had was really nice, not sure if any of us could be brave enough for the hairball!
It was getting late by this time so we said goodbye to Thomas and headed back. Although Renee had to go for an ice cream, the most amazing creation on a cone it was like a work of art with all sorts of edible decorations on it. Then as we were passing further on we saw a shop front full of fish tanks and people were sitting there soaking their feet in them! And yes we went in. This was the most odd and hilarious experience as the goldfish type fish, not very old, chewed at our feet, supposedly getting rid of all our dead skin and callouses. We weren’t on our own but what began as being very ticklish and extremely difficult to bear experience settled down a little over the 30 minutes we had paid for. On the whole I think we decided that it didn’t make a dramatic difference to our skin, I would say you’d need to soak for an hour or more to soften the skin up enough for the fish to make a noticeable difference. Especially as some of the fish seem to latch on above the ankle, no callouses there!
Anyhow next we had to brave the hardboard beds once more; Renee slept on the quilt and used it as padding. We were lucky this was our last night.
And so we met up with Thomas and headed to the station again this time back into Shanghai.
More pictures of Suzhou:
The gallery was not found!