Remember, last year, I blogged about our trip to Hangzhou. This year, we decided to check out Suzhou. She is a major city located just outside Shanghai. If you speed, you will arrive in a 1 1/2hour drive. Considered one of the two most beautiful cities of Shanghai. Perhaps, time has changed. Clearly, she should not be compared to heaven. Well, I haven’t been to heaven but when one uses heaven as an analogy, it often refers to somewhere nice. My definition of a beautiful place has to mean “in its rawest form, the beauty stands out”. I find Suzhou too commercialised to be classified as a beauty. Well, you can disagree with me cos’ afterall, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.
Journey with me through the city of Suzhou…
This is a (huge) wedding car and the green coach is a sleeper coach. Take a closer look, the upper deck is the sleeping cabin
Mother and child selling oranges along the road. Two elderly women selling their vegetables outside a petrol kiosk.
China is not just about the rise and rise of billionaires. Having stayed here for almost two years now, I have seen what real poverty is like. It is more than just a great divide, if not curbed, it can be a mammoth problem. If you have read about the crisis in the Middle East, you would have known how it all started…
Not exciting, not vibrant to be called a night market. Hangzhou has a more colourful night market
Trying my best to excite the kids. But… I finally succumb to them.
Yes, can give it a miss, if you haven’t got much time
I think the most exciting part of the trip was the visit to the silk factory.
The wax museum with all the hands-on gadgets, if you may call them
Silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves. The cocoons
Manually sorting out the good from the bad cocoons. Labour intensive work. Now you know why silk is so expensive
Soaking and washing the good cocoons before bringing them to the production floor
If you stare at it hard enough, you will be able to see the silk thread. The lady manually pulled out the thread from the cocoon and attached to the machine. No easy task. People like me, with no fine touch, I would probably take a few days just to finish one cocoon of silk
The silk yarn…weaved into silk cloth before various designs were printed on it
The next time you go and buy silk cloth, make sure you do not demand for an unreasonable price. It is an extremely labour-intensive job just to get the silk thread out from the cocoon. To know if you are really getting the real stuff, use two fingers to run down the fabric. Next, rub both fingers together gently, your fingers should feel smooth, like baby skin.
Morning market. Fruits of all sorts
Fresh cucumbers for sale. After shaving off the skin, the locals just crunch on it, treating it like titbits. HEALTHY!
More fruits and vegetables. We bought pipa (loquat) home. They were very fresh and juicy. Notice the weighing scales that was being used. The kids were amused
This is much more interesting than the night market. Lots of nick-knacks for the mother and children
These are common water village which can be seen in Suzhou. Just need to visit one, they are almost identical
Lots of ancient architectures were still kept
I must show you this beautiful hotel which we stayed for two nights. It is one of the most beautiful hotel with a special character of its own. Presenting…the Suzhou Pan Pacific Hotel
The exterior. Special isn’t it? Made me feel like I was living in the Forbidden City
We were upgraded to a suite (life's little surprise from God) and the kids were most excited…
The bedroom. The mini hall cum study. That’s Kai, pretending to be a CEO. Ann was there but sneaked off as I was taking the picture cos she didn’t want to be seen as his subordinate. LOL
The jacuzzi which became the kids’ swimming pool. Can’t blame them…it has been a long six months of cold weather. A nice little balcony. Inside those windows, is the jacuzzi
My verdict of Suzhou…
If you only have time to tour one city, just go for Hangzhou. There really isn’t anything outstanding over here. Gardens and lots of gardens are their main attraction but really if you have seen one, you have seen all.
*Note. This is the post which I have written for the third time. It was frustrating losing it after finishing it... twice. So I hope you have enjoyed it *wink*
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