Suzhou is a perfect destination

We just came back from our weekend-trip to 蘇州市 - Sūzhōu, a smaller City next to Shanghai. Since we don’t have any courses on Fridays, we have enough time explore the Neighbourhood of Shanghai during short Weekend-Trips. For our first destination, we chose Suzhou, the so called "Garden-City" or "Venice of the East". The City is located about 100km northeast from Shanghai and is reached either by bus or by train in 1,5 hours.

We woke up early on Friday morning and battled our way through the morning rush-hour to the railway station. We bought a ticket, got on the bus and off we went into our first real trip. Upon arrival, we noticed that we chose the wrong bus station since the city centre was quite a distance away. Anyway, we started walking and headed to the Tourist-Information-Office to get some maps or tips on what to do. We couldn´t find the office on the location it should have been so we decided to go to the nearest garden we could find. Suzhou got its name "Garden City" for a reason, the nearest one was only 100m away. The gardens of Suzhou are very old, most of them were built originally by retired high-level government officials almost 900 years ago and continuously restored by their following owners.

Master of the Nets – Garden

The first garden we visited was called 网师园 (Wǎngshīyuán) - "Master of the Nets"-Garden. It is one of the smaller ones in Suzhou but therefore it is almost like a labyrinth with walls, halls, little ponds and pavilions. After walking around aimlessly for a few minutes, a Chinese man (his English name is Lincoln) approached us and asked in English, if we wanted to be shown around a little bit. Of course we agreed and followed him and his explanations on all the different details with great interest. We learned, that the ancient gardens were created as a micro-portrayal of the real nature and should show the connection between human and nature. 

For example, this garden had a lake at its core with 4 different pavilions at each side, one for every season of the year, to watch the scenery change from month to month. There were many more details that we wouldn´t have noticed without our free private tour of the garden and that helped us understand the thoughts behind the conception of the garden better. As it turned out, Lincoln worked for the Tourist Office in Suzhou that is right beside the garden and spends his lunch break as a voluntary guide in the garden sometimes. After the tour, he invited us to come with him to his office and gave us free city plans, some tips on how to spend the next two days and even a little Lonely Planet Special Edition Guidebook on Suzhou. With all that, we were ready to explore the rest of the city on our own.

Suzhou Old Town

To get rid of our backpacks, we looked for a hostel nearby and found, recommended by Lincoln, a very cute YHA-Hostel at Pingjang street in the old part of the town. Pingjang street is very narrow and calm, additionally it follows one of the few still existing canals. In the old days, Suzhou used to have many canals, like Venice, but many of them were turned into roads. However, walking along the existing ones without much traffic was very relaxing, especially compared to busy shanghai. We explored the area around our hostel a bit and found a beautiful little park, arranged around a rebuilt part of the ancient city wall, with nice views over the big city canal and nice little buildings.

We spent the evening at Shangtan-Street, another narrow street next to a canal, with many bars, souvenir shops and other tourists. We just went with the flow down the street, watched the boats and had a drink at a bar. Afterwards, we took a cab to the modern shopping street in the centre, where we hoped to find something to eat... and we found something: They tasted not too bad, actually they were very crunchy and spicy. 

Since the evening was still young, we walked around a little bit and came to a club, finally, where we were offered free entry and a free drink again, so we went in for a little while. Going to a club in china is very different from what we knew from Germany. At first, you get everything for free when you look "European". Secondly, almost no one except the ermans are dancing. When Chinese go to the club, they sit together in their lounges, drink something and look at their phones. Therefore, there are far more Lounge-tables and sofas around the dancefloor and the dancefloor is really small compared to Germany. But besides the strange feeling of being watched all the time, going to the club is still much fun. 

Tiger Hill Scenic Reserve

We started the next morning with a really nice breakfast: Ice-cream with melon in a waffle. While waiting for the waffles to be made, a group of Chinese girls asked us if we could help them with their homework: They had to walk around Suzhou and take pictures together with foreigners. We thought it was a nice idea, so we took plenty of pictures with the girls and talked to them a little while. In general, quite many Chinese took photos with or of us during our stay in Suzhou, which was a little weird but sometimes funny at the same time. After our breakfast, we got on a boat to the 虎丘(Hŭqiū) - Tiger Hill. The boat ride along the canal took 30 minutes and was really nice. Tiger Hill is a famous site featuring beautiful scenery with little ponds, waterfalls and rock formations, many buildings like temples or pavilions and the Cloud Rock Pagoda that started to tilt to one side like the Pisa-Tower 400 years ago. In addition, we discovered a wonderful Bonsai-Garden and saw a dragon dance performance.

Time went by pretty quickly, so we walked back to the town in the afternoon. Having seen quite a lot of old buildings and sites, we wanted to get to see the modern Suzhou, too, so we went to the newer part of Suzhou around the Jinji lake. 

When we stepped out of the metro station, we felt like being in a completely different town: Skyscrapers everywhere, most of them still under construction, busy streets and a big well-designed waterside promenade. Strangely, there were no bars or restaurants on this side of the lake, only the promenade with a park behind it. So we just walked a little bit in one direction and looked at the skyscrapers light up in the dawn. There was more light on the other side of the lake, so we got on the metro again. We found ourselves in the middle of the business district of Suzhou afterwards: Big malls, a huge exhibition and conference centre and plenty of expensive-looking restaurants by the lake. We wandered around for a while but in the end, our small budget and the hunger forced us to return to the cheaper part of the town, where we ate something and played some pool at a bar, afterwards.

The last day

On Sunday we had planned to visit the Suzhou Museum that was highly recommended by both the travel guide and Lincoln but we underestimated the amount of people planning to do the same. The queue in front of the entrance was very long and it would have taken more than one hour to get in. As a replacement, we decided to visit 拙政园 (Zhuōzhèng yuán) - Humble Administrator´s Garden instead. It is the biggest garden in Suzhou and like many say the most impressive one. On the downside, it is the most crowded one as well. Nevertheless, it is indeed very beautiful. However, you find most of the elements in the other gardens, too, and I liked the compactness of the Master of the Nets-Garden more. 

Before going home again, we stopped for a short visit at the Suzhou Silk (Seide) Museum. Besides the Gardens and the Canals, the town is famous for its silk production, too. The modern museum told everything about silk production in Suzhou from ancient times until today and we got to see some live silk-weaving on a traditional weaving loom. 

We had a very good time in Suzhou, a city with many different sides. We loved  the calm and relaxed life in the narrow streets in the old town, were fascinated by the beautiful parks and gardens and overwhelmed by the openness of the local people like Lincoln, who made this weekend to a great success. We think, Suzhou is a perfect destination for a short weekend trip from Shanghai, but one could easily spend a week there, too. At the moment, we are already preparing for our next trip during the "Golden Week Holidays" in the first week of October, so stay tuned for that! 

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智者旅行，探寻深度品质之旅

用脚旅行世界，用心触摸城市，体验原真生活，追求有深度的品质旅行，发现目的地独特之美