A Synthesis in Time: Suzhou (Part 1)

Suzhou is an old town in between my city of Changzhou and Shanghai. Most of the city is modernized but a section of it has been left mostly unrestored. It is surrounded by canals and has many more running through it in a grid system. Walking the roads of Suzhou you are brought back in time as you admire the old architecture and boats driven by locals floating alongside the roads, yet simultaneously you can appreciate how the modern day influences pervade the scenery. Suzhou was definitely a unique and wonderful place to see.

We bought tickets for an early train out to Suzhou. They only had high-speed train tickets available so we forked out an extra 20 yuan, but since Suzhou is fairly close to Changzhou it still only cost us 35 yuan each. This leg of our journey would be six days long; 2 1/2 days in Suzhou and then 3 1/2 days in Hangzhou. As we met up that morning to head to the station, the other five girls in my group looked at me rather incredulously. They each had a backpack crammed with stuff as well as a rolling bag……..I had one hiking backpack. Let’s just say I have a gift for consolidating and packing haha, a gift which served me well over the week, since I didn’t have to carry around a bunch of luggage.

Walking into the high-speed train was such a different experience from the slow-trains. Let me set the scene: Slow Train- as the train pulls up, it’s a mad-dash, complete with pushing and shoving, to get onto the train. If you make it inside you have to squeeze your way between people cluttering the aisles and dodge luggage being swung carelessly around. Once you find your seat, nine times out of ten, you have to kick someone out who may or may not give you a hard time about it. Then you sit through hours of being bumped and shoved, those with standing room only tickets are filling the aisles and staring at you, and you pray that the luggage that’s sliding around overhead isn't about to fall off the small metal shelves. The announcements over the intercom are entirely in Chinese so you strain to listen and hope the words you’re picking out are the station names so you know when to get off. You don’t realize how bad it smells until you get off and breathe the “fresh” air outside. Fast Train- As the train pulls up everyone forms fairly orderly lines to get in the doors. As you file in, you’re greeted with a well-lit, clean, uncluttered car. Your seat is empty and waiting for you with a comfy cushion and more legroom then you know what to do with. Signs overhead tell you in English which stations you’re stopping at and which ones are coming up. The ride is smooth and takes only 25 minutes instead of an hour.

See what I mean? But you know….I’m actually not sure which kind of train I prefer ;)

I was a little nervous arriving in Suzhou; it was our first time completely on our own and my group was pretty much dependent on me to make sure everything worked out. You see I’ve kind of accidently become a leader when it comes to travelling. Ever since Shanghai, it’s become my job to figure out trips, book hostels, find trains, get tickets, know directions……It can be both exciting and terrifying haha. Our first order of business was to purchase our tickets to get us from Suzhou to Hangzhou so that we didn’t have to worry about them later. It’s always a battle when it comes to getting train tickets. For one they can never seem to make up their mine about how far in advance we can get out tickets; 6 days….4 days…2 days…we’ve heard it all, I really think they just don’t like giving us tickets haha. After battling my way to the front of a line armed with my paper I had written the date for the tickets on and the name of where we wanted to go I attempted to get our tickets.

The lady at the window seemed to understand where I wanted to go but informed me with a few curt shakes of the head that there were no slow-train tickets left so we would have to get fast-train tickets which in this case were 5 times as expensive. My group had apparently decided they didn’t need to be there and had left to go wait by a wall, so I had to yell over angry Chinese people’s heads to try and get their attention to ask them what they wanted to do. That’s when the guy behind me (who apparently spoke English) asked if I could get out of line until I was ready to actually get tickets.

Slightly frustrated, we all decided to check the long-distance bus station, to see what those tickets would cost. We were so relieved to find an English speaker at the info desk who told us that we could get a bus to the North Hangzhou bus depot for only 70 yuan. She even wrote down the ticket details for us in characters so we could just give it to the guy in the window who promptly printed them out for us. We also asked her to write down the name and address of our hostel on a paper so we could get directions if we needed it. She was super helpful, and I am so grateful for her.

The real adventure was what came next. You see when I originally got the hostel, I was under the impression it was about a fifteen minute walk from the train station… boy was that wrong. Our first problem was that when we exited the train station there were next to no street signs and we couldn’t get ourselves oriented right. After walking back and forth several times we eventually gave in and bought one of the overpriced English city maps from the street vendors. Then it took us a little while to figure out where we were on the map. At that point I knew where we were and where we were going so we headed off down the rd to find one that could get us across a little canal area. We had to go several blocks east until we found one and then after heading south not nearly as far as we needed to that road stopped and we had to turn off again. We eventually came to a bridge that we had to back track a little to go over and then a few more blocks down that rd is when we finally recognized a street name from the directions the hostel had given us. We followed that road a little ways and turned off onto Baita Dong Lu which shrunk from a main rd into a small street and after nearly an hour we found our hostel tucked back in an alley off of that street. We were very relieved to finally get there, and to whoever said it was a short walk……you must have had really long legs or something.

The hostel itself was, in my opinion, one of the coolest ones I’ve been to here in China. It was kind of a sketchy one, a little dirty and in an older building, but the vibe was definitely legit. Entering the hostel you are greeted with a small reception area with walls covered in ads for other hostels and for concerts and parties at a nearby club. To the left is a small desk where we check in and to the front at first you think is a wall but on further inspection you find that you can go around it into a large group area. There you find pool tables, foosball, a bar, a stage, a couple loft areas with chairs and some niches with lamps and pillows. Back in the reception area, if you go left you find a staircase winding up 4 floors. All along the walls are hundreds of names, quotes, and drawings in various languages, posted by former tenants that had passed through. Their legacy left behind to be read by future travelers. Reaching the top floor, you see a wall of showers and around the corner a co-ed bathroom complete with a urinal two squatters and a western toilet that didn’t flush.

The other way is a hallway where the rooms are. At the end of the hallway is a door opening onto a rooftop terrace with the most beautiful view off the entire city. There was also a fire-escape, which I used several times instead of the inside stairs. You could also climb another set of stairs up to where an antenna was and get an even more spectacular view. The bedrooms consisted of 3 metal bunk beds and six lockers. Our window opened onto the street below and so provided us with a wonderful view of the bustling city.

Admittedly some might consider the hostel run-down and dirty and wouldn’t have liked it (some of the reviews testify to that) but in my opinion I would not stay anywhere else in Suzhou, if you want a cultural experience in Suzhou, the Lohas Youth Hostel is the way to go.

After unpacking and taking a brief rest from travelling, we set forth to explore the city. As we walked up Baita Dong Lu we were fascinated by what we saw. Lining the road were tons of pet stores. There would be four or five in a row, and what made it even weirder was that none of us had ever seen one anywhere else that we had been. I must say the vet inside me did cringe now and again at the condition of some of the cages and the dirtiness of a few of the animal hospitals. However, despite the odd nature of the shops the road itself was very cool.

It was a small street lined with these pretty white trees that gave it a very old town feel. The buildings were all “white” with black moldings in an old-style design. Part-way down the street we passed by a small pedestrian street. We almost didn’t go down it, but we changed our minds and ventured forth. Good thing too as it tuned out to be one of the famous attractions of the city.

It was a small road lined with various shops and restaurants. Running along the side of the road was a long canal with boats that you could rent out to row you up and down it.

A few shops in we came across the most glorious sight; a place serving pasta and legit salads :D Despite the fact that it was (gasp!) a whole five dollars a plate (how dare they! ;D), we decided to eat dinner there. I ordered a plate of spaghetti, which had to be the best plate of spaghetti I will ever eat. Afterwards we walked up the street a little ways and explored a few of the trinket shops. After a while we gave in and rented one of the boats to ride up the canal in.

It had started getting dark so the street was lit-up and as we floated serenely down the canal we of course bust out into random song, which inspired our driver to begin singing to us in Chinese. It was as we journeyed back to be dropped off that I spotted what would be a life changing place on the street.

All I saw was a green and white sign saying “GoMax” and what appeared to be a yummy looking drink. We scurried back down the street after getting off the boat and found the shop. That’s right, we had found it, somewhere to finally get…. A smoothie!! They had caomei (strawberry) and mangguo (you guessed it, mango) and they were the second most glorious thing we had found that night.

After thoroughly enjoying our splendid discovery, we headed further down Baita Dong lu to the first main road which we turned down. We walked up and down it for awhile, until we got tired and began heading back towards the hostel. That’s when we came across some street performers on the corner of the main road and Baita. They were two guys singing and playing guitar hoping to earn some cash. They were very talented so we stopped to listen. It was quite funny to watch as the crowd suddenly became a lot thicker after we showed up. A few songs in I randomly decided to do a little dance with Dayna and some of the Chinese got really excited and started motioning for us to perform something for them. The singers smiled and waved at me to come up as my fellow travelers tried to push me from behind, but my terror froze me. A couple songs later I finally gave in, much to everyone’s delight and was handed a guitar and placed in front of a microphone.

Yeah, scariest moment ever! However, it was also the coolest moment ever, as I began to play the only song I ever have confidence to play in front of big crowds; Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World. There was no way they understood a word out of my mouth but boy did they get into it, the singers even played a little drummer beat along with me. I’m pretty sure I got video recorded by a couple of them haha. When I finished they all cheered as I quickly scurried away, I’m so glad it was dark so no one could see me blushing. We left the corner and ended the night back at our hostel. We were all pretty dead from the long day so we decided to get to bed early.

It was an adventurous day, but our time in Suzhou had only just begun…

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