Shanghai'd

Suzhou.


"China's Venice", "Heaven On Earth" and so many other names does Suzhou have, we had to check it out.

Suzhou is a very old city in Jiangsu Province, about an hour's train ride from Shanghai (36 minutes on the new bullet train, but those tickets were sold out). We went last Saturday with Tim's parents. Suzhou is famous for gardens and canals, which form a moat around the city and are down every side street. The garden we visited was peaceful and serene, comfortable even in the oven like heat, not much humidity that day. Suzhou is also a silk mecca so we visited an embroidery workshop, mostly for Linda, but it was really beautiful. You can see the women working on it in the pictures.

Suzhou's jewel, however, resides with the locals on the back streets of the old town. In recent years, Suzhou has developed (with the help of the Chinese government creating special tax zones) into an industrial area. AMD for one has a huge manufacturing plant there for packaging and test. The city inside the moat is developing too, with KFC, LV and any modern luxury you could hope for. The old town, located near Ou Garden in the eastern part of the city, remains unchanged. The cobblestone streets are too narrow for cars. The houses back up directly to the canals and women stand creekside doing Saturday laundry while the men in their ubiquitous wife beater tank tops and boxers chat in the doorways. It was China's water village before tour buses and souvenir peddlers. The southwestern corner of the old town is being gentrified with shops, restaurants and hotels, much like I imagine the hutongs in Beijing. In 5-10 years it will all be gone, but for the time being it is definitely worth a visit.

I am sure the pictures will be posted on Flickr soon.

UPDATE:
Suzhou photo set now posted.