Suzhou: The Venice of the Orient

Suzhou is a "small" city near Shanghai famous for its silk and beautiful gardens. After visiting the city in 1276, Marco Polo called it "The Venice of the Orient" because of its intricate network of canals and bridges.

We took a high speed train from Shanghai and arrived in Suzhou in only a 30 minutes. When we exited the terminal, we were met with seven to ten ladies who surrounded and bombarded us trying to sell maps of the city. I knew they would be overpriced and the ladies were not going down in price enough for me, so when I told them the price I would be willing to pay for it, they told me that that's the price for the map in Chinese but I need the English map. The shocked and confused look they had when I said I would take the Chinese map was epic. They definitely did not see that coming. The were sure that I would come back to them asking for the map in English. Little did they know, however, that knew a very very basic Chinese. Not only that, but the street signs were only written in Chinese (or at least most of them). In addition, the Chinese map included the bus routes and stops which was extremely helpful.

Our Chinese map that I bargained for, 
with bus routes and even public bathrooms!

Since it was later in the day, we decided to skip paying for the gardens and instead get an authentic feel of the city. So armed with our newly acquired Chinese map, we headed to the bus stop to continue our afternoon adventure.

After a few minutes on the bus, we got off and walked down a main street lined with shops on either side.

 
Some locals were wondering what us foreigners were doing in this part of town.

After a few blocks, we turned into an alleyway along one of the canals and spent the next maybe half hour taking pictures and enjoying our scenic stroll. 

I really enjoyed exploring the narrow roads along the ancient canals. There were few people around and it was quiet and relaxing.

After a while, we crossed the Grand Canal and entered a beautiful park filled with weeping willow trees (one of my favorite).


A group of men were focused on a game of mahjong and another elderly couple were playing badminton together. It was the perfect atmosphere to sit and relax, especially once the sun started to set. By then we were ready to head back, but not before stopping to take some final pictures for the day.

Read about Taiwan, our first stop here!
Read about Hong Kong, our second stop here!