Suzhou. North Temple. This has old China like I wanted to see.

I hadn’t yet found a sense of “old China” in Yixing (pronounced Yee-shing) the city where I live.  We have lots of glitz, technology and high rise apartments etc.  After 2 weeks in China, I felt I was in a bit of no mans land and needed to see some history.

So intrepidly, I headed for Suzhou, a bus ride of 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  It, along with Hangzhou also happens to be one of the two silk capitals of China.  

Catching a bus, booking and staying in a hotel sound like really easy things to do. However, for me at this stage of my China stay these require much thought and planning. First you have to find a hotel which will accept foreigners - not all do.  And on Booking.com they don't necessarily tell you.  Booking.com and the internet weren't working when I was trying to book so a phone call was needed which thankfully resulted in a great room at the Yishe Hotel Shilu Road Metro Station Branch.  Tiny tiny room but it was perfect.  Would have to have been designed by someone who travels.    When you can't speak or read the language and when a country doesn't seem set up for tourists there are  also the issues of how to get to the bus station here in Yixing and find the bus station in Souzhou when I returned.  Not to mention the issue of maps and getting around Suzhou.  I LOVE a map. Holding it and working out where you are, where north is and plotting a route for where you want to go.  There is a map app on my mobile phone but it's all in Chinese and thus no help.  There are no paper maps of Yixing, or apparently of Souzhou.  I asked in Suzhou at the "Tourist Information Centre", but maps are not something they have.  Over the 2 days I was in Suzhou, the only people I saw who didn't appear to be Chinese were 3 people travelling together from Germany.  I think Chinese are the main tourists within their own country.

Buying bus tickets was entertaining.  I can't read signs, so you check out where most people are going to find the floor where you buy tickets.  The lovely girls I work with wrote everything in Chinese and taught me to say Suzhou properly - or I thought so, but no one at the bus station could understand me. They also wrote down the times of the buses I would take. Finally, ticket in hand I have to try to work out which of the 30 gates is the one where the Suzhou bus leaves from and not get on the other bus that leaves from that same gate etc etc.  Smiles all round and seeing it as a bit of a game help greatly.  

Thank goodness for the Baidu translate app - you type in a word in English and it (mostly) translates it to Mandarin.

Pagoda - North Temple

Opens in new window

Suzhou was everything I was hoping for. "The Venice of the East".   This is "old China" writ large.  An "old part of town" with Temples, canals, ancient buildings, gardens, small streets and not too much traffic.  It’s one of the 2 silk capitals of China.   One of the gardens was delightfully called “The Humble Administrators Garden” - nothing humble about it if you ask me.  There were artisans making beautiful pieces from bamboo, and of course the Silk Museum.   I can’t explain just how beautiful it was.  And.... an added bonus - it is autumn so the colours were stunning.

After an hour and a half on the bus we arrive.  No trying to negotiate local buses, I take a taxi to the old part of town.  Taxis are so reasonable.  Travelling 5 km costs about $2.30 Australian.  



North temple

One of my favourite photos

Suzhou. North Temple. This has old China like I wanted to see.

I hadn’t yet found a sense of “old China” in Yixing (pronounced Yee-shing) the city where I live.  We have lots of glitz, technology and high rise apartments etc.  After 2 weeks in China, I felt I was in a bit of no mans land and needed to see some history.

So intrepidly, I headed for Suzhou, a bus ride of 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  It, along with Hangzhou also happens to be one of the two silk capitals of China.  

Catching a bus, booking and staying in a hotel sound like really easy things to do. However, for me at this stage of my China stay these require much thought and planning. First you have to find a hotel which will accept foreigners - not all do.  And on Booking.com they don't necessarily tell you.  Booking.com and the internet weren't working when I was trying to book so a phone call was needed which thankfully resulted in a great room at the Yishe Hotel Shilu Road Metro Station Branch.  Tiny tiny room but it was perfect.  Would have to have been designed by someone who travels.    When you can't speak or read the language and when a country doesn't seem set up for tourists there are  also the issues of how to get to the bus station here in Yixing and find the bus station in Souzhou when I returned.  Not to mention the issue of maps and getting around Suzhou.  I LOVE a map. Holding it and working out where you are, where north is and plotting a route for where you want to go.  There is a map app on my mobile phone but it's all in Chinese and thus no help.  There are no paper maps of Yixing, or apparently of Souzhou.  I asked in Suzhou at the "Tourist Information Centre", but maps are not something they have.  Over the 2 days I was in Suzhou, the only people I saw who didn't appear to be Chinese were 3 people travelling together from Germany.  I think Chinese are the main tourists within their own country.

Buying bus tickets was entertaining.  I can't read signs, so you check out where most people are going to find the floor where you buy tickets.  The lovely girls I work with wrote everything in Chinese and taught me to say Suzhou properly - or I thought so, but no one at the bus station could understand me. They also wrote down the times of the buses I would take. Finally, ticket in hand I have to try to work out which of the 30 gates is the one where the Suzhou bus leaves from and not get on the other bus that leaves from that same gate etc etc.  Smiles all round and seeing it as a bit of a game help greatly.  

Thank goodness for the Baidu translate app - you type in a word in English and it (mostly) translates it to Mandarin.

Pagoda - North Temple

Opens in new window

Suzhou was everything I was hoping for. "The Venice of the East".   This is "old China" writ large.  An "old part of town" with Temples, canals, ancient buildings, gardens, small streets and not too much traffic.  It’s one of the 2 silk capitals of China.   One of the gardens was delightfully called “The Humble Administrators Garden” - nothing humble about it if you ask me.  There were artisans making beautiful pieces from bamboo, and of course the Silk Museum.   I can’t explain just how beautiful it was.  And.... an added bonus - it is autumn so the colours were stunning.

After an hour and a half on the bus we arrive.  No trying to negotiate local buses, I take a taxi to the old part of town.  Taxis are so reasonable.  Travelling 5 km costs about $2.30 Australian.  



North temple

One of my favourite photos

The first two weeks

Where do I start.  Today is 2 weeks since I arrived in China.  And what a few weeks it has been. Overwhelmingly positive I would have to say

For the first 10 days I had no email or google and really felt quite bereft and like "China is a LONG was from Australia".  Baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google, but generally I'm not able to use the it because nearly everything is in Chinese - duh!  I was able to skype my family and Peter just to let them know that I’d arrived and everything was going well.  But I did feel isolated.  There were so many things I wanted to check out and I couldn’t access google.  I wanted to download photos for classes but I couldn’t access google images.  Back to normal now.  And Jessica at work is teaching me the joys of Taobao.  (Online shopping like you wouldn't believe)  

So here are some of my first impressions.

• You go all day here only seeing Chinese people.  I come to work and the expat teaching staff are the only people I've seen who aren't Chinese.     This provides never-ending entertainment for local people who look at you as a curiosity as you walk down the street.  I just smile and say “nihao”  (hello)  and 9 out of 10 people smile back.  Little kids just look at you fascinated. I went to the park yesterday and was followed around by 2 women who were council workers raking up leaves.  They were lovely, explaining in Chinese what statues and different things were.  And when someone doesn't understand, of course you speak louder!!  A man joined us and another woman.  Felt a bit like the Pied Piper, collecting people as we went.  

• This is a different world to living in Laos and Luang Prabang.  In LPB local people may not speak much English, but it is a town which is set up for and makes it's living out of tourists.  So  if you want to go somewhere, you can usually work it out with the tuk tuk drivers and they will take you there.  People on the street here seem to have no English..  LPB is small, you can walk and not get lost.  Here I stick closer to home at present because I couldn't even say in Chinese the name of my community, or the street where it is.  On my phone I have photos of the sign for the street I  live in and the entry gate for my community.  So if I get lost, I can show this to a taxi driver.  There is no way I could negotiate a bus station yet.  I'll work on that for next weekend because I'd like to go to Suzhou, the "silk capital".    Also because there are no visible foreigners or tourists, you do feel isolated from the rest of the world.  And everything is BIG.

• Chinese people have been so helpful and friendly - everyone - people in the street, the staff at WEBi where I work, the man who delivers the water.    Lots of sign language and a great app on my phone where you write something in English and it translates into Chinese and vice versa.       

• Common brands of cars here are Mercedes, Audi and VW.  Even in the community where I live. 

• I have been forced into the 21st century and now own my first smart phone.  Will I ever learn to love it????  I think not, but time will tell.  
• I have also joined WeChat - the Chines equivalent of Facebook, but I really don't care that someone I work with has bought a new appliance.  WeChat is part of work.  Instead of email, things at work are communicated via WeChat.  I feel so old sometimes.  
• Kids here go to school from 6.30 in the morning until 5.30 in the evening.   And then there is homework in the evenings.  And extra curricular activities like english language lessons.
• I start Mandarin lessons this week. Free, provided by the school.   Really looking forward to that.  
• Of all the students I teach, only 1 lives in a house. Everyone lives in apartments

• There is no litter in Yixing and it is safe to walk home in the dark.
• Most students are only children.  A few have a little babybrother or sister.

• Supermarkets here have my 2 favourite foods - brown rice and oats, so Marg is a happy girl.

• My faithful little camera has "given up the ghost" so I can't add photos to my blog at present.  And it hasn't yet proved possible to download photos from my phone to computer.  
• I'm surprised at how many signs and goods in the supermarket have English written underneath.  Some products even come from Australia.  You know this by the kangaroo featured prominently on the packaging.
• Technology here seems so advanced and just part of everyday life.  People are forever scanning their code thingy to make contact with people or pay for things etc.  Taobao is an online shopping conglomerate that "everyone" uses.  You don't buy shoes in a shop, you do it online.  Often the staff had things delivered to WEBi and so will show off their latest purchase.  The 11th of the 11th was  a day when "everyone" in China shops online and there are big sales.  .  I read how many millions of dollars was spent this year and couldn't comprehend it. The average spend per person in this province was something like $15,000.

• Spent lots of my spare time in the first days cleaning my apartment.  It was just so grotty and now it feels so much better. My favourite place to hang out was the HUGE supermarket nearby.  Numerous trips to get cleaning products, doona, towels, kitchen things, iron and the many many things you need when setting up a home.  Ive never done it before from scratch.There are lots of staff who are there to help - explaining how appliances work and finding things for you.  Most are so helpful, laughing and having a joke even though we don't know what the other is saying.    While I was weighing out some brown rice, one of the ladies was smiling and going through my trolley to check out what the foreigner was buying.