2014.05.05 Suzhou old town (north)

The last day of stay in Suzhou woke up sunny, so I could not resist attempt to finish off plans interrupted by the rain the day before. Start from the heart of the city: Xuanmiao Temple

Next Northern Pagoda:

I tried to capture it from eastern side and walked into another housing quarter typical for inner-wall area. Glory of the temple over everyday life:

I arrived at the Humble Administrator's Garden before opening time and there was already queue of people waiting for a ticket. This one, being the biggest, the most famous, and likely the most impressive of Suzhou gardens, judging on its plan needs half a day at least. Having much less that that, I decided to skip it and go straight to the Couple’s RetreatGarden. The way there goes along Pingjiang Road, apparently attraction itself, but it looked for me like yet another one of those messy pavements surrounded by local tradesmen. It is actually hard to find any road in Suzhou’s centre without a shop or stall at every metre of its length… On the other hand it maybe looks way different, but shows local lifestyle and living conditions (if that qualifies as tourist attraction). 

Local tourist spots aren’t very well signposted (the Chinese probably just ask and get directions), and all the maps I found show very approximate location only. It was similar in that case: there was a sign on the corner of the streets quoting distance of 200m, so after 5 minutes of walk I got worried (satnav doesn’t help without precise map, I managed many times to walk into those slums areas just to realize that each turn leads to dead end), but finally when got to a canal which the street crosses, another sign pointed the garden being just 40m away, and I could see some gate far away. I assume either these are different meters, or different units altogether :)

On the way back I could see the city wall in sunshine instead of rain:

New boundries: Gate to the East seen from the old town gate

I popped into local market hoping to buy some genuine gifts to take home, it appeard however it wasn't exactly the scale I was after. Clearly the Chinese are into stones and porcelain though.

In the centre there are more bicycles, but the scooters rule, being used even as courier mules:

I tried Suzhou’s underground. Very positive experience: ticket machine could be set to English, no problems with getting ticket, clean station with policemen watching the order. I don’t have much experience with the tube, but I suspect travel and passengers look identical, maybe with one exception: there must be signal transmitter on board of the train, as there was full mobile range.
Unfortunately the gate at exit from the station insisted to eat my ticket (simple way to reduce mess!) , so these are the only memories:

Park & Ride :)

 

Clik to see the path I walked, again switch to satelite view as street map (as of May 2014) is shifted.