Changzhou and Wuxi

At the end of August I was able to get away for a long weekend to Changzhou and Wuxi – my first real trip off the beaten tourist path. The Chinese government has invested lots of money in high speed rail – “dong che动车” – which is similar to the TGV in France or the bullet trains in Japan. Several lines have been completed and the one that we took was one of them.

Changzhou & Wuxi - I

The reason why we went to Changzhou was actually because of a poster in the elevator of my apartment building for a dinosaur theme park. After looking at the advertisement for several months we did some research and it was not expensive, on the high speed train line and easy to get to. Since it was still summer season the theme park was open until 11pm and it was a great experience. There was a water park and lots of rides – not quite Cedar Point, but still a lot of fun. Plus, because we went on a Thursday there weren’t that many people there! We could go down the slides in the water park without waiting and most rides had a wait of less than 30 minutes. Eating Chinese theme park food was a hoot too – fried noodles anyone?

We capped off the evening watching the big closing illuminated parade and were the last people to get on our bus before it pulled away.

The next day we took the high speed train another 20 minutes and went to Wuxi. Wuxi is known for a huge movie/television set where they have recreated ancient temples and cities as well as Tai Hu – a huge lake with an island in the middle. They are trying to position themselves like Hangzhou (where I visited with Marisha and Arnel the famous West Lake) as a tourist destination. The pollution in Wuxi is pretty bad – although I have heard it has improved, so it still has room for improvement. However, the people were very friendly and I can see how in the future tourism should increase there.

The first day we went to the three villages movie set. We explored through the fake forest (with plastic flowers on the trees), saw a very impressive horse show reenacting a battle that took place between warring factions and wandered through a replica of the forbidden city – all by ourselves. The horse battle must have had over 100 participants and even though the voice over was in Chinese I got a pretty good idea of what was going on. There was also a fake army training camp where you could test yourself against different obstacles. I did ok with a couple, but the net across the big hole finally got me and I ungracefully came down backwards. The more I learn about medical care in China, the fewer risks I realize that I should take!

The second day we took a bus to Tai Hu and then took a boat across the lake to the Turtle Head island in the center. It is a bit of a nature preserve, except there wasn’t really that much original to the island – most of the temples and sites have been reconstructed, but just the same it was nice to be out of the city and see green again. I sat for a long time on a rock listening to the waves and thinking about Lake Huron. After a full day on the island we crossed back and visited one last temple on the mainland before heading back to the hotel.

I enjoyed exploring these two new places. While they were still major cities in the US definition – each at least a million people, the vibe was different. Prices were lower and the standard of living is also lower. Plus, I saw maybe 3 foreigners the entire time – so these are areas that don’t have the comforts of Shanghai – I don’t think I could find a foreign supermarket or a place to buy large size clothes and that is reassuring (unless you need to live there). The photos here don't include the Tai Hu pictures - will post those under a separate post.

Cheers!

A Suzhou Story

"I LOST MATT - I AM HOPING HE IS ON THE TRAIN. THE LAST 20MIN HAVE BEEN CRAZY"

- text message sent by me to Chris on February 17, 2008, 8:02PM

Yesterday Matt and I went to Suzhou - home of beautiful gardens, pagodas and monuments, about a 45 minute train ride due west of Shanghai. Suzhou is on the route from Shanghai to Nanjing, so there are lots of trains that go there. We took the 9:15am express train there in luxury - the seats were about $4 each and were nicer than business class on an overseas airplane. Plenty of room to stretch out, individual pillows, and a total train time of less than 45 minutes. It was a great start to the day.

Suzhou is a smaller city in China, only having 5 to 6 million people. In the past it was one of the most important cities in China because of it's silk production and until the last 200 years was must more important than Shanghai. Suzhou was part of the Silk Road and Marco Polo called it the Venice of the East because of the intricate network of canals and bridges throughout the city. Suzhou has the reputation of having the most beautiful woman in China and the Suzhou dialect is praised as being the language of poets.

Our guide "The Lonely Planet" said that there were five tourist buses that for 2RMB would take you to most of the sites and they left from the train station. Unfortunately, no one could tell us where the buses were. We went from one side of parking lot to the other, across the road and back, all the while being hounded by vendors selling maps and others who were trying to sell us very expensive boat tours. Matt finally bought a map and after purchasing it realized that there was absolutely no English on it at all. We finally boarded a bus, but the driver shooed us off when I asked if Tiger Hill was one of her stops. At that point, after spending most of an hour looking for the correct bus we gave up and took a taxi.

Tiger Hill was incredible - there was a long uphill walkway from the entrance flanked by drums and gongs. People were hitting the drums and gongs that sounded almost planned - a very happy sound. After some observation Matt and I realized that each year (rat, monkey, snake, horse, etc.) had a gong and a drum and people were hitting them for good luck with the new year. We found ours and followed their example.


The main attraction at Tiger Hill is a very tall brick pagoda that is leaning - the Chinese tower of Pisa if you will. It is very impressive and the scenery in the gardens is pretty remarkable. Because of the focus on rocks and water, Chinese gardens are beautiful year round, even in the middle of February. Also remarkable is that we didn't see any other foreign tourists. None.

After exploring Tiger Hill we headed to the second most famous location in Suzhou, "The Humble Administrator's Garden" which is a World Heritage Site. It was hard to believe that this was the humble administrator's garden. It was huge! There were at least two separate lakes, numerous pavilions, a museum explaining the different concepts in Chinese gardening as well as documenting other gardens in Shanghai and southern China.

Pushing on, we then visited the city's silk museum and then climbed to the top of the tallest pagoda in the city. The steps were steep, but the views at the top gave us a chance to see the city. After that we got into a bicycle rickshaw and our driver pedaled us to the twin pagodas, unique because pagodas are normally single structures. We had this last site almost to ourselves and the trees were just starting to bud, perfuming the air as the sun began to set.

Since we had tickets for the 7:17pm train, we went to dinner at one of the restaurants in our guidebook and had the traditional sweet and sour fish from Suzhou as well as local long beans, cold roast duck and fried rice. The food was excellent and we congratulated ourselves on a day well spent as we walked quickly back to the train station.

Our train was actually running 35 minutes late, so we settled into the waiting room with probably 200-300 people and began to unwind. When the train was announced we joined the rush of people heading down to the platform and tried to stand where we thought our car would be. Unfortunately, we guessed wrong and when the train pulled up we had to run to the other end of the track. Our car, car 11 was absolutely packed and the conductors weren't letting people on as some people tried to get off. Another conductor told us to go down to car 10 and get on there, but when we got there it was the same story so we went back again.

Almost everybody else was on the train except us and about half a dozen people in front of us. There were elbows and shoving and I finally got almost on and then a man with a piano tried to push in front of me. I smashed into the woman in front of me and managed to get ahead of the man with the piano at which point I turned around and realized that Matt was gone. He had been right behind me and I had absolutely no idea where he went. I couldn't move - I was stuck between a woman with a very large suitcase and the man with the piano. As I was standing there, trying to get from the hallway to inside the train car, the train started moving.

Needless to say, this was not the luxury train of the morning. I was slightly in shock as I showed my ticket to the attendent and he made the woman sitting in my seat move. She took it well enough, pulling a portable stool from underneath the seat and sitting right next to me on the floor. As I sat down, I considered my options: 1) Matt was on the train somewhere else and 2) Matt was on the platform in Suzhou. It was at this point that I sent the text message at the beginning of the entry to Chris. I decided to stay in my seat, hoping that if he was on the train he would eventually show up because his seat was supposed to be right next to mine. He never did.

Chris and I exchanged several more text messages - Chris tried to call Matt's cell phone from our apartment, we tried to figure out how to send an international text message - nothing. The default position was when I got off the train in Shanghai I would stand on the platform and start yelling his name. The ride home was about an hour and 15 minutes and the time passed very quickly.

To complete the story - Matt had managed to get on the train, he had realized the train was about to leave and run back to car number 10. He then had the honor of being the last person on board the train and a space by the door to stand for the hour and 15 minute trip. He said his car was so full that there was no way he could have traversed the length to get to car 11. Let's just say I was more than a little relieved to see him standing on the platform waiting for me when I finally got off in Shanghai.

Q - Have you ever lost someone when you were traveling or were you ever lost? Especially in the days before cell phones, it's a scary proposition. Share your stories!

I will try to post an album of Suzhou pictures as well as pictures from Matt's arrival and travels in Shanghai with us earlier during Spring Festival in the next week or so. My Chinese classes have started again and so my time is much more limited now, but I want to share them since Chris and Matt took such great photos.

Cheers!