Saturday in Suzhou

I'm paying 50 cents for this internet, so I might as well use the whole hour! That means you get to hear from me tonight instead of tomorrow, you lucky people. Today was more of an adventure than I had been hoping for, but I think I pulled off the day quite well.

I woke up kinda early and went to my normal work bus stop, since I noticed yesterday that the last stop on that route is the train station. Got there without a problem (I mean, I had conversations with several people about when to get off and where to go, etc., but if I weren't completely clueless I would never have an opportunity to talk to complete strangers all the time.) Was disappointed to find that I wouldn't be able to leave for a couple of hours, but put that time to good use eating breakfast and reading up on Suzhou.

The train ride was very comfortable and very short- only about 30 minutes actually. Unfortunately, I arrived to extreme heat and extreme confusion, which led to much longer time in the extreme heat before finding a taxi to bring me to some random intersection that wasn't what I wanted, and then my hostel. Luckily, the people in the hostel are very nice and friendly and I was on my way taxi-hunting again pretty shortly. It had become fairly clear that I could spend most of my day standing in the heat trying to hail cabs, since things aren't really walkable distances apart, so I took the Rough Guide's advice and rented a bike for the day. Had a quick lunch, then got lost biking to the Opera and Theatre Museum. Someone eventually led me there, which is good because I never would have found it by myself. It was kinda cool; I took some pictures.

Suzhou is known for its gardens, so after a somewhat disappointing museum I knew it was time to find some. Went to Ou Yuan and then to Zhuozheng Yuan (the latter of which is the largest). Pretty hot out, but I was able to ignore it a lot of the time and really enjoy what are beautiful, beautiful gardens. (Pictures to come) Found a little pedestrian street that was supposed to have good restaurants that served Suzhou food, and found one and ate some fish that was mentioned in the Rough Guide as classically Suzhou-ian. Walked around there a bit.

Decided to return my bike, since the thing I wanted to do this evening was nearby. I have to say, biking really gave today the new-experience excitement it needed. It was fun to ride, definitely the best way to get around, and a good conversation starter as I would try to go places where vehicles weren't allowed and someone would come up and show me where I could leave it. And besides, who doesn't want the experiene of biking on the Chinese streets? (Don't worry, I was super-careful and didn't pick big streets.)

After returning my bike I walked a few carefully-planned feet to Wangshi Yuan, which is a garden that has a performance at night. We, the group of tourists, were led from building to building in the garden and shown a different sort of short performance in each- singing, dancing, storytelling, instrument-playing...very entertaining. They even gave us a free fan at the end! Kinda wish I'd had it at the beginning of today, which I'm pretty sure was the hottest day I have ever been out in for an extended period of time.

Okay, there are mosquitoes here. I'm going to my room.