An Oriental Venice

The Chinese love their kites. After a busy morning cycling through the cobbled streets of Suzhou, we stopped in the park to watch the many people fly their colorful creations. Again we are being watched as we write. At this very moment I am writing with an audience of about 11 people (I counted in the corner of my eyes). They are truly amazed and bemused by our strange language and style of writing. Admittedly, my hand writing is awful and no where near as beautiful as the Chinese characters - especially their calligraphy. It has now got to a point where I don't think I will ever write in public again. Unless of course I'm feeling particularly lonely and want to make friends.

Renting bikes was the perfect way to see all the sights that Suzhou had to offer. We started our tour of the city by visiting the Twin Pagodas, a small garden with two large towers standing near the entrance. Another small area seemed to be a meeting place for many locals who had nothing better to do than drink green tea under the trees. We continued to cycle along the canals and over the many bridges that reminded me of Venice. Our lunch consisted of noodles with sweet and sour chicken that we purchased at one of the street vendors. We found a place to sit and eat on the edge of a canal as we watched the bemused locals walk by. As we cycled onward, ringing our bells and taking pictures of every conceivable pagoda, temple or little old lady washing her clothes, we were suddenly caught in a huge down pour of rain. Oddly I saw a bus with the leaning tower of Pisa in an advert on the back. I started to reminisce about Italy. We took cover in a small eatery down a dirty alley until it stopped raining. We cycled a bit futher until it started raining again and noticed every single person riding a bike was almost fully covered in a rather fetching all in one poncho. They were everywhere cycling in all directions. We both became addicted taking photos of all the brightly coloured rain macs as they whizzed by. It was almost like a competition to see who could get the most colours in one single shot. We attempted to visit several of the major gardens and parks but refused to pay the entrance fees, especially taking into consideration that it was grey, miserable and constantly under the threat of another 'monsoon-like' rainfall.

We bought our tickets for Nanjing at the station by writing clever instructions in my note book and showing it to the man behind the counter. I wrote the departure date in figures followed by the Chinese characters for Nanjing (which I copied from our guide book) and 2 stick figures indicating that we needed two tickets. It worked like a charm as he issued our tickets without even having to speak a single word. Ali purchased a strange drink from a woman by the side of the road. It tasted like chocolate tea but had balls of something floating around inside. My eyes filled with intrigue as I watched her suck them up one by one. It's getting a little chilly in the park now and I think my burnt arms and shoulders are starting to offend the locals.