Suzhou, Jiangsu Province

I can't say I was unhappy to leave the Jilin. The acidic, sourness to many of the foods I had was a little difficult for me. I found the area to be less hospitable, certainly not the tourist mecca of Beijing or Shanghai.

Looking outside the plane, I can see we must have traveled through North Korean airspace, if not USSR as I soon saw the ocean as we turned right and headed down the Chinese coast and made a long, slow, low approach towards Shanghai.

Unlike many of my trips, I was greeted by a driver, rather than a firm representative. Although he did not speak English, we communicated quickly and efficiently, and off to the hotel we went.

The next day was spent in Shanghai! Magnificent. It reminded me of New York or some great city. Unlike them, walking is not amenable. One must have transport. Fortunately, we had a professional driver who took us to Xiantandi, the Oriental Pearl, the Jade Buddha, the Bund....all the usual tourist haunts.
The Oriental Pearl

The Temple of the Jade Buddha
Suzhou, outside of Shanghai, is where I spent most of my time. It's so interesting. It's a whole city based on business, and not just any Chinese business, but high-end, high-international manufacturing, etc. business. A whole city based on a business park! Enormously huge Fujifilm factory (I wondered if it was still functioning), a fantastic long parkway with gigantic, interesting sculptures interspersed along the way broke up the sterility. Large buildings labeled in gigantic letters "TOILET" made things clear! The thing about these parkways, they were crystal clean, manicured, freshly painted and neatly arranged-----probably 5 - 10 miles of business parkway, finally leading into downtown Suzhou.

The thing about China is you know for sure what the greatest natural resources is, it's on two feet and has two hands. Everything is looked after, everything seems to be tended to, 24/7, rain or shine. No kidding. No unions here, that's for sure. It sometimes seems if you keel over on the job, they'll sweep your carcass away quickly to make way for the next guy! Perhaps not, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Suzhou is known for it's "Walking Street" and "Bar Street", no doubt these are idiotic names made up by Westerners (large numbers of them here) as a substitute for the Chinese name.

Suzhou has canals running through it, by which, in olden times, people traveled by long boats. Suzhou is lovingly called, the "Venice of China", but this is mostly for tourists. Note, when I say tourists, these are 99% Chinese tourists.
Suzhou
















Suzhou, the Venice of China

The language here is termed, "Suzhou-nese", vs. "Shanghai-ese"...I found them distinct and differentiable.








Like in many parts of China, one can easily find humor in the translation of what should be the mundane!