Moving on to the next destination, Suzhou (苏州)! I thought Suzhou is known for producing beautiful girls, since it's always mentioned in the television. But I guess Hangzhou is the correct place, correct me if I got anything wrong here. After having lunch in Hangzhou, Hua Shifu (华师傅) drove us to Suzhou. Hua Shifu is one of the people I've came to respect really much, he worked day and night driving us to here and there. And even carried our luggage, I admire and respect him really. So it was about 2 hours journey to Suzhou from Hangzhou, long enough for me to snooze in the bus. But I spent half of the journey in the bus for reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone since I had a lot of free time and I can get more inspiration for the next story I'm going to write... Another story, let's not bother that first shall we? 2 hours later, where we reached to Suzhou, the Suzhou's local tour guide has came into the bus, his nickname was 小朱, this time, this tour guide is a little chubby and cute. And he's very friendly, I suppose?
This picture looks like a temple isn't it? But it's not, it's one of the ancient house passes down from the generation of Qing Dynasty. And is said this house was lived by the high-ranked officers back in their days. And I thought this building was really impressive though I didn't really like historical things... But still, it's part of the trip thing so I had to get myself interested. Suzhou was once a city covered by the water... You know, rivers and lakes... But the Suzhou in this century has became a land-city. Back to this building thing, well I guess China value their historical related building or things really high and no doubt this house is one of the most precious one for them. That building that I entered was really big, twice bigger than a bungalow. They have their own 'lake', one house specially made for viewing the night sky or even moon. And I'm very impressed by their English description for each houses. Everything was so well-written, even I have to check some of the words in the dictionary to double confirm it. Bravo! Travelling to China without knowing Chinese might be no problem if you're with a guide or something.
After the trip to this ancient building, we were like travelling through the times, now we're moving onto the place where everything was kinda advance. Big cinema, big shopping mall and even the biggest advertisement ceiling board! Weather in China is really different from Malaysia, like China (the place where I traveled) was only about 1°C ~ 8°C while in Malaysia it's about 24°C ~ 32°C. I thought I would get sick when I reach to China but oh well my body handled it well. If you ask me I prefer staying in a cold country rather than a hot country. Since iPad cannot detect my finger if I had my gloves on, I had to take them out and activate the icons and everything. And because of I have to use iPad with bare hands, my fingers gone frozen paralyzed. I can't even feel my finger, it's like my fingers are all harden and became icy, I can poke one of the finger out from the palm if the weather got any colder... Well luckily this trip isn't at the North of the China, or everything will be even worse. Anyway just want to tell you readers, although I said everything written on the description table or whichever place has good English, I still think traveling in China requires you to know basic Chinese. Since everything is in Chinese, like Pizza Hut is translated into 必胜客, McDonald 麦当劳, KFC 肯得基, Tesco 乐购, Carrefour 家乐福 and many many more...! Alright I've gone too far, let's go back to the world largest ceiling board advertisement... It is said to play Japanese's commercial or advertisement but after the massive earthquake happened in Japan, the Japanese Government decided not to play any advertisement there and use the money on saving the people... That's what I heard from 小朱...
Moving on to the next destination, 小朱 brought us to the largest cinema and shared the same name with the Beijing's stadium, 'Bird Nest'. At first I thought that thing was some kind of big shopping mall but it turns out to be a building that holds cinema, I mean seriously? One big building just for cinema! I guess buying tickets in that cinema must be expensive urgh, still I'm impressed. The time when I reached to that place was the time of dusk so you can see I was standing there and pretending to be emo, yeah~ To be frank with y'all, I've never seen this beautiful view before! Not in my life until I open my eyes in China...! The scenarios and everything, perfect! I could stay all day starring at the view without doing anything, just to enjoy the mesmerizing view... Like the picture shown above, isn't it perfect? With the water flowing and the well built building...!
Okay after the viewing around the cinema, it was time for dinner. It's time to wave a goodbye to 小朱 since he's going away until tomorrow. After having dinner, Mr. Gao took us to the 'Night Market' but well it wasn't exactly 'night market', it was some kind of street that you will never see in Malaysia! I don't know what is it called not even in Chinese but I just enjoy walking on the street, the real deal street, you get me? I really liked everything there, you know... Fashion Boutique, food stalls, book stores, fast-food restaurant... And I even bought a new jeans there! It was kinda cheap after 50% discount, in China they don't discount with percentages %, they're different. If you're asking for discount, don't go asking like this "Mr/Ms may I have 20% discount?" but like this "姑娘/先生可以给我打个8折吗" which means... I don't know how to translate it properly but I can give you the conversion.Ah, how nice it is if we have winter and those kind of clean streets in Malaysia. I really got tired of seeing those rubbishes on even the classroom. It's time for Malaysian people to do the same like China and Singapore! Traveling is fun, but not alone. You'll be very lonely if you travel alone, since you know no one in other country. I mean, everyone is new to you so you better at least join the tour or get some of your friends travel with you. But anyhow, it's worth to travel anywhere you want. I never regretted for traveling to Thailand and China, my next target is to either go to China again, or Seoul in South Korea. Though if I have enough budget I'll definitely go to Seoul since I have someone to meet there. If I don't have enough investment then China will always be the rightful choice, I have friends from both side except Japan, sadly.
I think I spatted too much, oh well, second day in Suzhou! Nothing much, there's always a tradition for each city we traveled. The local tour guide will always bring us to some factory and urge you to buy their things. I think they'll get some money if many people buy their things... This time 小朱 brought us to Silk Factory. Everything was produced from the nature, the silkworm (蚕虫). Now it's time for my little lecture again! In every Chinese word there's always a meaning behind it, I mean Chinese words are getting more interesting and interesting! Now 蚕 this word is composed by the word of 天 and 虫, 天 means sky and 虫 means worm. 蚕 this word is made to tell the people this worm is 天赐的虫 (Gift from the sky)! Alright there goes my crappy explanation but anyway... The natural silk-made clothes will never burn and is very comfortable to use. Nylons will actually burn once it contacted with the fire, which resulted Selina from S.H.E got badly injured because she was wearing nylon shirt. There was too, fashion show held by the company itself to showcase the silk-made clothes. But the models aren't attractive and they're very unprofessional, luckily it wasn't some official or grand fashion show...
Okay that's all for the Suzhou trip! So far I give this trip 3 stars, kinda satisfying but there are something that can be fixed. Woot, the next city will be very interesting, Shanghai! Here's the picture between me and the local guide 小朱, I'll miss ya! 谢谢给你的丝绸袜!
