Suzhou to Hangzhou

November 17, 2009

Suzhou, like everything in China seems to be really old. The city is believed to have been founded in 514 BC on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Suzhou has been called the Venice of China because of all of the canals through the city. Narrow city streets go over these canals by bridges built mostly of ancient stone in an arched design. Rainbow took us for a boat ride on one of these canals at night through an older section of the city. It was a great experience seeing the culture from the water side. Unfortunately a lot of the canals and older parts of the city have succumbed to urban development with the building of highways and shopping centers as has happened in a lot of other Chinese cities. Fortunately it appears that at least a lot of the areas that we rode the boat through are being reconditioned due to the tourist trade and the culture will remain that surrounds that part of the canal system. A lot of lights are installed along the canal and gives kind of a romantic feel to the trip.

Along parts of the canal we saw beautiful homes built ages ago by rich Chinese families. These had beautiful stone traditional entrances and even though you only saw a small part of the house you knew it had to be beautiful behind the façade. Other buildings along the canal were multistory (maybe two or three stories) housing units that it was obvious did not house rich families but probably poorer families. Clothes hung on clothes lines, some strung across the canal with pulley systems to retrieve clothes or other places with clothes just hung on the sills of open windows. Most of these buildings were right against the water with hardly room for a boat to dock and people to step out.

Other occasional buildings had red lights out that identified the probable trade inside. Of course red is a popular color in China however so I may have made the wrong conclusions.

Another few buildings had a docking space and some beautiful Chinese boats tied up that apparently were a popular backdrop for wedding pictures as at one spot there was a bride and groom in their wedding clothes having pictures taken.

At another spot we disembarked for a walking tour through an older part of town and as we walked we passed by a well that was an open hole maybe 18 inches in diameter in a small courtyard between old apartment buildings. Rainbow explained that this was a neighborhood well where the residents came to get water. While we were standing there a woman came with a bucket on a rope and let it down to get water in it and then off down the street she went. I should mention that the streets there were hardly wide enough for one small car and now that I think about it, they probably were just wide as a large sidewalk.

Rainbow then led us into a “flea” market area which apparently was the place where the locals went for their daily supplies. It was narrow, dark, and barely wide enough for two or three pedestrians to pass. Now this is how I imagined old China to be. It was an interesting environment with the sounds of the vendors, the occasional motor scooter, bicycles, and the scooters that you really had to watch out for were the electric ones. They could sneak up on you real quiet like. Along the way there were household utensils, hardware, buckets and all kinds of animals in all states of life and death. Live ducks and chickens in crates tied by their legs, dead ducks and chickens laid out for your selection on tables and also all kinds of sea creatures – eels, fish, and other unidentifiable parts and pieces. All this in dark alleys with vendors on both sides lit by bare light bulbs on wire strung overhead. Numerous vendors had cooked food ready to take home for supper lending interesting smells to the environment. All I can say is I hope a Wal-Mart never replaces all of this culture.

I looked out of the window at the hotel and saw this scene below. Probably a whole city block was being farmed. From our level it looked like the main crops were green vegetables of some kind. I am still somewhat puzzled as to whether this was an area that had been left unbuild on for some reason or if buildings had been demolished and before a new building was going to be built the farmers had taken over. It scene seemed completely out of place.

You can left click on the pictures and some will come up full size and some won't.  For some reason the editor loses the link to the full size photos sometimes.

Suzhou has become known as the center of China's silk industry. We visited a silk factory mockup at a silk factory outlet type store. We got to see them unwind the cocoons pulling the single filament of silk off the cocoon and winding it onto a larger spool. It takes a considerable amount of time to collect all the silk fibers and go through the weaving process to create the fabrics. Very beautiful results. Below you see some bedrooms outfitted with silk sheets and bedspreads. Nice, but I would be afraid of slipping right out of bed onto the floor.

Another of their handicrafts with silk is the making of rugs.  Again bright vibrant colors in any design or size that you might want.  Price is proportional to the number of knots per inch.  Some of the most expensive were small but with 2500 knots/inch.  One about 12x18 inches that we looked at cost $6,000, very beautiful but you don't put these on the floor to walk on but hang it on the wall.

Some of the most beautiful hand work done with silk was the embroidery of pictures onto a silk backing material. Some of these pieces were very large with so much detail it was incredible. The prices were also incredible but understandable as the one's with so much detail cost well over $10,000, some multiples of ten's of thousands.

A roof at the silk factory with a nice design from the snow.

Tea bushes close to the office and display buildings.  A cool snowy morning.

Fields of tea across the street on a foggy cool morning.

The man below is drying the tea leaves in a heated bowl.

 We went off to visit a Budda temple surrounded by beautiful gardens.

A happy Budda tucked away in some of the gardens.

Lotus flowers were domant this time of year.  These were on West Lake where we had a tour boat ride across the lake.

Tour boats waiting for passengers.  A little slow this time of year and type of day that it was.

A giant dragon boat on West Lake and yes the pogadas were part of the boat.  West Lake is renowned to be a famous lake where the emperors liked to visit in the summer time.  A check on Google will undoubedly provide a lot of interesting about the lake.  Unfortunately the day we were there it was foggy, drizzly and gloomy.  We couldn't appreciate it I'm sure as much as we would have on a nice summer day.