The last four days in China ...

Day 11 — Left the house at 8:30am in hopes of catching a 10:00am train to Suzhou. It was the fastest (two hours) and cheapest (32RMB) slow train there was for that morning. Tom called it the welfare train and it wasn't until I stepped foot on it that I truly understood what he meant.

I felt like I was back in India. The train was dirty, noisy and crowded. People were staring at me as if I didn't belong on that train and I didn't. I believe it was at that moment, before I even took my seat, that I made the decision to take the high-speed rail back to Nanjing.

The entertainment for the first fifteen minutes of the trip was two young boys dressed in uniforms trying to sell things like calligraphy brushes and power boxes. Their speech was about how good the products were and why people should buy them. When they left another guy took their place selling towels and when he was gone a lady appeared selling various types of packaged food. It was two solid hours of this.

I don't know where the starting point was for this train but the longer I observed my surroundings, the more it seemed that those around me could have quite possibly been on that train for days. People were sitting around in the aisles, old men were cleaning their empty bowls and one guy had some flowers in a vase on his table.

The trip was quick and before I knew it I was at the train station in Suzhou looking for the Metro. One thing I will say about China is that it is extremely easy to navigate your way around. It took two quick train lines and a five-minute walk to locate my hotel. In the daytime, it seemed like your normal average area but come evening I realized the hotel was in the heart of the red light district.

I was in Suzhou to meet up with a friend of mine from Taiwan. We spent the afternoon wandering around, checking out the sites. As day became night, the streets around our hotel filled up with carts full of bits and bites to eat. The shops became vibrant with lights and people singing KTV. Obvious working ladies could be seen parading the streets and as we finished our second bottle of wine, the environment seemed fitting. We had quite a laugh catching up on life.

Day 12 — My friend and I decided to visit the big Buddha in Wuxi, despite the expensive 210RMB ticket to get in. I looked up directions on Google maps, which I later learned doesn't work too well in China, and off we went. The two of us went in what we thought was the right direction only to find out an hour later that we were nowhere near where we wanted to be and in order to get to where we needed to be we had to go back to where we came from and start over. Bummer.

Delicious margaritas on the patio in Suzhou

So we made our way over to a big lake near our hotel called Jinji Lake. It is a huge area with lots to see. We found a bunch of western style restaurants like Starbucks, Cold Stone Creamery and Momma Mia's. Around 4pm, it started to rain so we headed over to a Mexican restaurant called Zapata's and luckily for us it was happy hour! A classic margarita was 34RMB. As we were using the free wifi, looking for something else to do, I found a blog about a light show at the lake that happened to be right beside where we were sitting on a patio. According to the net, the show was to start at 8pm.

We enjoyed margaritas, appetizers and beers while waiting for this show ... 3.5 hours worth. About a half hour before the show was to start, we confirmed the show time with our server. Her response was that the lights were broken and had been for about two years. Sigh.

Day 13 — My friend and I stayed in the hotel until the last moments before check out time and then went for some lunch across the street. Again, there was not one bad meal to be had in Suzhou.

After lunch, I made my way to the high-speed rail station, catching a fast train (56 minutes) back to Nanjing. The price was 100RMB but so worth it. We traveled 300km/h the whole way. The train was brand spanking new and smooth and clean and quiet. It was a very different experience than the trip coming into Suzhou.

I enjoyed my last night in Nanjing by going back to Fuzimiao. And like that, my trip was over and on day 14 I found myself taking the Metro back to the Nanjing airport getting ready to head back to Taiwan.

I absolutely loved my time in China and will most definitely return.

Other things of note throughout China:

Image: travelbugjuice.com

Babies have their pants cut open and do not wear diapers. So, basically kids are hanging out of their pants, front and back, everywhere you go. I saw a few toddlers pee on the floors of the buses. Who is expected to clean that up, the driver or the parents? Ugh.

People tried cutting in line most places, especially at the train stations. People would attempt to push past others to buy tickets. I watched one girl run frantically back and forth asking people to let her go first because she had a train to catch and was in a hurry. I would imagine we ALL have a train to catch. For the time she spent running around and failing, she could have spent the same amount of time getting in the back of one of the lines and gotten what she needed. I certainly noted that some people were special in China!