Zhengzhou to Suzhou

Sunday, October 13, 2013
This morning we flew to the Shanghai airport and then traveled by bus for about an hour to the city of Suzhou. The local guide told us on the way that Suzhou was just a small city - only about 7 million people. The total population of Canada is approximately equal to the combined population of Shanghai and Suzhou. I believe there are over 100 cities exceeding 1 million people in China and most of us have never heard of them.

 We had some free time in the afternoon to wander through the old part of the city which has a number of canals for transport.

 Later in the afternoon, we walked through a doorway off a busy downtown street into the Liu Garden. Historically, wealthy Chinese families would create their own tranquil gardens in the middle of the city. There is no indication from the street that this complex of gardens, ponds and small buildings for relaxation exists. However, it takes up an area of about a normal city block.

 There are different gardens and sculptures or rocks placed throughout.

This is part of the lobby of the Suzhou Gusu Jinjiang Hotel where we stayed. Sinorama Holidays promised 5 star hotels and they delivered. This isn't the nicest hotel we stayed in; it's just a typical example. We likely could never have afforded to stay in such hotels if we were traveling on our own. The only complaint anyone had about the hotels is that often we didn't have enough time to enjoy them.