Suzhou, the Venice of the Orient

Suzhou, city of gardens and canals, gets a somewhat lukewarm description from the Lonely Planet as a mostly fairly typical modern Chinese city-- nice enough, but Hangzhou is better, apparently. We came to Suzhou early early in the morning armed with names and approximate locations for a few hostels, and we spent most of our time walking the city; when we were awake and happy and well-fed in an attractive part of town, it was rather pleasant, but when we were tired and hot and our feet hurt walking alongside perfectly unremarkable tile-covered convenience stores and clothing shops, it was less enjoyable.

Suzhou is famous for its canals (the city became prosperous as a trade city on the Grand Canal) and its gardens, and while we visited both (and they were nice), what I'll remember Suzhou for is the food we ate. Lunch on our second day town was at Mario's Ristorante, run by what seemed to be a real, live Italian person (his name may even actually be Mario). The restaurant was expensive but not crazy and definitely worth it; we ate real pasta and real cheese and the pesto that I ordered was fantastic (I will never admit it to the students in Fenyang, but when I told them that noodles were among my favorite foods, I was thinking at least as much of pesto and parmesan as zhajiang mian and kaolaolao), easily and absolutely the best Western food we've eaten since Thanksgiving. For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant near our hostel, and on our last day in Suzhou, we ate tasty Xinjiang-style food.

From Suzhou, we planned to head to Hangzhou via a night boat down the Grand Canal, but, alas, the passenger boat service appears to have been discontinued, and we had to take a bus instead. Sigh. More on Hangzhou later.