The highlight of Suzhou

The highlight of of Suzhou for us was a visit to one of the famous traditional gardens. We only managed to get there because we had an extra day available after bungled escape plan. We had booked a flight out of Suzhou to Taipei via Macau and at the time of payment to boss of the small flight centre in the hotel agreed to deposit our "e-tickets" at the front desk, but when we arrived back later to collect the tickets, they were not there. So what to do? The flight was from Wuxi airport at 8:45 a.m. and the fight centre did not open again 'til 8:00 a.m. and the airport was a one hour drive from Suzhou city! Because we thought that we were to be issued e-tickets we decided to take a chance and make it to the airport, but you guessed it, when we got there there they wouldn't let us board, shit! And we have no money to get back to the hotel, argh!

By this time my wife was up for a fight and called to boss of the flight centre demanding that they compensate for the mistake; after much negotiation they agreed to pay for a cab back and an extra night in the hotel. My wife is a master negotiator!

That is how we got our extra day to see the Suzhou garden, which was a very interesting experience and cannot begin to explain a traditional Chinese garden with my limited writing skills and the photos we have cannot be published to date, because of technological limitations. But, you can take a look at someone else's photos here, many thanks to that photographer for allowing us to appreciate the beauty of Suzhou's gardens.

As for Wuxi airport it sits on the outskirts of Wuxi city, which isn't really a city at all, but is new huge industrial area that sits in the middle of farming land, with pretty farming houses all around. No doubt a full blown city will appear out of the countryside over the next decade and the area will become unrecognisable from today's appearance.