Part of our trip to Shanghai was spent as a day trip to Suzhou, one of the many canal cities to the west of Shanghai.  I’d wanted to see one of these towns ever since seeing the end scenes from Mission Impossible III.  True to the warnings of the guidebook and some locals, the scenic spots did take some effort to find; much of the old town is surrounded by ugly, smell, or industrial parts.

Buying the train ticket was easy and cheap.  And, we were happy to discover that our $4 fare was for the comfortable and spacious first class cabin.  Not bad.  Approximately one hour later, we pulled in to Suzhou, then began a long walk to the scenic parts of town.  First we crossed a stinking stagnant canal on a bridge crowded with street merchants.  After a couple of wrong turns into the ugly parts of town, we steered in the right direction and found the first guidebook landmark – the silk museum, which, from nearly being over run by vines and creepers, appeared to not have had a visitor in years.  I was worried that the rest of the city might look no better.  But it didn’t; eventually we found some good stuff:  The Temple of Mystery, The Twin Pagodas, and even some quality canal views, though they were nothing close to what can be seen in the city of Li Jiang in the Yunnan province.  I especially enjoyed the food.  We never sat down for a meal, but instead dined on street snacks, the favorite being sort of a Chinese pizza – a crust with ground meat and spices on top.  It was delicious and only 3 RMB (under 50 cents).  There was plenty of milk tea stands, much like Shanghai, to choose from as well.

We ended up hitting all major sections of the city, ending the day in the southwest corner.  After so much walking, we opted to use a rickshaw to make our way back to the center of town.  Unfortunately, we suddenly realized that we only had a few minutes to catch the train back to Shanghai.  We ran to the busiest street, caught a cab to the train station, ran through the gate, and boarded with two minutes to spare.  The nap on the ride back to Shanghai was a perfect ending.