China's Venice

“In heaven, there is paradise. On earth, Suzhou and Hangzhou”.
-Chinese saying

While we didn't make it to Hangzhou, this last weekend we decided to test this Chinese saying and went to Suzhou. We loved it.

Eric needed to get his new temple recommend signed by the district president and this required going into Shanghai which is a couple of hours away. So Eric and I decided to make a trip out of it. A lot of our friends have recently gone to Suzhou and told us how amazing it is so we decided to check it out. Suzhou is one of the train stops on the way from Nanjing to Shanghai. So early Saturday morning we hopped on a train to Suzhou and spent the day exploring Suzhou before heading to Shanghai Sunday morning. Wow. So much more amazing than we had expected. Suzhou is sometimes referred to as the 'Venice of the East' and for good reason. There are canals all through Suzhou lined by old-style Chinese houses and buildings. It was beautiful. This is the hostel that we stayed at. It was right on the edge of a very picturesque canal. When we walked out of it Saturday morning after checking in, this is what we saw: Artists painting... Elderly women gossiping and laughing... A beautiful canal... And an old woman washing her mop out in the greenish water...
Eric and I took a different approach to seeing Suzhou than others have. Besides for its canals, Suzhou is known for its beautiful gardens. However, Eric and I didn't go to a single one. Not that we have anything against gardens (besides the fact that they aren't the cheapest places to go to...) but we were most excited about just walking around 'Old Suzhou',exploring, and just seeing the city.

One place Eric wanted to go to was the Suzhou University. In his research online before our trip he had read about a certain building there. In our exploring around the university (which had lots of pretty, old buildings!) we stumbled across what we were looking for. This doorway(if you look closely) has faded Cultural Revolution propaganda/slogans. The left column reads 'Long live the Communist Party' and the right one 'Long live Chairman Mao.' If you know the background of the Cultural Revolution and what happened with education you will understand why we found this interesting.
We walked to some other really interesting places- old pagodas and such places that towered over the other buildings. We figured that since they poked out enough we didn't need to pay to see them closer. Yeah, I guess were pretty cheap- or as Eric would probably prefer me saying- we are smart with our money. :) Here are some of those places. The third one is a tower that is sometimes referred to as 'The Leaning Tower of China.' Next time I think this is one that I would like to see a little closer up. You can't tell very well in the picture but the tower is actually leaning at a 3 degree angle- doesn't sound like much, but in such a tall building it makes a difference.
We really enjoyed walking along Shantang street which is an old shopping district. It is right along a canal and, although most of the shops are now souvenir shops, we thought it was great! And we found these super yummy snacks. I particularly like the one on the left- mostly because to me it looks like an ice-cream cone. They are both sweet and filled with red bean paste. Yum! One funny thing that happened here: As we were watching the vendor make those amazing red bean snacks, two young women approached me and asked if I would take a picture with them. Nothing out of the ordinary with this and I agreed. Afterwards, they thanked me profusely, calling me 'beautiful woman' and then ran off. About fifteen minutes later as we were crossing a bridge, these two girls suddenly ran up from the other side calling out 'beautiful woman', put two boxes in my hand, and again ran off. They had bought me boxes of some specialty Suzhou snacks. I found this really funny and flattering too, I guess. It reminded me of times on my mission where people would get so excited by me as if I were some sort of celebrity. And I always would think, 'Really, me? Do you see how gross and sweaty I look!?' But hey, if I get free cookies out of it, I'm not complaining!

After walking through the nice, kept up portion of Shantang street, we kept walking along the canal and were soon in the middle of a neighborhood with narrow, winding streets and amazing smells coming out of the windows. We kept hoping someone would invite us in...

And here are more pictures of a few canals that we saw.
What a fun place! Definitely a needed break from all the grad school application stress which has taken up so much of Eric's time.