Since I had a three day weekend, I ended up booking a last minute ticket to explore Suzhou on my own. wowzers. much spontaneous. Suzhou is one of two cities in China famed for being the most beautiful and peaceful cities in all of China with the most beautiful women (not making this up). They say: 上有天堂，下有苏杭。It means above （天） is the heavens （天堂）, and below （下） is Suzhou and Hangzhou. 苏杭 is short for 苏州+杭州 which means Suzhou and Hangzhou. After being here for 3 days I can confirm all the above. Sorry Laura. The streets here surprisingly aren't littered with plastic bags, poop and cigarettes like everywhere else in China; what surprised me was that they have a bunch of road cleaners shuffling around the city center, all strategically maneuvering around the zigzagging motorists. The people here are kind and laid back, lifestyle similar to the islanders. It's not out of the ordinary for someone to strike up a conversation with you in public, even more so if you are dressed like a foreigner with an obvious backpacking style backpack. The food is the best I've had so far, and I've only scraped the surface of the 小吃 good eats. The bridges and rivers remind me of the ones I saw in Amsterdam, and they are all so carefully constructed to balance out the cultural and urban developments so as to not disrupt one another. If you were to visit one place in China to see, experience and eat the good without too much of the stereotypical negatives, go to Suzhou. I will now bombard you with photos because my elementary style of writing can do no justice for this city.
