During Chunjie vacation, in case i didn't mention it, i also took a trip down to Suzhou with some friends. Suzhou, known as the Venice of China by some people, is about an hour from Shanghai, and maybe 10 hours from Beijing. This meant that we got to take an overnight train to get down there.

i am completely obsessed with overnight trains, and its one of my biggest disappointments that america doesn't have a decent, reasonably priced train system. you can go pretty much anywhere in China by train, and they're always a fun experience. you stay up late drinking and sometimes making conversation with the chinese people on the train, playing cards, and seeing the chinese countryside fly by outside your window. so that was fun. here's me and paull having fun on the train.

i didn't have much of an impression of suzhou. it was pretty, but i guess the weather wasn't really right for the magical experience that everyone describes it as. also, in the hopes of finding a boat that would ride us through the canals, we ended up all the way outside of Suzhou in the next town. there we did find the boat ride we'd imagined, after buying bootleg tickets into the town's historic district. an entire day's searching and an 80 kuai cab ride each way, but we got it.















while in suzhou, we also got a tour of the Suzhou Museum, designed by I.M. Pei, the guy who designed the rock and roll hall of fame and the pyramids outside the Louvre. the tour was given by his nephew who, although he didn't know much about the objects in the museum, told us some interesting things about the museum, like the fact that they had a lot of trouble with chinese people who, not used to going to international museums, did things like let their kids pee in the ventilation grates in the hallway. ew! the collection wasn't too impressive, but the building was pretty awesome.
so overall, it was fun to travel, spend good times with good people, and hit up a spot i've heard a lot about. Spring Break Suzhou 2007!