Sunday, May 11, 2008

What people here do for fun

Singing stone

If you don’t want to be crammed with the crowd in Suzhou’s centre Guan Qian Jie, there are plenty of options for what u can do on a sunny Sat morning in Suzhou.

U can hear for the Jinji Hu in SIP (directly translated the lake is called ‘the golden chicken lake) and watch grown ups play games and fly kites, as well as listening to the latest radio hits from the stone-shaped speakers (why?!). Or, you can hear for the flash Ligondi area (located at the south-west side of the lake), which consists of a bunch of fancy bars, nightclubs, restaurants and cafés, combined with a large shopping centre called ‘Suzhou Outlets’ (here u find everything from Nike to Nine West). This area pretty much has everything, except for visitors, so between friends we call it the ‘ghost area’. So much stuff and so little people.




The development around the lake area is quite interesting: yet a new effort from the city planners to introduce their citizens to something they are obviously not ready for. (At least I am not ready to pay 40 kuai for a cup of coffee, no matter where I have it in Suzhou?!). Once u head to the opposite side of Jinji Hu you’ll be faced with another bunch of restaurants, nightclubs and fancy hotels that look sadly empty. For who is all this? I wonder. It seems like the majority of the residential buildings on this side of the lake are empty. The city council must have some grand master plan to move people out there, because they sure are making an effort into transforming this area into a high-profile, convenient residential area with tonnes of entertainment options.

Anyways, that was just some of my thoughts. Today it’s yet another sunny day, and we feel like we are ready to be crammed with the crowd, rather than walking around in a ghost area, so we’re off to Shanghai.

Suzhou ghost area

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