A trip back to Suzhou

I went for a business trip to Suzhou, a place that I had stay for 2 years and a place that I had not gone back for 1 1/2 year.

Typically, heading to Suzhou, China is rather straight forward. Take a flight from Singapore to Shanghai, then a transport from Shanghai Pudong Airport to Suzhou. In total 9 to 10hrs will be good enough for a door to door tirp.

Unfortunately, this time round, due to the Chinese New Year peak season, I was not lucky to have a direct fly. I had a transfer at Hongkong, and overall, it took 12hrs for a door to door trip. And the worst is I had only 40mins upone the place arrival to Hongkong before I board the place to Shanghai. I had to walked real fast from one end of the terminal to the other end to catch the plane. The brisk walk was like army force march. Maybe, I am old, haha.

Suzhou was cold this time of the year. Temperature range from -3C to 5C during my stay of 3 days.

I was lucky to stay in one new hotel, Intercontinetal Hotel (苏州洲际酒店) next to Times Square. Everything was new. Room was big, curtains was motorised, LCD TV with news channels, movies channels, and local channels. Good spread of TV programs cater to all travellers. Free Internet was provided. The main lobby has WiFi too. Breakfast was great too. International buffet with soup noodles, porrige, Nasi Lemak, Tim Sum. All these come with a reasonable price of about 850rmb (tax included).

The hotel.

Day view of the Times Square from the hotel

Night view of the Times Square from the hotel

Suzhou has lot of new development after I left 1.5 years back. In the SIP, many new apartment, new neighbourhood centre, new shopping area. I did not manage to visit any of these due to time constraint but hope that I could do it again next time.

Friends in Suzhou did not change much. They are still as cheerful, friendly, hardworking as I left sometimes back.

In all, it was a good short trip and I would love to head back again in near future (if opportunities arises).