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).

Friends visit Part 3

3rd day i went to tong li with them. my wife and son did not join us because he need to go to school.

同里古镇风景优美，镇外四面环水，古镇镶嵌于同里、九里、叶泽、南星、庞山五湖之中。镇区被川字形的15条小河分隔成七个小岛，而49座古桥又将小岛串为一个整体。建筑依水而立，以“小桥流水人家”著称，是目前江苏省保存最为完整的水乡古镇，也是省重点文物保护单位，已列为太湖十三大景区之一。

HS bought 10 wooden mobilephone accessory for his friends back in singapore. he requested the stalk owner to engrave the name on each of those accessory. that poor man... anyway, i understand from another friends in suzhou that we bought it at 3 times the price. look like we are being conned... the stall owner must be laughing to the bank after we left his stall.

this is the phone accessory that i am talking about. it has a very nice tong li drawing on each wooden plate about the size of 2cmx3cm.

wee turning for a picture while sir chua heading forward with his video cam capturing more live video.

these birds catch fish in the stream. their neck is tied with a string so that every catch the bird did, they were not able to swallow the fish. the woman would just squeeze the fish out from the birds.

the white tree. can't remember what it is called.

one of the many gardens in tong li. we visited at least 4 of these gardens. these gardens were stayed by wealthy people 400/500 years ago.

well synchronised picture. right leg crossed.

Friends visit Part 2

the first 2 days of their visit, we took them around the suzhou area, visited 观前街, 金鸡湖, 重元寺, 太湖，木渎古镇，圆融时代广场 and 李公堤. nothing really great but they did enjoy the visit to those places. my friends are not really into buying so nothing bought at those places other than food to keep themselves filled.

to keep it short since many of these places I had already visited, so i will posted pictures for your viewing pleasure.

all these 3 friends are actually my ex-colleagues from WD. we had been working together for 6 years before the company started to shift the operation out of singapore. top left is Ah Wee, a coolman and very eager to go beijing to meet his china "female" friend. top centre, Ah Lim (aka handsome), funny guy, always create lot of joke but those cold joke "冷笑话" if you know what i meant. Top right, Sir Chua (aka Tungsten Chua)A great guy but eat a lot of meat. Sir Chua, you have to slow down your meat intake. Ofcourse, my wife, Selina, my son Keith and myself were in the pictures as well.

in the 重元寺, backgroud is the Goddess of Mercy pogoda.

closed up of the pogoda that has a height of 46m

a very peaceful statue of the Goddess of Mercy in the pogoda. this tallest in-door Goddess of Mercy in China has a height of 26m and it is made of 88 tons of bronze.

the day when we were there, it was the birthday of Goddess of Mercy, many devotees were there to pray.

a typical scene in china. throwing coins to some ponds or statue. actually, i saw this habit in western countries as well.

it was clear blue sky when we were at tai hu. lot of little make/shift stalls selling windmills of different shapes, sizes and colors.

weather was cold that day, Wee and Sir Chua bbqing their ice-cream to melt it. maybe it was the melamide.

wee trying out the pineapple while sir chua tried the stinky tofu at mudu town (木渎古镇). i have yet to try that in china. too stinky for me... haha

夕阳西下，小船流水。

3.28 刘德华 Andy Lau Suzhou Wonderful World Concert

attended andy's concert yesterday at suzhou stadium. very good performance by andy lau with good stage lighting, music, dancing, etc. Overall, there are two parts that i would like to mentioned about the whole performance.

first on the good thing
the concert lighting, stage, music were fanstatic. andy performance was execellence. most of his performance were on the stage but he also went on to two crane type stage. this crane bring him closer to those fans on the outer seat of the stadium. he was also cabled (flied) from the stage to the centre portion of the audience where we sat. we were so close like 5m away from him. the temperature was low at 5C, andy was wearing short sleeve performing at his best to entertain the fans.

now on the bad part
the adminstration or the system so bad. we reached the statium at 7pm and managed to get in after wasting lot of time, pushing and shovering. the entrance was just a small opening for one person and 7000 to 8000 people were trying to get in through this opening. it was a messed. by the time we got in, the light suddenly turn off and the show started. i pity those who were far behind, they would have missed the first 1/2hours of the show. very badly managed in term of crowd control.

many still carry camera in to the show including the security themselves. i even saw one guy using a portable video camera. so bring whatever you need if you were told not too do so on the ticket instruction because this is china.

on top of that, for those who had watch the Wonderful World 2008 at shanghai, you should forget about the concert. it was 80% similar.

personally, if I would come again, i will not buy the 880 ticket, i will just get the 300rmb tickets, use a binocular. i could even pay for my son to attend this event. i know that 周杰伦 coming to kunshan in may, that maybe a good time for another show.

Some lousy night pictures taken from my omnia

this picture is when andy sang "苯小孩".

the fans of andy lau, look at the far back, those sat paid 300rmb.

the plastic chair (use by kopitiam) for 880rmb seat

after the show before the crowd started to leave, we quickly took a picture.

i got the tickets

here are the tickets to the andy concert. i am so happy that i got these. when we got to the ticket agent this morning, we were deciding if we want to get VIP, C, or D seat tickets. we need to know the distance between the seat and the stage otherwise, andy maybe as small as an ant from where we sit... haha. after discussion with the sale agent and the available seats from the computer screen, we were told that the seat from section C will be about 70 to 80 meters aways from the stage. hopefully she was right about the distance from the stage.

a very well printed ticket holder. the ticket holder indicates the section and the entrance for that section. this will help the crowd control on the actual day.

our 2 tickets for the C2 section. we looked at the various C-sections but found that the available tickets for C2 is the best. at the back of the ticket, there is a line seal that proved the authentity of the ticket similar to those on the yuan notes. this is a level of authentication. a colleague told me he happened to buy some fake ticket at the entrance for last concert. thus, it will be good that always get it from authorised agent.

the floor plan. C2 is still close to the stage. there are other tickets (un-colored) that are on the 2nd level of the stadium. those ticket price range 100rmb, 300rmb and 500rmb. Note that the tickets, the holders are colored coded to the seating section.

looking forward to 28th March when we will get to see andy lau in suzhou.

刘德华 - 中国巡回演唱会 2009 Andy Lau Wonderful World 2009

andy lau is staging a concert tour in china. he will be performing in 7 concerts in varous province throughout china from 24th Mar till 27th April. one of the stops will be suzhou. as i love to sing his songs, 来生缘，男人哭吧不是罪 and many more, i will be attending his concert in suzhou the 28th of this month. i have not decided what ticket to buy but i am looking at the 880rmb tickets or the VIP ticket that cost 1280rmb. whatever it is, i will go for the concert as i believe it will be more expensive back in singapore.

Xiao Dian Hu Forest Park - 肖甸湖森林公园

there are many parks in suzhou, most of them are very commercial and are mainly tourist attractions. there is this one that i found out from one of the cycling forums in suzhou. free entrance, no stalls selling toys, food and it is very natural. it looked very nice and with bamboo, nicely planted trees, narrow paths, little huts, small streams, children playground and many more. it is a perfect weekend escape with family. this man-make park is located between tong li town (同理镇) and zhou zhuang town (周庄镇). click here for the location.

21st feb was sunny after about 8 gloomy and raining days. we took our bikes and headed toward this park. though the temperature was low at 10 degrees but we were in high spirit.

a picture by the entrance of the park

well paved walking path with nicely planted trees providing shade for tourist

poshed with my merida bike, handsome right? do i look 35?

by the hut

keith enjoying his riding along the path

selina too

母子情深

童心无穷

our bikes resting by the side while we enjoying the fun at the playground

two pictures by the stream with our bikes to close the blog entry.

this is a nice park for a family gathering. i will go back to this park again when the temperature and the weather is more clear. probably end march or early april. it could be a picnic with food and drink instead of just riding. let get out and enjoy the sun if we can...