Hi dear celiac!

Suzhou is famous for it story, meticulously designed gardens, stone bridges, pagodas and canals. It was funded in 514 BC!!!! Because of the rivers surrounding the city a lot of business happened here and until today it is an important commercial center and one of the most highly developed and prosperous cities in China!

I only had one day to decide what to do/see in this city. I wanted to go to all the Classical Gardens of Suzhou that are in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list but unfortunately was impossible.

Although I had planned everything, something not planned happened. As soon as I left the hostel a rickshaw asked where we were going and offered to take us. At first seemed great idea (it was 30 min walk to first garden that I wanted to go) BUT he took us to a travel agency. There, a woman talked so much and suggested some tour packs with a really good price and we accepted it (worst mistake ever but we learned our lesson!)

I visited the Lion Grove Garden which is amazing!!! The labyrinthine grotto of taihu rocks is so cool that I didn’t want to leave that place! <3

Then we took a boat at the canal for around 40 minutes, was really pretty but I think it was only waste of time, I wanted to go to the gardens!!!

Then the unexpected, they took us to a silk factory!!! Immediately I realized: we been fooled!!!!! AHHH I got so angry because I know well how Chinese people are but there were so many other Chinese people with us, my Chinese friend etc that I never expected that something like this would happen. Well, welcome to China!
Next stop was at HanShan Temple, a Buddhist temple and monastery.

Another unexpected stop: pearl shop! My gosh… we spent 2 hours in this shop, it was waste of time. Some Chinese couples left the tour at this time – I regret not doing the same earlier –
To finish we went to a random garden that I don’t even remember the name but it was pretty, many wonderful wood sculptures and beautiful lake.

It had a house resembling a face! So cute!

We return to the hostel around 6pm and run to the train station back to Shanghai. Lucky enough there were many fruits shops in the way and I got many different fruits <3

In Family mart I found some imported potato chips written “gluten-free”. In the train station I made up some instant noodles for my dinner.