After lunch, a taxi was called to return us to the ancient part of Suzhou, where our accomodations were. I had no clue where we were headed as my mom seemed to communicate more with her cousins than with me. The ride was rough at first because Cousin T was trying to charge her phone and didn’t know how the charger worked in the car. So the driver had to pull over to help her, while, in the back, both my mom and Cousin M were shouting, “Charge your phone later!”
After that, the ride became smooth, smoother than some of the taxis I’ve ridden in since I’ve been in China. Once again, we were dropped off at an unfamiliar street and the moment I got out of the taxi, I could feel my clothes sticking to my body. This gate was the first thing I saw and intuitively, I walked toward it, thinking this was where we were headed but, boy, was I wrong.
Instead, the group walked in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” I ran to catch up.
My mom pointed at the wall and said “Changmen.” Another city wall.
Walking down another street, we encountered another bridge. The arch of this bridge was particularly steep and from the base of the bridge, it looked almost like a staircase to nowhere. When I got to the top, naturally, I must take advantage of the high vantage point and snap a picture. After taking the picture, I was going to walk toward the other end of the bridge but encounterered construction at the foot of the bridge, so I followed the others and turned back.
Returning to the road we came, we continued down that road, which ultimately led us to nowhere as most of the shops were closed. The ones that were open were convenient stores, coffee shops, or offices for real estate brokers or lawyers. When we reached this sign, we decided to turn back.
At the next street over – the one with the gate – we encountered another historic street turned shopping district. Girls in traditional ancient Chinese costumes were parading up and down the streets in sneakers and crocs, holding up the bottom of their gowns so it didn’t drag along the ground, while a group of men an women followed behind with cameras. Each shop along the street was either trying to sell you something or trying to get you to taste-test something.
As we moved along, we found most of the ancient small arched bridges were clogged with people posing for photographers, like a bunch of paparazzis trying to get a photo of stars on the red carpet, a very narrow red carpet. One misstep backward and it could be catastrophic.
After grabbing some quick food and finding a place to sit, my mom ended up spending the rest of the afternoon talking to her cousins and planning on transportation options to get to the next phase of the trip – Shanghai.
