I have to confess that I picked the Suzhou tour because I was a little bit chicken. I know you guys think I was brave coming to China but I picked this type of “midlife adventure” because it is a fairly controlled and regulated situation with the added bonus of having ZUFE’s great foreign affairs office staff coddle me whenever I need it. I still have (and probably always will have) trouble eating dinner by myself in a restaurant, irregardless of my location: Georgia or China. So going on my first ‘solo’ tour dredged up that same type of “solo restaurant dinner” fear and avoidance. I talked myself into the tour using the following arguments:
• Suzhou is very similar to Hangzhou (see quote above)
• It is close enough to go by train (because I didn’t want to tackle taking a plane on my ‘first’)
• It will be WAY better than sitting in my apartment/hotel for a week watching DVD’s
Tuesday morning I got to the train station by taxi. Even this mundane mode of transportation ended up giving me a little scare. No, it wasn’t the normal crazy Chinese driving, it was the taxi’s route. The driver went down all these really strange back roads to get to the train station. So many and for so long that I actually started text messaging Ricky, who was staying in Xiasha, the number on the cab driver’s id. I never had to hit the send button because we arrived a little later at the very crowded train station without me being abducted into white slavery. My ticket was a ‘soft seat’ ticket (more money, more leg room, and more service) which meant you get to wait in a really nice waiting room with soft sofas, no beggars and no pushing and shoving when getting on board. I am buying those every time!
Second half of the 3 hour train ride a Suzhou native talked to me and gave me his cell phone number in case I needed help. The Chinese are so helpful to foreigners. I ended up having to take him up on his offer immediately upon arrival because we could not find Tracy, my tour guide, right away. She quickly found us and took charge of me and got me settled in at the Fuhui Hotel. After I unpacked my tiny backpack, I ate some snacks I had brought for dinner (cause I didn’t want to eat dinner alone in the restaurant- sound familiar) and had a tolerable night’s sleep on the typical hard Chinese mattress.
