china daze i ...

on my first day in Suzhou, i walked around and explored the sites nearest my hotel. my first impression was "wow, look at this infrastructure!" newly paved tree-lined streets, a separate lane for bikes and scooters, and sidewalks and street lamps full of character ...



my next impression was "wow, it's impossible to find anything here if you don't read mandarin!" i was trying to find the "Changlang Pavilion". the concierge at my hotel had given me the basic directions, but once i arrived in the area i had no idea where to go. now, i'm used to being in foreign countries and dealing with other languages, but what i haven't dealt with is a completely different alphabet! in a western country i would simply look for the building that said something like "Changlang" ... but here, "Changlang" is represented by three chinese characters (best described as "a T talking to a J", "a man standing beside a cross with a box on it", and "a big-ass storm approaching my house from the northwest"!! ;) so, while trying to find this place, i mistakenly walked into a public park (lovely, but not it), a private compound of some kind (a woman in uniform promptly whisked me away), and, of all things, a large karaoke bar. d'oh! i finally found it, and it was beautiful:




next was a lovely chinese garden, "the master of nets garden". i was even lucky enough to overhear (and inconspicuously follow) a french tour guide for the last half of his tour, and an english tour guide for the first half of his: