I planned on going to Suzhou since the start of the week. But after my roommate backed out, I decided not to go. However, when I woke up Saturday morning at around 8:30 am, I told myself, "Well, since I woke up this early, why not go to Suzhou?"​

So I immediately looked for a hotel and went onto booking Pan-Pacific Suzhou Hotel on Expedia for $109USD/night for one night. For a five-star hotel, the price is definitely a bargain compared to a five-star hotel in the US.

I took the metro to Shanghai Railway Station. The ticket office was actually in a separate building from the station itself so I spent some time trying to figure this out. I bought a round-trip ticket and then went to the station to officially begin my journey to Suzhou.

The train ride was even shorter than the ride to Hangzhou: it took only 20 minutes!

First Stop: Lost in Suzhou

I arrived around 1:00 pm but unfortunately for me, my phone data decided to stop working. I was going to take a taxi, but the taxi driver wasn't willing to go there and wanted to charge a flat rate. He was about to leave the station until I told him he can drop me off at the metro and he planned on charging me but I didn't know what changed his mind. He also told me the reason he didn't want to go there was because of construction (and I found out he wasn't lying at all).

Lucky for me though, I managed to ask my friend to send me the Chinese address of the hotel when my data still worked. So what I did was, I looked for the hotel using the old-fashion way: asking around.

I asked the worker at the metro station how to get to the place and it wasn't until I asked the third person, did I get a helpful response. After leaving the metro, I had to walk two kilometers and as I walked, I made sure to ask someone every 10 minutes to ensure that I am on the right path. Anyways, I finally arrived around 2:30 pm so it took me one and a half hour to find this place. But it was worth it because it taught me a lesson --- I'm writing everything down in my book since having a backup is very important.​

​I rested for close to two hours in the nice hotel room, researching for places to go to and things to do. The two things I decided to do were to visit Humble Administrator's Garden and Pingjiang Street. I switched to my spare SIM card before I left since the Internet works with that one.

The hotel helped me call a taxi and I told the driver to drop me off at the Garden. On the way, I realized how bad the traffic was due to the large-scale construction. I felt really bad for the driver but since he was called by the hotel, he can't really complain.

Rest of Day: Garden & Pingjiang Street

Because of traffic, I arrived at 5:00 pm, which I thought was fine until I realized the Garden ticket office closes half an hour before its closing time 5:30 pm. So I just strolled around the area and took some photos on the outside. Since I planned on going to Pingjiang Street, I was going to walk back instead of taking a taxi. Pingjiang Street is similar to Hangzhou's Hefang Street except the street comprises of many mini waterways. Surprisingly, I didn't buy anything from here.

After walking out of Pingjiang Street, I headed back to the hotel and enjoyed my night there as I planned for the next day.