China: Suzhou

Background: Big Pants.
Foreground: Lunch of Champions.

My second week in china was spent in Suzhou. Suzhou is a 2500 year old city just up the Yangtze river from Shanghai.  It's always been one of the commercial centers of China, and has now become one of the industrial centers as well. I had to readjust to seeing white people, and in talking with them noticed that I had unconsciously begun to gesture while talking, explaining all my words by pointing and signing.

Remember all the walking I did yesterday in dress shoes? It caught up to me. The first few days I didn't venture far from the hotel, although after I learned how to translate ibuprofen ("brufen" apparently), things were much improved.  Suzhou is an easy city to walk around in because you can use landmarks to help determine where you are. And by landmarks, I mean Big Pants.

Most evenings I would wander around Suzhou and end up in Central Park. Not as large as our central park, there were a number of activities every night. Slacklining (the only one I tried, also a bad fit for dress shoes), Tai Chi, ballroom dancing, choreographed hiphop dancing, and even pickup laser tag... with better equipment than you find in most legit laser tag arena's around here. I found the gear they were using, but no other references.

I've read this book.

After researching a fair bit online, memorizing the number of stops between stations and the Chinese for the directions I want to take, I took the subway!  (In Huizhou: "We have two subways, do you like their sandwiches?") I took the metro! It was super easy and I was quite overprepared - all the signs have English translations, the metro-ticket machines have "English Press Here" buttons.  It's such a nice metro. Unlike DC ( / Philly / NYC / London / ... ) it's actually clean! I could have sat on the floor and risked zero diseases.  Like DC (etc) everyone gets on and stares at their phones.

And either the future or past
of that last picture

I took the metro out to Times Square, where I had heard they had the largest LED screen in the world, spanning the street as an enormous technicolor canopy.  When I came out from underground it had begun to rain, and the screen had gone dark with only a few sporadically lines flickering across the face in a static rainbow. It was very William Gibson, looking like the future had come and gone already.  Luckily, it was only temporarily dark (It doesn't run full power all the time) and I did catch the whole thing lit up for a super-panoramic movie about aliens.  Then I wandered through stores, across bridges, and into a department store larger than most malls I've been in. Which luckily did have restrooms.





On my last night in China I was planning to hit the bars in Old Town with another guy from my company. You know, get drunk with the locals, wake up without a kidney, your typical crazy expat fun. However, he didn't show up, so I took the metro back out to Times Square for Pizza.  Pizza is can be different over there. My first pizza was braised beef, asparagus, and some special cheese around the crust (Front and center on their website, at least for now). This time I went for pizza with calamari and bacon-wrapped crab lumps topped with roe. It was great. Almost as good as the lobster soup I had on a business outing... I neglected to be true Chinese and eat all the congealed butter ( /eggwhites?) it was served in, but the lobster itself was incredible. And then we had a dozen more dishes, of course, and then some multiple of that in beers... Anyways, back to the story:

After that I wandered Times Square a bit and made my way out to the lake. Found a guy selling laser pointers, and despite initially dismissing him, ended up making my way back there.  Negotiated down to 60RMB from 100 (a bit too easily, makes me wonder how little he pays for them?!) for a green laser pointer. I even got the demo model, which I'm sure was the strongest of the batch. I'm gonna guess 75-100mw. For $10. I was amazed. Wandered around the lake, skirting a film crew and more laser-hawkers - and avoiding their lasers, which were pointed towards the pedestrian bridges at about head height, so you'd be sure to see it, even if it was the last thing you ever saw in that eye.

Seriously, you couldn't ask for a better locating landmark.

Work this week was more of the same, although on my last day I had the secretary ask my driver not to drive me to the airport. Instead, he dropped me off...

It's traditional to take a picture of the speedometer.

At the MagLev! I've wanted to ride a MagLev for 20+ years - ever since TomorrowLand's  mag-elev train broke my heart by being magnetic and elevated instead of magnetically levitated. Anyway, this one floats, and the future is finally here. Floating on a thin cushion of air (and massive electromagnets) this is the first, fastest, and longest commercial maglev in the world. I splurged for a first class ticket, ($15) which meant I sat at the front of the train, and could watch the pilot? and look out through the front window.

The ride was great. We left the station and smoothly accelerated up to 160mph. After that, acceleration was slower and evened out at 180mph.  This was the morning train, the midday trains hit 250mph, and the evening train 275 - I guess I'll just have to try it again. I'd compare it to being in a low flying jet, smoothly streaking past the scenery, under bridges, and banking in all the turns.  The only frightening moment was when the opposing train came by at a closing speed of 600kmh. Before I could even turn to look the entire train had passed, and all I saw was a businessman with his phone out, recording (not his, but...) and smiling. As an engineering nerd, I recommend it to everyone.

The flight home was long and unremarkable, except that time bent again and I managed to squeeze 24 hours of not sleeping into 12 on the clock. Oh, and Japanese airports are just like American airports. All in all, I loved the trip. I wish I'd had more time to do touristy/historical things... but... next time? I'm doing my best to get assigned to another professional project that will "force" me to go back, so I can experience (and taste) even more of China.