I’d heard that the tram line had been extended from the Suzhou Amusement Park to within a kilometre of Taihu and so I decided today that I would check it out.
When I left home the clouds were abundant and so I wore clothes to suit, however after about two hours they cleared and the sun began to bite a little. It wasn’t too hot but the sun was strong.
It was a bit of an adventure because I had no idea where I would end up and I do like to explore. The tram is very good and I noticed that the driver seems to use gestures throughout the journey, but not the kind of gestures that I would use when driving. Mind you they were two finger gestures, but more the kind you would see if a priest was blessing someone rather than to tell someone you didn’t quite agree with what they had done or said. Before moving from the station he would use his right hand and point up to the left and then move his hand horizontally and then back again and the train would move. Sometimes he swept his hand above the main screen on the dash; mind you maybe he was just playing some kind of game to relieve the monotony of the job or maybe its witchcraft. On the way the tram’s bell would ring very loudly when we were going around a tight bend at an intersection and after a wee while I was getting ready to stick them somewhere. There’s always noise in China, you can’t just sit back and enjoy the view and relax in the bus or the tram for that matter. There is always a safety message or a notification of a destination and it seems continuous but I guess if this is what you have grown up with you are none the wiser.
We passed many places of interest and so over the coming weeks I shall do some more exploring of this area which is a good thing because I have been rather bored lately and so this will at least wet my appetite for a while. I’ll be out this way again on Sunday because I’m going for a walk with some of the students that I teach; they have invited me out for a hike at Lingyenshan.
At the terminus I emerged into a semi rural area, there was an old lady with a two seat electric taxi asking if I wanted a lift into town and I politely refused, maybe next time I said. I turned right and headed for the lake Taihu, which was less than 1 km from the shiny new train station. There was a small harbour, filthy and full of different boats. Some were house boats and others looked like small runabouts, but not anything that looked like a large fishing boat. The water was a lovely green colour and there were many old folk scooping up this green ooze, possibly algae and pouring it into buckets, not sure what they will use this for, but it was good to see them try to clean the lake a little. By this time the sun was beginning to bite and I wished that I had me bigger hat and long troos on. There didn’t seem anywhere else near here worth looking at, unless you were driving of course because I think it would be a lovely scenic relaxing drive as there was very little traffic. At the bus stop I looked to see where the bus was going to and it was due in 10 mins and so it seemed to go around the small peninsula and return to a point no more than 1 km from my current position, so on I went.
It was nice to sit on the bus as we drove around the lake, the driver even switched off the running commentary for the safety info, I like this driver. It looks like a great place to cycle, the roads are quiet and there is a dedicated bike path following the lake. I would live in a place like this if I could have a normal life in China and what I mean by that is; having my own house and car and the money to do so. There are so many places to live to make life more enjoyable but in my current situation this is just not possible to attain.
We arrived back in civilisation at the bus station. We have arrived at the Suzhou Embroidery Town, which I had been too many moons ago but had no ideas where it was exactly. I didn’t explore the town because it was getting a little late in the afternoon and it was time to head home but I will come back here again now that I know where it is.
The journey home was not bad. It took about 2 hours to get back and when I got back I was absolutely knackered. After some food and an hour of mindless TV I retired for the evening, my body feeling that I had run a marathon.
As I write this on the computer I am also trying to access some information from my Google drive on line and it looks like the Chinese firewall is being beefed up this week due to the 30th anniversary of a party that took place in Beijing where as we know many people were killed. No one seems to know the real number, but they say it could run into thousands. A few people I have met here know about it but many others do not. It’s not a subject I bring up but when I get to know someone and the opportunity arises then sometimes I will ask the question. A good friend of mine who is a staunch supporter of the government told me that I was completely wrong about this and I was getting confused with a battle that took place many years earlier during the Mao years and so I let her tell me and thanked her for correcting me. Another friend was telling me the other day that one of her friends was at University at that time in Beijing and she saw nothing and she knows that this is just western propaganda. But I wonder if it really matters because many people here don’t really care what Mao did and they dismiss the deaths that took place to something that had to happen to get them to this point today where they can use the high speed trains and the convenience of the cashless society. Life is good now for many Chinese and so the price that was paid all those years ago is worth it and so we should not dwell on the past
I just had a thought, maybe the train driver is a Freemason…………..