Yesterday I left early to go to Shanghai with Amy and colleagues. Amy runs her own travel company and she was having a travel seminar and she had asked myself and a few other expats to come and talk about our experiences living in Suzhou. Many people come to Suzhou and go to the same places that are listed in the guide books and often miss out on other very good less popular attractions. There are many places to visit in Suzhou and it just depends on what you wish to do and because the transport is so good here it is easy to get from A to B. If you are game to engage with the available apps then you can become quite independent in your exploration and you will realise that there is no need for a guide unless you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of the history and culture.

I’ve lived here for over two years and I know this city very well and I’ve been fortunate to have been given many guided tours and so I have soaked up a lot of information along the way. Many years ago when I was travelling through Cambodia I decided to jump on a boat and head down the Mekong river to Vietnam and it was a great two-day trip. On board there were another 3 couples and two of them had the lonely planet guide-book and as we were travelling down the river they were avidly reading this book and seeing what they would do at the next stop, what restaurant served the best spring rolls and where to get the best latte. I’ve never been a guide-book person and unless there is a must see attraction I very rarely use them. I will do research before I leave and you always have Google as your friend when you travel just in case you can’t find anywhere. But I read somewhere many moons ago that this particular traveller did not use these guide books because if you turn up at one of the places listed then you will find every Tom Dick and Harriet has done the same and if it so happens that the writer of the guide-book did not like a particular place then they will often get no custom from the tourist. My rule of thumb when I travel is to eat where the locals eat and if I see any foreigners in a restaurant then I will give it a wide berth and so the guide book for me is mostly useless. Because I usually research my travels I have a fair idea of where I will go and what I will see and when I arrive I will ask the locals where they think is worth seeing. So yesterday myself and others were telling our stories about Suzhou from a personal point of view, what we thought was interesting and some places discussed you will not find in those pesky guide books.

It was a bit unfortunate that many people did not turn up to the event after Amy and here team went to such lengths to make it a very special day. The event was held in the Equatorial Hotel in Shanghai not far from the Jing’an park and temple. It’s a very posh hotel and we had a lovely lunch there before everything kicked off. There were also Kunqu Opera singers there and some arts and crafts and so it was a pity that only about half of the invited guests turned up. However I think everyone enjoyed the day and it was good to mingle and meet some new folk. There was one American girl there that was rather refreshing, she apologised for being American which was a very unusual opening statement. There was a girl from Iran and an Indian girl who had studied at Strathclyde University in Glasgow and so it was interesting chatting to her and of course she was quite fluent in Glaswegian.

We had driven to Shanghai and it had been an early start and so I was not long out of bed after I returned home. It was definitely Whacky Races on the way there and back, but we did arrive home in one piece.