What's Next?: Suzhou to Hangzhou

Second day of the trip were mostly spent on a bus ride from Suzhou to Hangzhou. We were also stuck in the infamous Hangzhou traffic for a while. Between that, we did squeezed a little bit of time to visit a temple and a cave. Let's take a look.

Oh and how could I forget, we also "cruised down the canal" in Suzhou, kind of a tourist trap, nevertheless, it had to be done, by this time, I think even you guys are tired of water towns :).

got a nice symmetry going on here

cruising down the "living quarter"

Before we leave Suzhou for good, we stopped by Hanshan Temple, it is a well known temple if you speak Chinese. Why? well there's a famous poem that everyone can recite that talks about it...it's one of those Kim Kardashian thing - famous for being famous

If you really wanna drill it down, I guess it is very old after all.


obligatory scenic photo at the temple

oh, and since the bell of the temple was specifically mentioned in the poem, everyone's here to ring the bell, for a lovely price of 5 RMB...

this is how a BFD looks like

the line to sound the bell, ill pass

This is the third temple that I have visited in China. There is something very odd about visiting temples in China, it's not that feeling you get when you enter the wrong house of worship, in fact there isn't even anything that makes you feel like you've entered a house of worship. I guess it's probably because of the sticky situation with religions in China (maybe I should visit a church or a mosque!).

Usually for me, visiting a temple should be a quiet, humble experience. There are boxes up for donation or payment boxes for incenses. Here though, prices are marked clearly everywhere and no body really seem to respect the place: people who ~~needs~~ wants to spit still spits, the howlers on the phones are still howling...

And For those who are here to pay their respect, they seem to just be here so they can say they've done it: tossing a coin at the red ribbon filled pot is suppose to be good luck, but when you have every single visitors doing it and INSISTING on getting a coin into the pot, then it becaomes a nuisance. Perhaps you may say this place is popular, I guess I am trying to say some order is needed.

if you're lucky, u might get hit by a coin

We then got on the bus and drove down south towards Hangzhou, before we hit the city though, we made a short pit stop to Jinxiu Fenshui Cave. The story behind this is that ~~it's the oldest cave in China~~ during war time, local people used to hide here in the naturally formed cave with nice stalactites and stalagmites and someone supposedly spotted a dragon (yeah, that sounds legit). The real catch though is after the walk to the end of the cave, you may ride a roller coaster back up to the surface! Never a bad idea after a 3 hour bus ride.

tourism 101, lights make a big difference

with flash, everything looks dirty

there's the head of the dragon with a man stadning infront, or whatever else you make of it

i spy....ugh....you tell me

a roller coaster out of an underground cave, only in china

our ~~babysitter~~ guide telling us not to stick our heads up

When we finally settled down in Hangzhou though, it was already late, and even though we had some free time, there wasn't much with the rainy weather, but hey, the weather has never cooperated since we landed in Asia.

We got some nice exploring done though, got a little wet but there were some nice photos