my life, my stories, my friends: Discovering China a Little Bit More

October 1st, is actually a date which I bet, being loved by most people in China. It is actually China's National Day, and guess what? I got a week full holiday. Yeah, it feels like heaven.

To fill my holiday, I spent 5 days with my friends and went to Suzhou and Hangzhou. We travelled by car and it took about 2 until 3 hours from Nanjing if I'm not mistaken. Our driver is actually my own senior, Iyan (yeah special thanks to Iyan).

From my trip, I got several places that is worth to visit in Suzhou and Hangzhou that I would like to share with you guys. So, enjoy ! =)

Suzhou (苏州)

1. Timesquare

The place is quite cozy, and is very beautiful especially at night. This place has a lot of cafes and restaurants to hang out, with street lights, beautiful river in the middle, and roof covered by television (yeah, some places got a really long and wide TV as your roof) which made this place even brighter at night. Not only as place to eat, but this place also got a big and luxurious mall. You can also walk under tunnels in Timesquare, where you can find your walls are covered by lights from advertisements which only glow when you walk along. This means while you're walking, you're being followed by the lights besides you, quite interesting, I think.

2. Suzhou Le Yuan (苏州乐园)

Suzhou Le Yuan, is a big theme park with wonderful games inside to play. For rollercoaster and andrenaline-pumping-games lovers, this place is really worth to visit! Unfortunately I only played 2 games (3 actually, but the other one is sucks, so I don't count it as a game), but for me, 2 is enough, because those 2 are both fantastic rollercoaster. The first one, is kind of rollercoaster which you don't step your feet on (get what I mean?), and this one got a lot of spins, going through waterfalls and small cave, quite interesting! The other one is a normal train rollercoaster, what makes it unique is the track. The track doesn't make any circuit, so it has a dead-end. You must be wondering, "So, what will happen when the we reach the end?". Guess what? When you're at the end of the circuit, the rollercoaster stops and reverses it's movement until you get back to your station. For me, this is a unique concept of rollercoaster.

3. Suzhou Ferris Wheel

This is actually another theme park, but the size is smaller than Suzhou Le Yuan. The only famous thing in this park is the 'Ferris Wheel', which is the third or fourth biggest wheel in the world. Other games in this park is also amazing, including 'Stingray' and 'Disco'. I would never know the reason why the rollercoaster was named 'Stingray' until I played it. This rollercoaster has got a unique way of seats. What kind of unique seats? It is actually normal seats, but when you are being seated well, they will rotate you 90 degrees to your back, so you are now in 'sleeping' position. Just imagine it yourself, when you're being rotated in the track, you're no longer seeing your front neither left and right, but your below and above, just like stingray. Another one is called 'Disco', this is actually a normal moving seats, but the only thing makes this game exciting is the fact that your seat is not secure, there's no belt or anything else, just a place for your hand to hold and a pad for your back to lean on. Scary, I know, but that makes it exciting! The ferris wheel itself is also worth to ride, because it takes half an hour to make a complete cycle, and you can see the scenery of Suzhou when you're on the top of it.

Hangzhou (杭州)

1. West Lake (西湖)

There's no other words to describe West Lake except 'beautiful'. The scenery is actually amazing and I suggest you rent a bicycle to ride along West Lake, because the lake is actually so big that you can die if you walk along it. They also provide a 'Dancing Fountain' in a certain time, but according to me, it is not so impressive. Another thing that can't be forgotten is the food, the food in Hangzhou is very delicious, especially for their cooked pork named 'Dong Po Rou'.. woah, I still remember how it good it was.