Overnight in Suzhou

First a taxi, then a bullet train, followed by another taxi, and after a short 300-meter trek down a bumpy alley we’ve arrived at our destination: the PingJiang Lodge in Suzhou, a lively “water town” about 50 km from Shanghai (and about 3 hours door-to-door with transit time). The PingJiang Lodge is a restored 18th century mansion and exactly the kind of slightly musty, history-laden, and gleefully haunted kind of place we’d hoped to lay our heads for the night. We arrived around noon and hastily put the boy down for a nap before heading out to explore Suzhou.  Nap times have twisted our schedules a bit, perhaps a mixed blessing; it causes us to turn our own pace down a notch or two. 

Casey’s colleague lent us an upgraded stroller for the duration of our stay in Shanghai and so in early evening we took it out for a spin down the rocky alleys.  A spectacular fail!  The alley that parallels the canal is full of sauntering pedestrians, but also purposeful motorbikes, bicycles and tricycles headed somewhere Very Important. So to be safe we ditched the stroller and did as the locals do - carried our toddler perched over sore shoulders, a writhing sack of (imported) American potatoes. People from Suzhou to Shanghai accomplish this same task every day, whether blessed with the muscles of Popeye or the enviable physique of a Russian ballerina.

It rained. And rained and rained and rained. But still we walked and watched Chinese beauties (you are right, WCC) in silk and heels stroll with their beaus under flowered lavender umbrellas.  We stopped for hot chocolate and a mango shake that smelled of sulfur and soil. We watched E grow agitated when he saw a thick golden retriever wiggling adjacent to the café’s barista. “Daaaaa-g!” he screamed. The poor lad was going through canine withdrawals in Shanghai so it was good to see him get his fix.

That night we swept the room for mosquitoes but still slept fitfully behind the filtered darkness of the bamboo shades. I woke early to snap photographs of the canal and saw old men and women perform morning ablutions; spit and toothpaste and breakfast dregs poured and drained into murky channels while long, slow boats paddled onward, retrieving plastics and serrated cans and things worth a second look.

We walked to the Humble Administrator’s Garden (it’s been said, the nation’s finest) and arrived one minute before the gate opened. We entered a world of water and lilies and rock and bamboo, a sanctuary for a child whose legs refuse to believe in the limits of gravity, for a boy who offers a spontaneous “wow” at the sight of a fish and probably means it. Reluctantly we headed back to the old mansion and picked up pieces from the explosion of luggage that took place in our room the day before.

We did it. We traveled farther afield – a trial run of sorts - with a precious tiny tot in tow. We have the intestinal duress to prove it. We are slowly building collective bone and muscle and trust and love for all that awaits us Out There.