My upcoming project will be at the City of Wuxi. Before the project, I have never heard of the city before; largely because it doesn't fall into any of the major travel routes from Singapore and I don't really know much about China's geography and history. To get there from Singapore, I have to take a flight to Shanghai Pudong airport and then by car; a 2 hours ride to Wuxi central. Wuxi is actually in between Suzhou and Nanjing. A 30 minutes train ride from Suzhou and a 45 minutes train ride from Nanjing. To get to Wuxi from Shanghai by train is around 1.5 hours.
I arrived at Shanghai Pudong airport on Wednesday afternoon. It is raining outdoors. The chauffeur greeted me at the international arrival exit and we were off to the city of Wuxi. He is quite a lively chap who gave me a very detailed introduction of Suzhou (because he is a native of Suzhou). I am quite captivated by the extensive network of roads and rails that links the whole China up. A quick snapshot of one of the older road networks below:
I paid a deposit and checked into the hotel. Our company reserved for all its staff suite accommodations. I am quite amazed by the size of the room when I went in. Honestly I feel it is too large. When someone knocks on my door, it will take around 3 seconds for me to walk from my computer table to my door.
Sightseeing around Wuxi City
On the 22nd July (Saturday) when I got my first rest day in China, I made a trip down to Wuxi central and check out the city. A morning downpour has given the city a dark feel but nevertheless, the vibrancy of the city can be felt everywhere. Modern shopping malls, digital shops and boulevards fill up the city scape. It is quite typical of a modern developed city.
While walking around, I noticed that many of the electronic mega malls are having outdoor concerts.
I came upon this very interesting entrance at one of the turns. It is the entrance to Chong An Si (崇安寺), which has just received a new makeover last year.
The actual temple structure is still around below:
Just behind the temple is the zoo where white pigeons roam the grounds freely.
After 6 hours of walk around the city, I decided to get the local experience by taking their bus back to the hotel. The city buses consist of both modernise air-conditional ones and the more 'traditional' ones. I happened to take one of the older buses. It cost only 2 RMB (40 cents) per ride irregularless of the length of the journey.
I alighted from the bus upon seeing this landmark which is a 5 minutes walk away from the hotel. It seems to be like the administrative or legal centre for the central government.
I took a stroll by the pedestrain path back to the hotel. The hotel is shown in the picture below.
The place where I'm staying in actually feels more like a mini-Korea with many of the restaurants offering Korean crusine. This is also where we have our after work dinner. But we always steer clear of the Korean restaurants as we already have Korean crusine for our lunch every day on site.
