While I am in Suzhou

I've been in Suzhou for a while now, so there is plenty that still needs writing out. So, let's talk about the present.
My private tour ended in Shanghai, so from there we took the train arranged by China Tour agency in advance straight to the city of Suzhou. It was about a 40 minute ride westward. After we finally reached the exit of the station, I met my Chinese friend for the first time. Liu looked even shorter in person, haha, and was an incredible host to both me and Tony. Along with her she treated us to a nice lunch at a little local restaurant. It was here that Tony was finally able to try the chicken feet he had asked for on several occasions on the tour. I thought they were okay, I prefer something a little meatier. An amusing anecdote: our China Tour guide told us that while practically everything at home is "made in China", China imports tons of chicken feet from America (and just the feet) to meet the demand for this peculiar dish.
Liu has been an incredible host for the near month I have been here so far, finding us an apartment, setting up our internet, taking us to the bank, showing us how to use the buses, translating for us, and treating us to more meals than I can count. She even picked out a cheap perfume-free laundry detergent for me. A pity she couldn't be around during the day when we were hanging out at the apartment, as she is a working woman. While it was easy enough for me and Tony to get around on the buses, given we had our destination written out fairly well in Chinese words, once you actually get somewhere it's pretty difficult not to have a translator. I can recall two rather humorous situations. One time I was riding the bus to Liu's work to meet her for dinner, and I needed the women sitting next to me to move so I could get off at the next stop. When I motioned to get up, she made room for me, to which I replied "bu ke qi". As she looked at me strangely, I realized had said "you're welcome" instead of "thank you." Another time we had just finished eating dinner at a restaurant, and it was my turn to pay. I handed the waitress 100 yuan to cover it and said "gei wo yibai yuan" and if the Chinese raised their eyebrows at all I imagine she would have done so right then. I literally said "give me 100 yuan" instead of "here's 100 yuan." Mistakes such as these aside, Liu always helps to correct my poor Chinese and I've picked up quite a bit so far.
So far I like Suzhou quite a bit. It's a pretty charming city, not anywhere near as crowded as Shanghai. There are some lovely views and some great traditional areas to visit. I just hope I can find the time to see the more outdoorsy areas to the West and South before my time here is up. Some interesting things about Suzhou foreigners are not as common as in the other cities we visited, so people reacted to me and Tony's presence quite differently. When we go out to eat, people are taken aback when I ask for more tea in Chinese and seem happy to see a foreigner take in their culture. Suzhou is undergoing a lot of construction, much like everywhere else I have visited. There is a new complex being erected right next to Liu's work, where you can watch how much progress they make day by day. It's impressive. The end result is that many areas of Suzhou look brand-new it's really a pleasure to see. At the same time there exist many traditional districts, gardens, and temples where you can get a glimpse of the China that you see on history channel specials. And best yet, like everywhere else the whole place lights up at night and traditional music is often played. Evenings in Suzhou are gorgeous, so many different colors and sounds. At one point my jaw dropped in amazement as I realized the office building in front of me was playing a 30 story game of Tetris. Simply amazing!
Eating here is an absolute pleasure. Before we started travel here our guide from Top China Trip already recommended some local snacks of Suzhou. We go out to local restaurants almost every night, as it seems to be fairly common. Sometimes I absolutely love the flavors and the cooking, and other times it's a little too exotic for me (lunch a few days ago was duck tongue, pig's feet, and chicken heart soup). But when it's good, it's good and there's plenty to go around. And oh my God is it cheap. The other night me and Liu had a very pleasant and filling dinner for 38 yuan total (that's roughly $6 for two people), and you can go even lower than that. A bowl of rice noodles in soup, bigger than your head mind you and way more than you can eat, costs about 10 yuan. Not even a dollar and fifty cents. While it's no home-cooked porterhouse steak, I like the way they do the beef and pork here in particular.
Some areas of the city are very westernized, particularly the shopping malls. Turns out Pizza Hut in China is one hell of classy joint. KFC is in abundance, as is Starbucks. The entire thing just feels rich, complete with a small amusement park (complete with glow-in-the-dark ferris wheel). There's a lovely view of this tower out in the middle of the lake, and several traditional style boats can be seen floating about.

So that's all for today, don't want to make this too awfully long. In the future I'll talk about some of the neat places me and Tony saw in Suzhou, and. This weekend we're going to go visit the Shanghai World Expo, so I'll have plenty on that.