Friday, got up earlier to finish up the English materials before turning up at work.

Preparing my breakfast & lunch at the same time. 
There were some leftovers last night so I packed some this morning.

Watching drama while multitasking =P

Over at my last day at the office, I was glad I made the English classes interesting. Hehe! I really could consider becoming a teacher instead. LOL!

For lunch, I ate my own spagethi I brought to work today.

Towards knocking off, it was raining heavily and I took a lift back to the apartment in Mayun's husband's car. It was really nice of him!

Got home and continue to eat spagethi again.... -_- nothing else to eat and I don't want to eat alone outside nor da bao.

I have arranged to meet Simon 10am at the entrance of Suzhou Amusement Park on Sat so I figured to just finish cooking the very remaining spagethi & meat for our lunch tomorrow.

Eh this is lunchean meat slices into cubes + canned nasi padang mixed together! =P

Boiling spagethi. The ends were a little burnt but still can eat la! HAHA!

After the spagethi done then I  put it in the pan! HAHA!
Damn funny I'm actually cooking/preparing food.

It will be cold by noon time tomorrow but aiya don't waste food la, still edible! LOL!!

-

Saturday, took a cab and headed towards Suzhou Amusement Park.

Simon was nice to be my guide as he was the only Suzhou-ese as my other colleagues were from other province.

It was at a different district of where I live so the distance was quite far and the bill total up to be RMB100+ which was about SG$25.

It was a misty day... grey clouds hovering.... 
But one certainly can't miss the huge sign!

I wanted to purchase the entrance tickets but Simon already bought and he said it was his treat. 
One ticket cost about RMB125, also not that cheap in SGD.

Upon entering, this was the first scene I saw.

According to Simon, Suzhou Amusement Land is basically a 2nd or 3rd grade of Disneyland or any other theme park. 
So every statue or objects are basically copied from somewhere. Haha!

That statues there is in a rather suggestive pose....
That animal is a lion actually.... fancy pushing a lion towards errm... his crotch area! LOL!

Pretty flowers at the garden!




How can I miss taking pics with flowers!


Another nice looking peacock!

First ride of the day! I remembered taking this in Genting with Ah Xiang before!


Ok, it actually looked as if it could go really high & fast....

We queued up for it and soon it was our turn....


Perhaps I was getting old and more no guts, 
I was trying to take a video of myself but I got freaked out! HAHAHA....


Haha, still quite ok la. Not as horrifying as I'd imagined to be. If I had remembered correctly, the one at Genting the seats flew up even more angled than what I just took.

As we walked along, we saw this part where we could take cable car.
Not bad view.





Finally we reached to the other side of the cable car but I think it wasn't part of the amusement park. It was basically some mountain range for interested ppl to climb. The view was little misty up there.

Here's overlooking at amusement park as well as some skyline.
In Suzhou, you hardly see skyscrappers. Suzhou is supposed to be a preserved 古色古香 city. 
Hence there are govt regulations that developers need to comply. 

So it was quite rare to see those skyscrappers.

Here's the view of the other side.
Left side are residential, right side are factories.
The greenery is just amazing. I could smell the morning dew!

Ok, moving on...
Yup, you can still climb further!

Just act cute pic of another higher view...

Fainted... so many stairs/steps to go....



Happily showing the remaining steps to reach on top....
Many steps as it may seem, it was quite a lovely view. 

Here is the view of the utmost top. A lot of factories....

It was scary & exhilerating to be up there. The air was fabulous, extremely fresh even though a little misty.

At the time my legs were quite wobbly, there were no railing or any protection, if you lose your balance, you fall, you're gone.

Everyone is responsible for forest fire prevention. 
Quite good English compared to the atroucious ones I spotted quite often around China lol

If only the sun came out just a bit more, picture/lighting would have been a lot better.


As soon as the above picture was taken, I actually slipped and fell. The steps were uneven and it was actually hard to go down than to climb up. I kid you not, but I was pespiring like mad while keeping my balance as we moved back down...

FRESH DEW!!!


ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!

While taking the cable car back down, 
managed to snap the name of the amusement park ala Hollywood style lol

Crowd was pretty ok, not too crowded and we didn't see ridiculously long queues. We saw some 'indoor amusement'. There were magic shows, haunted house, clown performing tricks/balloon art and so on. A bit uninteresting hor...

So we decided to experience their 3D. I'm quite a fan of 3D/4D. But errr... not to impressive la, but not too nan kan either.

After the 3D show, we queued up for an indoor roller coaster. I remembered there was one that is something like that in Genting and I closed my eyes throughout the entire ride. For this ride, it was quite thrilling! At least got a bit of 'standard' la for an amusement park lol.

We exited to a lok kok looking souvenir shop. No ppl at all, even the staff was also playing/texting with her mobile. The toys/souvenir weren't even nice/cute looking, who wants to buy? Aiyo...

We went out and looked around some more.. saw this impressive looking fountain!

Wah, this kind of fountain only exist in the front porch of some multi millionaire's mansion or something. Like it is a roundabout decorative structure or something.... lol and I was trying to look as tai tai as possible but fail :X

We decided to have lunch so I took out the spagethi I brought and passed Simon one. Basicaly I ate the spagethi since last night, it was already opened & cook. Will be a waste to throw it and beside I know food inside an amusement park would be so overpriced so I'd rather we go cheap.

While eating halfway, some lady actually came & ask where we got the noodles. LOL! I said I prepared it myself. They walked away disappointedly lol. I placed them inside the plastic bento I da bao from the Jap restaurant last night. I da bao some sushi as dinner... Not bad ah, can reuse.

I wasn't really enthu about taking anymore rides so I continued to explore the place.

They have some sphinx statues.


At first I was just snapping randomly and was reviewing my pictures.
Nothing unusual except I noticed the man was carrying SIX BAGS!!! LOL!!!

I zoomed to the max for capturing this pic! LOL!
Poor thing la, kena abused like that~ LOL!

Another lovely feature. Something you'd want your garden to have. 
But I'm not so sure about the amount of effort & cost for maintanence.
Kinda creepy that a statue have such life-like eyes 
that you can feel the lion is staring RIGHT at you, isn't it?

I was wondering how this place would look like if it was at night? 
Gardens look pretty at night too, don't they? Sparkling water etc

Mini coliseum spotted!

Quite a pretty sight upclose!

Got crazy and decided to do jump shots! Muahaha!





Not one but two couples shooting wedding photos there! LOL!


Behind the coliseum was a little enclosed garden with statues. Decided to pose like model with it =X



I'm not quite sure why the lion was biting the man's ass...


...nor why 2 men are kissing in such an awkward position....

Wont the neck get strained?

Lady sitting with poise on a lioness.


Is this some kinda symbol of athority or something?

Fallen female angel and a roaring lion in pain?


One-arm warrior with bow subduing a lion?


Seriously I don't quite understand the artistic direction of these statues....

Anyway, the amusement park was a huge place and I come to realise it's not just a place to take rides but they also have a lot of fake European buildings and Greek-style gardens for photo shooting.

They even have a huge man-man waterfall.


By right, humans are not permitted but we saw ppl climbing over and take pics, so what the hell la. Just for a while only. Just be careful and don't slip and fall into the water. =P

My kind & helpful guide for the day, Mr Simon Zhang.

...and some unknown photobomber in the background -.-

We took the train ride that goes around the premise of the amusement park. To be honest, nothing impressive but ok, will give them some credit. We went passed the waterfall again and I took a video of it. I'd say the waterfall was one of my favourite highlights over there :)

Just as I was about to say something, we went through a tunnel and it was darkness... bleaaahh...

The approvimately 15-minute ride ended and soon it was time to go cos I was starting to get bored actually.

We walked passed the flower again while on our way to the exit.



With that, we took a cab and head over to the Suzhou Museum. It is in fact one of the landmarks of Suzhou as it's a museum designed by reknown architect, I.M Pei. As an architecture student 10 years ago, I was actually into his works and would really love to step into a building which he designed. Those famous buildings in other countries are too far! Haha! China is nearer...

By the time we reached Suzhou Museum it was almost 3pm and my jaw dropped at the long queue.....

Aiyo sian.... the queue was too long... I didn't expect this place to be so popular. The museum closed at 5 and there will be no admission after 4pm. Wah sian, I doubt we'd be able to enter.

Later I realised, it was free admission. No wonder wo many ppl. Oh well, we had to figure out Plan B.

Along the same street were some famous gardens.

Suzhou is famous for it's gardens. I don't know why but apparently there were a lot of rich noble men who own big houses and they like to build gardens, pavilions, ponds, little shelters.

This was the first sight that greeted me as I entered Zhuo Zheng Yuan 拙政园.


And I was totally blown away.... Simple peaceful greenery....

Although it was nothing compared to the sophisticated building of Suzhou Museum but boy was I glad to be able to see Zhuo Zheng Yuan. If I were to go to Suzhou Museum, I would have missed these sceneries...


See how popular this place is too? They were taking the pictures I just took above.



A long view of the exact same spot...

I seriously never imagine lotus leaves could look so beautiful! lol




The fishes looked so carefree!


My god! Whatever I had seen in Chinese paintings or Chinese periodic/historical dramas were real! LOL! These places really do exist since ancient times!


Even both landscape & portrait shot tells a diferent story/mood/setting!



The sun was setting and certain areas were a little silhouetted.

I love the reflection and the stillness of the water! LOL!




I COULD LOOK AT THIS WHOLE DAY!!!


That's why those ancient Chinese painters could paint at a place like that for the whole day! It's just too peaceful and inspiring to paint or write some poems or recite a few lines or play chess or drink tea/wine and chat! Gosh!

You have to be there in person to experience it yourself.....


This guy doesn't like to smile and I have to force him...


Just thought the progression was quite funny! LOL!

Some more pics before we leave this place. It's basically a super large house and a super huge garden and you see nothing but greeneries and experience the peacefulness.



Every angle just looks beautiful, isn't it? Even Chinese Garden looks NOTHING like that!

While on our way out, we saw some botany decorations! They're rocks which formed like miniature mountains! Couldn't tell if it was one of the ancient piece or newly added feature but still beautifil anyway...




The flowers are so pretty!!! Pretty in pink!


Trying to stand cross-legged like the way models too!! LOL!! I know a few bloggers always do that :X

We walked passed Suzhou Museum again and it was already closed. Figured I could take pics with the signboard instead!



A while ago, I called Vivian as we were supposed to meet for dinner. It was my last night in Suzhou and usually my last night would be spent with Vivian to have dinner or walk walk together. I mentioned to her I was visiting Zhuo Zheng Yuan with Simon and she immediately was able to think of a good porridge place just across the street. Very professional. She texted me the address and said she was on her way so Simon & I walked over and waited for her...

To be continued...