Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Boats to Hangzhou
There are nightly boats between Suzhou and Hangzhou, leaving around 5.30pm and
arrving at around 8am, with a bar and karaoke on board. Tickets range from ¥80 to
¥150 and can be bought at CITS, tourist offices, or at the ferry docks. In Hangzhou,
boats leave from Wulin Pier, in Suzhou from Nanmen Dock (
T
0571/85153185 for
information and bookings).
include
yinyu
(“silver fish”) and
kaobing
(grilled pancakes with sweet filling). For
g
nightlife
, there is a slew of touristy bars scattered along Shiquan Jie near
Wangshi Yuan.
The best
entertainment
in town is the nightly opera extravaganza at
Wangshi Yuan (March-Oct 7.30-10pm; ¥80 including admission to garden),
featuring eight displays of the most prominent forms of Chinese performance
arts, from Beijing opera to folk dancing and storytelling. For the latest informa-
tion, check
www.whatsoninsuzhou.com.
W
Restaurants and cafés
Dianyun Fanzhuang
519 Shiquan Jie. A
friendly, inexpensive place for rice noodles
and other specialities from Yunnan province
- sit by the window for a view of the tourists
plying Shiquan Jie. Open 24hr.
Good Eats
694 Shiquan Jie. An American-
style café selling hot dogs, burgers and fish
and chips. Open till 4am so it's a good
place to end a night out.
Korea
579 Daichengqiao Lu, at the Shiquan
Jie intersection. One of the best of a host
of unimaginatively named Korean restau-
rants, with good barbecued beef, cooked
at the table.
Songhelou Caiguan
On Taijian Lane,
200m east of Renmin Lu. The most
famous restaurant in town - it claims to
be old enough to have served Emperor
Qianlong. The menu is elaborate and long
on fish and seafood (crab, eel, squirrel
fish and the like), though not cheap at
around ¥150 a head. Flanking Songhelou
are four other restaurants of repute, all
claiming more than 100 years of history:
the Dasanyuan, Deyuelou, Wangsi and
i
Laozhengxing. They're all big, busy and
good for a splurge on local dishes, with
foreigner-friendly staff and menus.
Suco Coffee
357 Shiquan Jie. The best café
in town, with excellent smoothies (¥28),
wireless and comfortable seating.
Hangzhou
HANGZHOU
, one of China's most established tourist attractions, lies in the
north of Zhejiang province at the head of Hangzhou Bay, two hours by train
from Shanghai South station. The modern city is not of much interest in itself,
but
Xi Hu
- the lake around which Hangzhou curls - and its shores still offer
wonderful Chinese vistas of trees, hills, flowers, old causeways over the lake,
fishing boats, pavilions and pagodas.
With the building of the Grand Canal at the end of the sixth century,
Hangzhou became the centre for trade between north and south China, the
Yellow and Yangzi river basins. Under the
Tang dynasty
it was a rich and
thriving city, but its position made it vulnerable to the fierce equinox tides
in Hangzhou Bay. When Tang-dynasty governors were building locks and
dykes to control the waters round Hangzhou, a contemporaneous writer,
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