4 November 2011
Going to Suzhou
Suzhou is a town of some 4 million people in the city proper and 10 million in the metropolitan area about 100km west of Shanghai.
Luckily the new bullet train goes straight to it, in 25 minutes.
I like bullet trains, and China now has more than anyone, armed with my pre purchased ticket I set off.
On the way to the metro, mass ballroom dancing had broken out.
I went to Costa coffee today instead of starbucks. This was a mistake in more ways than 1. They didnt have example cups, so I ordered a large. Out came a double handled giant soup bowl of terribly weak coffee.
Again, proving that when in any asian country, starbucks makes the best coffee. When in any non asian country they make the worst (except France, which is asian as far as coffee goes).
I had to walk off some of the coffee, the amount of cable tv / internet wires strung everywhere is amazing, its like they run an entire cable for each end point.
Heres a heap of trains waiting to go.
This is my train, its not the ducknose kind, perhaps the one I take to Beijing next week will be. I of course walked all the way to the end just to take a photo.
On board it was silent and very smooth. Very high quality all round. I read a heap of racist horror stories about the behaviour of Chinese train passengers, I didnt see anyone relieve themselves in the aisle, no one lit a gas burner in their seat and there were no yaks on board.