It sucked in Suzhou too.
Today felt the worst of all days by far. Cause it was. First of all, i had replaced the battery in my fone with a recharged one around 11pm last nite. When I reset the time, i totally forgot to do it in Army time, because this fone only does that. What a tard i was. So, my alarm didnt go off at 615 like it was supposed to. We were woken up at 7AM by two chinese kids running and shouting down the hallway. Damn. So, we got ready in 30 minutes and headed out at 730AM and got to the subway station. I timed it, once we entered the subway station, it took us about 28 minutes to get to our destination. We had about 5 minutes to spare before we got onto the bus at the station. Thankfully. Hopefully today goes well.
The drive to Suzhou took much longer than it should because of traffic. We called Daisy's grandma a couple times trying to tell her when we would get there. It started raining outside. We got close to Suzhou and once we were in town heading to the bus station, Daisy's grandma called us and I chalk up the rest of the crap that went on during the day to that fone call. Bascially, she didnt listen to our directions that we would be arriving at the bus station in Suzhou, so she was waiting at the train station on the north side of the city. It was funny at first until we tried to get in touch with her and meet her. For some reason, we thought she was gonna come over from the train station to meet us. So, after we got off the bus we were waiting and looking around for her.
We got tix back to Shanghai, but they were to a different bus station than we came from. If we went to the same, we had to leave at 520pm, if we took the other we could leave at 720. Yumi didn't know where the other station in Shanghai was, and I said, if we get to Shanghai, it doesn't matter, we can find our way home. This pissed her off and she was like, "Well, I don't know where it is." I then took the tix to the info booth along with our map and asked the lady where the Shanghai bus station we would arrive at is located. She showed us and it was quite simple. Located right by Yufo Si. So, we will be able to get back easily. I think the fact that I did this really pissed Yumi off because at this point I noticed she started walking away from me and not talking to me.
On top of that it was raining a bit and all the taxi people were pestering us to go with them somewhere and we were all like SCREW OFF! On top of that, Daisy's grandma wasn't answering her fone! WTF! Answer the damn fone! We looked around a bit and then Yumi headed off and walked across the street without telling me why or anything. I figured she was going to see if someone was over there. I kept looking. She then called me ten minutes later with one sentence, "I am taking a bus to the train station." Then hung up. I was pissed. So, I thought she had left. Great. Leave me all alone. I walked around some more having no clue what to do and then Daisy Grandma called me and i had no idea of anything she was saying. I kept telling here that I didn't understand, but she ketp talking. This was terrible.
Then after that Yumi called asking why I wasn't waiting with her. So, I basically got really angry with her because she left me and didn't tell me anything.I had thought she was on the bus when she called. So I headed over there and she wouldn't speak to me. We got on the bus and headed down the main road, Ren Ming Lu (People's St). On the bus I got a fone call of someone speaking english and kept saying that Daisy's grandma was at the Lay-away Station. And I was like, wtf is he talking about? What's the Lay Away Station. Then after about 5 minutes I realized that he was saying, Railway Station. PRONOUNCE YOUR FRIGGIN' "R"s!!!!! So I told him we were on his way.
Once we got to the train station, we had already wasted about and hour or more. And we walked along the train station looking for them at the exit, but couldn't find them. Plus, she kept on not picking up her fone. ANSWER! When she finally did, she cut Yumi off because Yumi was speaking to her. (even writing about this is reminding me of how frustrating this was)
We finally met them and there were a couple relatives. Daisy's grandma's nephew said "My aunt has been waiting a long time at the train station for you." And I totally wanted to say, "Well, if she listened to our fuckin directions, and met us at the bus station like we said, this wouldn't have happened." But I kept quiet.
He was taking us over to Tiger Hill which is Suzhou's most favourite tourist attraction. It was quite beautiful. The sun had come out by this time. But Yumi stopped talking to me almost entirely. The only things she said to me was "so-so".
Women out there...the silent treatment is the worst way to let someone know you are mad at them because all it does is piss the other person off and doesn't solve anything. Give it up.
Tiger hill was really pretty. Since my dig cam was all filled, I was taking lots of video. There was this giant stupa that was tilted a bit like the Leaning Tower of Piza. Very nice. Lots of flowers, interesting rock shapings, and gardens. Very nice.
After we took a donkey pulled ride around the place we left thru the north exit. We sat in a city bus getting ready to go. I tried to patch things up and ask her what was wrong, but no response. So very irritating. We drove around and got off the bus and we went to lunch. What was really irritating about the whole experience was that Yumi was not talking to me, but talking to Daisy and her grandma like nothing was wrong. AAArggh. She said we would talk about things later. So I gave up trying to repair things.
The actual city of Suzhou is quite beautiful. Its how you think modern China should be. Modern stuff, but with older chinese style and architecture. Of all the modern cities I have been too, this was one of my favourites...from a very visual view. We walked to the walking streets and looked around for silk stuff. I couldn't find anything. It was pretty though.
Then we went to another called Lion Grove Garden and on the way there i spotted a kodak shop where I could transfer my fotos. This was the worse one I have been too. I basically got super frustrated with his lack of ability to do anything that I shoved him out of the way and did it myself. And I could have completed it myself had there been a keyboard present instead of just a mouse. He also had the monitor placed facing up out of a desk and reflected off a mirror, so the desktop was backwards. WTF is wrong with you people!!!!!!
That took forever and mad me so angry. Got the fotos copied. I wanted to eat the crap out of the guy. After that place, we went to Lion Grove Garden which had a bunch of stone mazes. This was kool, but easily to get lost. When we tried to leave, we couldn't find the exit.
As we were leaving the place, a beggar came by with a monkey on a leash. So I gave him 1 kwai for a foto with the monkey, thinking thats what he wanted. After he allowed me to take a foto and got angry and yelled at us for more money. And we were like, "We already gave you some." He started tapping our arms with his bowl and we had to push him away and yell. there were a couple of chinese people yelling at him to like, "Get away. Get a job." etc.
We then walked to the street. It was about 630 and Daisy's grandma got us a taxi to the bus station. Um...ok. We have like an hour. So, we got to the bus station and then walked around and tried to shop, but there was really nothing around. So we just walked aways and went to a little park next to the highway that was really pretty.
We took the bus home and on the bus we started talking about some things. And we got back to the hotel and discussed alot more. It was terrible, but we sorted things out, and its much better now. I wont' divulge much. Ok, time for bed, we are tired. Goodnite.