Suzhou Day 6

We decided to spend 1 night in Suzhou and 1 thing I regretted of not staying longer is the hotel in Suzhou room is super big! We book Holiday Inn, Jasmine Suzhou and we didn’t expect the room is so big. Zach had a good time exploring and moving around the room. After refreshing, we headed out for lunch. It was about 2pm and we found this all you can eat BBQ restaurant behind our hotel. We paid RMB15 per pax (abt SGD4/pax). So cheap! Anyway, the spread is nothing to shout about. I guess we are tired of walking around and due to the super cold weather (5-7 degree) we are almost numb.

The table was designated for you to BBQ your food and the waiter set up the fire rather quickly.Within minutes we start BBQing our food – squids, fish, chicken wings, corns, marinated pork and chicken strips, hot dogs…and list goes on. After filling our stomach, we decided to visit the Humble Administrator's Garden. It's one of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and guess it's worth a visit. We took a cab there and whn we reached it was about 4pm. Sadly this place close at 5pm and we decided to come back the following day. The day is shorter coming to winter time so, it will be dark half way through the garden. So, we headed to a night market. This place is full of locals and small quaint shops. I bought a leggings which I thought it would be good to help me keep warm. The weather is extremely cold and I believe is about 2 degree and thankfully, we brought the carrier along and Zach snuggle in there sleeping soundly. At least with our constantly walking, it able to generates body warm to both of us.

Following day, we woke up early to visit the Humble Administrator's Garden. It's beautiful this place and i reckon during summer or spring it will be gorgeous as you will see a full blown of colorful flowers growing the garden. Infact, the entrance fee for winter/autumm is different in summer/spring. Here are some photos to enjoy.

See Zach in Mummy's arm. Well bundle up. Looks like a nice day to stroll but it is not as you think. It was freezing cold! It was about 1-2degree. Thanks to our layers and layers of clothing we wear and glad we had good thermal wear to keep us warm.

Rows and rows of bamboo trees...

Oops, MH face too dark! Too concentrate in taking the scenery :p

After touring around the garden, we decide to go back hotel to rest and to keep us warm. It's too cold to walk around and we just feel like hiding in the hotel!

So dinner, we decided to have in the hotel restaurant called Song Helou. It's a well known restaurant in Suzhou with 200 years old history and is the most famous old trademark of Suzhou cuisine. This restaurant was created in 1737 during the Qing Dynasty.

We ordered the roast goose. Very well marinated and the skin is crispy. Sinful! Sinful!

We also ordered a bowl of bamboo shoot soup. It's sweet and refreshing. Just look at the clear soup makes me yearning for it again!

We ordered the recommended "Si Che Tou" The dragon head. Very yummy I must say.

We had a very fulfilling dinner and we took a walk later at night to the old street in Suzhou. Following day, we took the train back to Shanghai again.

Zach's 1st Birthday!

It was a coincidence trip that we had planned to spend our vacation in Shanghai last year that it coincides with Zach’s 1st birthday (3rd Dec 08).

It was the day we got back from Hangzhou and I remember it was freezing cold as the temperature dips suddenly with cold wind and crisp air. However, it does not dampen our mood to celebrate for Zach and the whole jing gang walk to the nearest cake shop to buy a cake for Zach. It was about 8pm and most of the cakes are sold and I spotted this nice and yummy looking ice cream cake for sale.

Yea, it was super duper cold but we went ahead to buy the ice cream cake.

Here’s Zach looking so happy! I’m so glad that he has grow up to be such a happy boy and I hope the years to come I wish for more happiness and to be healthy always.

Zach with Daddy laughing away when we were sing the Happy Birthday song.

Making a wish and blowing off the candle.

Lunch @ Hangzhou

Before we took the train back to Shanghai, we had our lunch in Hangzhou. I decided to try the restaurant somewhere near behind our hotel as the night before when we were out exploring the city we saw many people lining up for dinner. We thought it must be a good place to try as the locals are flocking to this place.

And so, here we are arriving the place a little early as we need to catch the 2:45pm train back to Shanghai.

We ordered this, lotus roots stuff with sweetend glutinuos rice as a starter. I don't quite like this commbination as the glutious rice is very sweet and the lotus roots is cold.

And here's our main order to go with plain rice. Their specialty claypot toufoo.

Crispy chicken with salted egg yolk
Beggar's chicken
We also ordered a pot of soup which I forgot to took a picture of it.

Overall the lunch is quite satisfying minus Zach's crankiness. I guess he was tired and miss his morning nap so he was at the verge of tearing the whole place down. We had to keep distracting him with Gerber stars and also the waitress do try to entertain him once in a while.

I forgot how much we had paid for this lunch but I believe it was not expensive considering the portion and quality of the food. I would rate it as 3.5 star out of 5.