Moving to Suzhou – Any Info?

[Graeme S]

Hi,

I have just accepted a job in Suzhou and was wondering if anyone had stayed or visited before and could give some insight, thoughts etc. I hear pretty good things in general but it would be great to hear more. Doesn’t have to be specific, just anything which might be useful.

Thanks!

[Mr. Klink]

I’ve only visited but I remember a couple things.  It’s near-to Shanghai, as in easy day trip by fast train near.

That’s it actually.  Nothing else really struck me in any way.  It has more canals than Chengdu.

Maybe you could find more info at SuzhouLiving?

[Charlie]

I’ve never lived there, only visited briefly, but Suzhou is a decent place, very close to Shanghai. Similar to Hangzhou in a lot of ways: famous for gardens and canals. Some of the canals look like a Chinese version of Venice at night. Hangzhou and Suzhou are pretty good places to live because they are in such close proximity to Shanghai but don’t have the kind of rat race atmosphere that you find in Shanghai. They strike me as fairly laid back cities, actually, not unlike Chengdu in this way. Suzhou has a large tech industry and has a huge industrial park there which manufactures electronics.

[Daniel Wikstrand]

Me and my wife moved to Suzhou after 18 months in Shanghai and it felt like heaven, blue sky, a big central lake giving you some “sea breeze” , good food, lots of sights and a very nice atmosphere. Much more laid back than Shanghai but not as laid back as Chengdu haha.

I would suggest that you look for an apartment close to the lake, depending on your evening and night time pleasures you can look for bar and club areas, restaurant areas or just on the edge areas where you can go running or biking without being bothered.

The lake is called jinji hu , golden chicken lake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinji_Lake

and I can not stress enough how nice it was to live with a view over the lake, morning mist, sunsets/sunrises over the lake and that magical breeze…

https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=suzhou+lake&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7zhlVdK4LqLMmwWLxYFg&ved=0CCMQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=631

We lived close to Crown Plaza at this google map, it was close to the lake, close to the city center with all that came with the backstreet restaurants and so on, decently close to the train station by taxi. Nowdays its close to the metro too 🙂

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.3161331,120.6802255,15z

The city center is basically without skyscrapers but lots of back alleys with cool local restaurants and much more of an old skool China feeling like I got in Chengdu in the early 2000…

The metro was finished after we left but as in any other city, if you need the metro live close to it…

Taxi drivers were the best ever in China, Ive lived in China for more than nine years and traveled most of it and nowhere I got the service and no BS from the taxi drivers as in Suzhou.

Suzhou University was one on the better universities Ive been to.

The PSB was an absolute horror, being a student at the time with all exams passed and so on, they still called and demanded interviews, not so pleasent ones where I was constantly called a liar, all in Chinese, to renew my student visa. Just a bunch of assholes at the PSB… So be prepared to have your papers in order 🙁

Suzhou has a lot of nice sightseeing stuff in the city too, perfect for your spare time and when you have visitors. All the canals are really amazing, you can spend days wandering along them and taking photos and enjoying the everyday life if that is your sort of thing.

Its very easy to to to Shanghai by the bullet trains.

No airport, a bit ma fan when having guests or going traveling but there are many black market taxis that you can book for a pick up at your home, offering good prices to go to Pudong in Shanghai, just make sure to set up the trip when you are arriving at Pudong and want to go to Suzhou at weird hours, got stuck a few times in that situation.

Just PM if you have any more quuestions or post here so more people can learn.

Also, we left Suzhou in 2009 to go to Chengdu to open up Kaffestugan, things might have changed but I have only good memories of Suzhou and my old friends there still claim it’s a gem.

Daniel

 

[Daniel Wikstrand]

And a few pics of sights and surroundings all less than 30 minutes away from where we lived.

http://www.slickpic.com/share/0NLDzQMjzYj4jN/albums/Suzhou2009/?wallpaper

Daniel

[Graeme S]

Thanks Guys! Appreciate it!

Apologies for the delay in response, I have pretty much been travelling since I posted.

I took some time to visit and an agent took us around some apartments to get an idea. Most were around the lake in the SIP which I quite liked, couldn’t get over how clean it was and how organised the roads and traffic seemed to be. However the flip side to that is there’s a bit of a lack of that China feeling. No street food vendors or random fruit and veg shops – They all seemed to be replaced with these community areas which are large, organised and missing the general feeling you can get going to pick up bits from all the indepentent places around your home. Also in the SIP it felt there was very little if any hole in the wall restaurants, we’d definitely miss that. In saying that I had some meetings to attend so we didn’t have too much time exploring and virtually no time in the old town which is where I’d assume  we can get the more local restaurants, street food and other things which can make China so unique.

There seems to be a lot to cater for expats in and around the SIP though, especially those who wan’t to socialise and eat like they do back home. Lots of western bars certainly. Makes sense as there also seems to be many more foreigners living in Suzhou.

All in I’m looking forward to it but will really, really miss Chengdu.

 

[Gimme]

http://yourchinesefriend.com/useful-links/

You can find some Suzhou websites there

[Author]

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