Suzhou: Send Oxygen! This Trip is Choking Me.
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Definitely don't go during May Day; the travel experience will be severely compromised, I'm not kidding. When I went during a public holiday, it was incredibly crowded. That's why I made a point to get up super early for the gardens. Initially, there weren't many people, so I had a great time exploring. But later, it got packed. The gardens were full of inconsiderate elderly people jostling for photo spots, and kids were screaming their heads off. It was awful. I honestly just wanted to escape.
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As a Suzhou local, I regret to say that the suffocating crowds are all tourists. We locals don't even dare to go out anymore. It's practically impossible to get reservations for any of the museums or gardens.
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It's mostly locals riding electric scooters, right?
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I totally get why some people want to avoid Suzhou. I'm a local, and during May Day, I tried to visit Cang Street. The moment I stepped out of Xiangmen subway station, my head was just buzzing – there were way too many people!! I instantly got irritable and angry, turned right around, and went to the Shemen area for a meal. It was much less crowded there, and my mood improved significantly. But the crowds aren't really Suzhou's fault, are they? I just hope those planning to visit consider their own tolerance levels for crowds and narrow streets, and whether that might spoil their mood.
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When is it less crowded?
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The traffic in downtown Suzhou is truly awful; I bet even the locals find it a headache. Yesterday, while walking around Shiquan Street, I heard at least 10 delivery e-scooters blaring their horns and blasting disco music... At first, I encountered one or two and thought it was just an isolated incident, but then I realized it's quite common for delivery guys to blast music. As for cycling, I wouldn't even dare to try – too many people, too many cars, and narrow roads make it incredibly difficult.
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Exactly! Suzhou delivery guys all seem to have subwoofers on their scooters. I've never seen anything like it in other cities, haha!
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Saying Suzhou's museum feels national-level rather than just city-level – are you serious? If you're praising the architecture, that's by I.M. Pei, and it's indeed good. But if you're talking about the exhibits inside, then forget it. As a local museum enthusiast, I don't even bother going much. Besides the relics from Ruiguang Pagoda, what else is there? It can't compare at all to museums in Sichuan/Chongqing or northern China.
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I genuinely think it's national-level. It could easily outshine museums in Singapore and Malaysia, and it's comparable to Thailand's. But perhaps within China, it's not considered top-tier, given that China's historical depth is among the greatest in the world.
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All those annoying behaviors you mentioned? Those are from out-of-town tourists. Locals don't even go to the tourist spots.
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It doesn't matter where they're from; what matters is that nobody's managing the situation.
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The traffic is genuinely terrible. Cars on the road don't yield to pedestrians, and as soon as there's a jam, the horns start blaring non-stop.
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Seriously, it's rare you'd even hear a single car horn in downtown Shanghai.
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I originally had no plans to visit Japan due to historical grievances, but after reading these comments, I'm finding out that people in Suzhou can be quite unwelcoming and unfriendly to outsiders.