Suzhou Week 9/26

They say you learn a lot about yourself when you are away from your home, your bubble.
On Saturday evening, a group of our guests invited me to join them on their day off the following day playing around town.
I was off and would have spent the day biking around by myself, so I agreed.
I waited in the lobby until their conference call was over that morning and we headed out.
In a brand new Mercedes.
It was then that I knew I was going to have a much more fun day than anticipated.
We headed off to Tiger Hill, one of Suzhou's more popular attractions. Nestled in the hills of Suzhou, it's basically a giant tower surrounded by some really pretty grounds within the complex. There's lots of street food at the exit as well as little kitschy shops, so it was pretty neat.
Afterwards, we landed in Li Gong Di. This is essentially expat row. It is 80% foreign restaurants such as Italian or Mexican, with about 75% of those being a bar, sometimes with it's respective country's atmosphere.
Our first spot was an modern Chinese bar that even offered hookah as you spent your time eating snack food and drinking on sofas. Like a Starbucks bar, of sorts. They talked me into letting them order a beer for me, which I generally don't drink.
And here is where I learned a Madison lesson.
Stubborn to the bone, I've never let anyone push me to drink when I don't want to. Having a personal rule to drink only when the sun is down, I realized when I accepted the beer at 2 pm that I was going to be relaxing some morals.
Not even my closest friends could get me to do this, why them? Because they are new acquaintances who offered me a day of hospitality and it would be rude not to drink with them, even if it was beer (yuck) and we were starting at 2 pm (frick).
So, in the end, manners to new people wins over my friends, I guess.
This happened in Paris as well as I continued drinking wine much further past my personal limit (not my capacity limit, just a line that I don't really feel like drinking anymore) so I would not be rude to the French hosts.
And it is with these new friends, that, for the first time in my life, I drank for 7-8 hours straight, starting in the middle of the day, and, with all things, a beer.
After about an hour of picking their brains on their career path (I love talking about how people ended up having the chance to work abroad so I can pick up repetitive details that would help my own career) and talking about friends and family back home, we moved to a German bar.
A German bar that featured pretzels hanging from chandeliers in an all dark wood interior that had the set-up of a church bar if you could imagine such a thing. Or, better yet, like the dining hall in Harry Potter, minus the awesome ceiling and food that appears out of nowhere.
Everyone moved to harder liquor here, so I opted for what I could bear to consume that was within the same price limit that everyone else had order - they had been paying for everything all day.
A rum and coke it is.
After 1.5 of those, Jaggermeister shots landed on the table.
I couldn't remember ordering these. I was pretty clear minded at this point and was quite sure I would not have order them even if I wasn't, having avoided the cough syrup since I first had it on my 21st birthday. I looked around and everyone had one as one of the men had ordered a round for everyone. At this point I not only pitied myself but the poor Chinese girl they had talk into ordering a Long Island Iced Tea, saying only that it "wasn't quite like Chinese black tea, but you should try it" with smirks on their faces.
Well, I couldn't deny a drink already bought in front of my hosts.
Bottoms up.
Other than the bar food we had (popcorn, banana chips, spring rolls, and something I can only describe as shrimp flavored pork rinds except better tasting than you would initially imagine), I had nothing solid on my stomach and was trying to avoid being obvious as I only sipped through my second rum and coke (hence the .5). Finally, one of them suggested heading for an early Italian dinner (carbs, yes, just what I need to slow this alcohol down).
We were off again, heading just a mile around the lake to a pretty nice Italian place. I ate bread as soon as it came to the table. I know it is rude to take it first and even to eat more than the hosts, but I was growing particularly anxious about being sick and/or obnoxiously drunk in front of my very kind hosts who, in their range of 40-50 years of life experience, were handling this much better than myself.
It wasn't long before more alcohol landed on the table. White wine.
Now, I was getting nervous.
Beer, hard liquor, and now wine.
There was no way this was going to end well, but as least I had food coming so, toast away.
My hosts were really excited to have me experience my first Chinese foot massage that day and there was a place just next door, so we all stumbled over. And by this point, our leading male was stumbling with slightly slurred, but hilarious verbage. I was feeling a little better about myself now.
We all took our place in a room of very comfortable arm chairs and propped our feet on our own footrests. The therapists (all males) marched in carrying buckets of hot water for us to place our feet in and then move to sit on the foot rests while they massaged our neck and backs. Afterwards, we relaxed in the chairs as  girl brought in TsingTao (pronounced "Ching Dow" with the "ow" in "dow" sounding like the "ow" of "meow"), a regional light Chinese beer that we serve at the club level, but that I've never tried. It was okay for beer. The leading female was kind enough to offer to split the can so I didn't feel obligated to drink the entire thing that had already been order, and avoid my being rude.
Boy, was I grateful for that.
And so, we went on to enjoy the next amazing hour and a half of one of the greatest, most relaxed, massages of my life. If you're ever in China, go get one, even if it means missing the Great Wall or something. Do it.
The male fell asleep for most of his (I think I even fell asleep for a few minutes as well), even snoring a bit, which reminded me of my own dad back home and gave me an even greater sense of gratitude to spend the day with someone that reminded me of enjoying time with my dad and a woman that reminded me so much of one of my great friends back home that is around her same age (early forties).
The lead male tried to get our taxi driver to let the five of us squeeze into one taxi, but driving laws are very strict in China with heavy punishment, so he wasn't having it, even for the short distance. As I rode with the girls back home, a sense of extreme gratitude not only for their hospitality, but my newfound companions who gave me a taste of home.
I felt as if I had just spent the day with some of my closest friend back home, tearing up the town one laugh/drink at a time. It really made me miss home, but at the same time, gave me a better sense of home in Suzhou as we explored parts of town I had yet to see.
With this, I was determined to be able to better assist other foreigners on their trip to Suzhou, so I wanted to become even more familiar with where I lived. I spent the only two days that weren't raining this week taking advantage of my bike card and biking around the lake, taking in the beautiful scenery of the newer part of Suzhou where I live (We call it the SIP bubble). The Suzhou Industrial Park was built by Singapore companies with excellent strategic design, westernized scenery and living, hence the bubble of SIP versus old town Suzhou.
I had the chance to see some gorgeous sights as well as see where many of the expats live around the lake. As I rode I also had the chance to witness a hidden inlet filled with Chinese who had taken their kids and families to swim in the disgusting lake (swimming is prohibited, hence the secluded spot). They were having a blast though, so who was I to judge?
I also realized that many paths in China end in dead ends and overgrown and/or damaged infrastructure, forcing me to back track many times.
But I thoroughly enjoyed the sites, the sunburn, and the spent calories to still be appreciative.
It was great to have a new love and appreciation for Suzhou before we headed off to Shanghai for the weekend.