Suzhou for Chinese New Year? You Have Been WARNED!

[Steve Beatty]

Alright, let me be straightforward: Suzhou is not suitable for a winter visit, and you should absolutely avoid it during holiday seasons.

To explain further:

First, the scenes of gardens in winter are too monotonous. Although cold is bearable, the bare trees and lack of greenery make the scenery less appealing. If you're from regions with magnificent natural landscapes (like northern China, where mountains and rivers stand majestically), the charm of Suzhou's small-scale, man-made gardens may not appeal to you much. Moreover, in winter, any existing "poetic atmosphere" tends to fade away. Suzhou gardens serve as prime examples of Chinese traditional gardens with meticulous layouts and scenic beauty through all seasons, but winter does make them a little less enchanting than usual.

Second, the people are just too many! In Suzhou’s attractions, especially those famous gardens, there's limited space. With so many visitors, it feels like being packed into a sardine tin — you miss the experience completely. I sincerely advise: if you must visit the gardens, you must rush inside right after they opened. Otherwise, I suggest avoiding the visit altogether.

Third, the management has some issues. As someone from the north, I've always wondered why the tourism departments around us work so hard to attract visitors during winter, almost as if engaging in a "sales slash." Now, I understand, as these places genuinely need efforts to draw tourists, hence more dedicated services and management. However, Suzhou is different. It's famous enough without needing to worry about low turnouts.

That said, it puzzles me why exactly during the peak travel season, roads in this popular tourist destination are under construction? It goes beyond that — there was no traffic guide at all! The entire thoroughfare was swamped by hordes of pedestrians, cars, and electric scooters. It looked like chaos straight out of a slum, that messy area around urban-rural outskirts.

Additionally, there are some pitfalls in ticket reservation. Many tourist spots claim online reservations are mandatory, even clearly specifying entry time slots. However, once reaching the gate, checking your entry slots seems unnecessary. What's crazier: apparently sold-out tickets from reservation apps like 'Your Suzhou' were still being resold using some unidentified二维码codes at the actual venue, with people luring tourists promising quick pass-through if they bought tickets from them. Honestly, if Suzhou's tourism department could properly estimate and distribute tickets according by the capacity of attractions, tourists’ overall experiences would definitely improve, with fewer grievances.

Furthermore, some visitors' behaviors were rather frustrating, difficult to articulate in just a few words. Throughout my journey, I witnessed several peculiar events, like suddenly encountering confident and loud middle-aged women jumping into lines rudely. When reminded to queue, they shot back with local dialects incomprehensible to both sides. Another example was walking down the streets while narrowly dodging others’ belongings, having feet run over by luggage wheels, getting grazed by bicycle handles, or being impaled by umbrellas; these people neither glanced at nor apologized for their rough behaviors.

But alright, let's not take these matters too seriously now. That's it. #Suzhou #TravelToSuzhou