Ethan first trip to Suzhou - Lion Forest Garden( 狮子林)

This was the second trip that we leave Shanghai besides the ZhouZhuang trip when we first arrived. We have asked our driver to pick us up at 7.00am and Ethan managed to wake up at about 6.00am. Seems like he knew that he will be having a long distance trip today. Even we managed to start our journey early but we met up with a terrible traffic jam on the highway on the way towards Suzhou. Upon arrival in Suzhou, our driver had a tough time trying to find the attraction as the road changed a lot since his last visit here. We only manage to find the attraction at about 10.00am.

In Suzhou, lots of local people tried to do business peddling. When we just stepped down from the car, immediately one guy handed over to daddy the Suzhou map and daddy blur blur accepted it. Mummy reminded daddy to return it as daddy thought that it was free and actually need to buy it. We managed to return the map to that guy. After we entered the attraction to buy the ticket, there was another lady self-introduced herself and wanted to become our tour guide. We have rejected her but she still pursued by saying the cost is very cheap, about RMB30 per hour or something like that. We have to reject her twice. We immediately entered the garden as we were late and lot of tourist already inside the garden. Well, this was the first time we have seen so many people in the garden as normally the place we visited have less tourist. Seeing so many people we decided not to put up the camera Tri-pot to take our family photo.

When we first entered the garden, mummy immediately fed Ethan with milk(should have fed him in the car before arrival)meanwhile daddy went to take the photo of the garden. After letting Ethan drank his milk, this cheeky boy said he wanted to wee wee and asked us to find the toilet for him. Daddy held him but could not manage to find the toilet. This boy kept on saying he wanted to go to toilet and we kept on asking him to pee in the diaper.

We managed to take some photo when the tourist walked away and before another batch came in. That's why we did not opt to follow the tour guide as we feel like not much freedom t0 move about. If we like certain place but need to follow the instruction to walk away really no fun at all.

In the first building we entered, some of the decorations have been partitioned and block off by the rope in order to protect people from entering. However, our boy didn't care as he just walked inside and even sat on the chair. We have had a hard time to persuade him to come out as we didn't walk into the restriction area.

Behind the building, there was the rock formation - the main attraction of this garden. People were everywhere on and under the rocks. Ethan liked this rock formation very much as he can climb up to the top and walked down. The rock formation was just like a maze. Sometimes you didn't realize that you have already been here before and get lost. We spent quite some time here because Ethan refused to walk away. And we have less photo on top of the rock because we were worried for Ethan's safety as he kept on walking around the rocks.

After having the experience of climbing the rock, so whenever Ethan sees the rock he will try to climb on it. He even rode on some of the rock shaped like the horse. But he said he rides rock dinosaur. Watching too much "Barney", I guessed.

We finally found the toilet in the middle of the garden, daddy had to bring Ethan as per his request. He managed to pee but this one was not the first one when we entered that time. Daddy told mummy that Ethan's diaper was full but cannot change in toilet as China toilet didn't have the facilities to let baby change diaper. He has to pull Ethan aside in one room and change it with him standing.

The next place we arrived was the building with the rock ship which was locate beside the man-made small pond. We brought Ethan inside the ship. The ship had two levels. At the top of the ship we can view the scenery of the pond with one of the pavilion built in the middle of the pond and of course the rock formation view.

The floor inside the ship

Walked down the staircase inside the ship

Sit on the rock chair in front of the ship

We took some rest in the shady place after almost finished exploring the garden. Ethan was playing beside the pond and some of the local people kept on saying Ethan is a "GIRL". Mummy let him wore the boy style clothes and people still can say he is a girl. Queer.

Before we walked away from the pond, we need to cross a rock bridge. After crossing the bridge, there was rock formation and mummy told daddy better to avoid it but Ethan already spot it so no choice need to once again climb the rock formation. This round we cut short the distance by luring Ethan to walk on another side.

After we left the garden, few local people asked whether we want to take the car. We told that we have driver. One of local couple was asking the fee of the ride to other destination, the trishaw man asked for RMB10 per ride but the couple refused to pay this price. Then the trishaw man shown that the place there quite far away. The couple still refused to accept then the trishaw man dropped the price to RMB6 but the couple still walked away then trishaw man dropped again to RMB3 per ride. Realy terrible ho... because here is tourist attraction the local people tried to mark-up the price.