After our fantastic traditional Suzhou lunch, we headed off to ”Wedding street” – a block of shops that sells bridal gowns and suits. It was pretty crazy ‘cos there are SO many stores there you have no idea which one to go into.. and frankly, all of them are the same 😛

The idea was to see if I could get my wedding gown made in China, but frankly, it’s just not possible. First of all, we were a bit harassed at every store. They leech onto you and make it pretty traumatizing – you can’t browse the racks properly without them blabbing away and shoving dresses in your face! But horrid ‘service’ aside, I just didn’t like the gowns – to each their own I suppose! The ones on display would never ever ever ever grace my body, they were the total opposite of what I would wear. Extremely frilly, loads of psychedelic colours, and just all-round unsuitable for me. I like simple, classic styles with a scatter of crystals.. and most importantly, with gorgeous, draping fabric. And whilst I know I can get them to make it from scratch, 2 key issues:

1) How to explain exactly what I want, when I don’t even have photos of what I’m after (nor do I know exactly what I’m after either). Not to mention language barrier, all of them spoke zero English.

2) The quality of the fabric was not great. It was a far cry from the gowns I touched in Singapore and Australia. I like luscious, smooth, draping silk.. and these were all hard rough fabrics. It was a bit strange!

There were just too vast differences to what I was after, and considering I can’t even say what I want in Chinese, I gave up with the thought of having a dress made there. I’ll get it done in Singapore instead – I know the price is astronomical there, but you get wonderful, discreet service and superb quality.. so the decision is really clear 😛 However, I will get a qipao (cheong sam) aka traditional Chinese dress from China, because they are the BEST here!!! 🙂

We then headed to the main shopping street (Guan Qian Jie) but then I felt really really really ill. Think it was the heat, and though I drank 5 bottles of water (!), I got a MASSIVE headache, so bad I couldn’t even walk or stand properly. Crashed at Starbucks and slept for about an hour there 😛 Then went to McDonalds for a banana pie (it was awesome!!!!!!) and then KFC for some fries – all my comfort foods to try and feel better.

Still didn’t so ended up wandering around a bit, taking some medicine, then heading to the train station to crash and wait for the train home. And on the journey back, I felt OK again, lol!

It was off to Hu Qiu Lu, the “wedding street”, where we
poked through the stores looking at bridal dresses

There were also these little carts selling food, but it looked far
from hygienic, so we didn’t dare try any!

I came down with a MASSIVE headache from heat stroke, so
we went to Starbucks where I promptly fell asleep for ages..

Then woke up hungry so had Banana Pie at McDonalds (OMG THIS IS SO GOOD)
and then fries from KFC.. but still didn’t feel any better 🙁

So tried taking a walk around the area

Guan Qian Jie, the main shopping street in Suzhou

Then we headed to the huge lake to sit down on the grass and chill out for a bit

And no, I still didn’t feel any better 🙁

It was such a shame, cos would’ve loved to have eaten at one of these lakeside restaurants!

How gorgeous is this lit up pavillion?

So so sick, so caught a cab back to the station to go back home.
We saw fireworks along the way!