This weekend the weather was lovely and it allowed for some exploring of the city, specifically the Times Square area. This is a really nice, upscale neighborhood with tons of shops, restaurants and apartment buildings. The Suzhou subway (Line 1) has a stop in the area, which makes it convenient and easy to get to, except from where I am staying in Suzhou. There is no North/South subway line on the east side of Jinji and Dushu lakes, so in order to take the subway from Moon Bay where I’m currently staying to Times Square, I need to hop on Line 2 and transfer to Line 1 … all of which takes about 80 minutes. Oy!
A faster alternative is to hop on the 156 or 176 busses that go up and down Xinhu Jie (Star Lake Street) and run every 10-15 minutes. For all of 2元 (or about $0.30 USD) you can travel the 4-5 miles from Moon Bay up to Times Square. Yeah, a little walking is involved, but nothing too bad. Just be sure to have exact change as the bus drivers don’t make change and you don’t want to over pay!
I’m glad I explored Times Square a bit more as I found a number of good restaurants to sample in the Harmony City shopping mall. That place is huge! It even has a rooftop park as you can see below.
I’m not sure if this is the right translation, but today’s word of the day is 总线 (Zǒngxiàn), meaning bus.