Why I love China: Sending Postcards to the future in Suzhou

Welcome to: momi café~ 

I forgot to take a shot of the front entrance, but this is what the second floor looks from outside.
I went there once and I loved it, to bad it's in Suzhou and not in Shanghai, otherwise I would have visited more often.

First of all, here's the menu:

Please click to enlarge it ^^

I decided to order a mango shake, which was around 30 Yuan.

Not too cheap, but it tasted great and like fresh mangoes, so that's okay.

Now onto what's special in this café:

      Postcards

They have huge~ amounts of super cute, creative postcards that you can buy for only 2 Yuan each! (that's just 0,24€)

And somehow, you can send them to your future self? There's a place at the counter where you can do that. Unfortunately, I'm not living in China so I didn't get to try it out, but it seems like a super cute idea.

And the postcards are great, you can spend a long time looking around and deciding which one's to get ^^ 

Even the stairways up to the second floor (where you can sit and enjoy your drink while writing) are filled with postcards.

You can also buy other things instead of postcards. Mugs, Notebooks, home decor...they have it all. The prices are very reasonable and the best part of it: All of the items were produced directly in Suzhou :D Super authentic, isn't it? Those things make great souvenirs ^^

Even if you don't plan to buy anything this place is still great. I didn't plan  to buy things either but oh well...a few postcards won't hurt, right?

Anyways, it's a super nice place to relax and I love the decorations.

The wall of the stairwas was decorated with cool Beijing opera photos.

Upstairs, you can not only sit and enjoy your drink, many people also directly write and decorate their poscards. The café has a box with pencils on every table for that purpose.

Some people got creative on the lamps instead of their postcards :D

You can buy those pictures on the wall too.

That's it so far, I hope you enjoyed seeing a small glimpse of this cute café ^^  

Why I love China: Walking around Suzhou

 Welcome to Suzhou~

Suzhou is a relatively "small" town..for Chinese standards. For us that means it still has about 4 million citizens. It's about 45 minutes away from Shanghai by train, and since my Friend Jenny was teaching English there for 3 months, I went to visit two times in total during my 1 month stay in Shanghai.

Suzhou is often called one of the prettiest towns in China. There's even two famous sayings about this place: 

生在蘇州, 活在杭州, 吃在廣州, 死在柳州

Be born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou, die in Liuzhou.

Which means that Suzhou is the best place in China to grow up at.

And the most famous one:

上有天堂，下有蘇杭

Heaven above, Suzhou and Hangzhou below.

Which says that Suzhou and Hangzhou (another city not far from Shanghai) are like heaven on earth.

Well, Suzhou is certainly beautiful enough to deserve that title.

They still use bamboo for construction works.

See that small, temple-like looking building?

That's a bus stop.

The train station looks beautiful as well, with a river right next to it.

Before you stroll through the small, pretty alleys, make sure you eat enough.

It's easy to forget about time while walking, but your tummy probably won't forget :P

This was some really, really~ delicious fried chicken and vegetables we had.

I really love eating lotus roots, it's such a nice texture.

And the meal was so delicious, we completely forget that the bird flu was happening at that time in Shanghai and that we were not supposed to eat chicken..oops.

Now, onto the pretty alleys:

In China, no matter where you go there will always be some people who sell delicious street food.

In Shanghai it was mostly Stinky Tofu...but here in Suzhou, they sold lots of interesting looking snacks and sweets.

And they were only 2 Yuan each (about  0,24€)

Look at how cute those tiny pigs are :D

We tried the fotrune fish, but it was just quite...sticky. Not much flavour T^T

This probably does not look too delicous, but it's actually sweetened sticky rice which you really need to try if you get a chance to.

I think this was osmanthus cake, which I already had in Shanghai. It's usually yummy, but it can get a little dry if it's kept in outside for too long.

Let me talk about this bun:
SO.SO YUMMY.
It was very soft, kind of spongy and super sweet.
I think the filling was Taro, and it tasted great :D

They also sold lemonade and other drinks, in cute Eiffel tower bottles:

Even the Coco sign was adjusted to fit the traditional feel of the alleys.

All the stores and restaurants put so much work into decorating everything.

Would you like a drink at Buddha Bar?

That's it for today. I still have lots~ of photos I took at a super cute café in Suzhou, but I shall upload them another day, otherwise this post will get too long. 

Hope you enjoyed this post ^-^

Did any of you ever go to Suzhou? Which places did you visit?

And most importantly, which ones of the snacks would you have tried? :D