Wuxi ......... Cut from the travel bible!

Yes, you read correctly………Wuxi has been cut from the latest edition of the China Lonely Planet! My current home town has gone from being described as ‘smoggy and characterless’ to not even rating a passing mention in the updated Lonely Planet guide. After not really doing anything touristy in Wuxi last year, I was searching the new edition hoping to gain a little bit of an insight into the attractions that Wuxi does have to offer, namely a couple of parks and Lake Taihu (although there are other nicer places to see the lake, Suzhou mainly). So you can imagine my horror when I couldn’t even find Wuxi in the index! As a colleague mentioned today whilst we were discussing the issue, “At least there won’t be any tourists coming through” – Ah, I don’t recall fighting off hordes of tourists in Wuxi in the previous year! I’ve also been reading my China bible to plan the first lot of holidays, coming up in only four weeks! Ah, the life of a teacher in China! Dad and his partner, Carla arrive half way through the holidays, so I’ve been having fun planning an itinerary for them, a tough job considering they are only here for 10 days and want to see all the main sights as well as catch up with me. The plan so far is for me to meet them in Shanghai and then head up to Xian for four days to face the mighty Terracotta Warriors, before they brave the Chinese train system to Beijing and I take a more civilised flight back to work in Wuxi. I still have four days to kill before they arrive, so I am planning to head to either the Huang Shan mountain or the lake side city of Hangzhou. Somewhere where I can do some walking in a beautiful location (albeit with thousands of Chinese tourists!) is what I am after. So, while Wuxi has been struck off the tourist route, surely that must mean that its place has been filled with other more tourist worthy sights in China?! Also, does it mean that I’m getting a more authentic experience, living in a ‘non-tourist’ city?!