金鸡湖 (Gold Cock Lake)
by chris
We ate dinner at 水天堂大酒店, a good restaurant with a fantastic stewed chicken dish we tried. After dinner, we went to 金鸡湖 (translation: Gold Cock Lake), a big, beautiful lake to watch what you might call a lake show.
We walked around where hundreds of others were milling. Suddenly, lights of all different colours illuminated the harbour, some on the surface of the water, some shooting forward in swirling patterns and some rising as far as you could see into the sky. Water shot from spouts on the surface, elevated lights turned the shooting water purple, green and red, fire burst from a wall and heated our faces and I stood by, fascinated.
The water swished back and forth, sometimes creating heart shapes, sometimes arching and weaving, always with grace and wild colours. The lights on the water would change colour and pattern as the water flew and the lights in the sky rose and fell. Across the water, we could see fireworks in one direction, an island of green trees with lights under them in another, and a brightly coloured ferry crossing the lake. Suzhou is great!
