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Q: What is Suzhou cost of living?
What is cost of living for food, renting a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment, taking a taxi or public transportation, etc.?
Depends on several factors such as will you eat local Chinese (30-40 RMB per person), western cuisine (100-300 RMB per person), or street food (10-15 RMB per person).
Housing is all about location. In the SIP 3000-5000 RMB will get your livable apartment, where as if you go into the city you might find the same for half of that.
Taxi's are cheap 10 RMB to start and there is a decent subway system with 2 lines, east-west and north-south
It's very variable, depends on how you want to live.
* 2000 RMB/months in the SIP for a small 1 bedroom flat
* You can eat cheap but not very good food for 5 RMB/meal. You can eat local but with variety and some quality with 15 RMB/meal. Non-Chinese food, count 60 RMB/meal.
* One bus ride is 2RMB when aircon is on, which is most of the year. Bus are ok, often overcrowded, and poorly driven. The same ride by bike takes about the same time, usually...
* A metro ride average at 4RMB. 2 lines, covers interesting areas.
* Public bike is free, availability is mostly ok if you know where to look 
There are plenty of bike lanes, which are large and separated from the car lane. People don't know how to use bike lanes, but it's useable.
* Taxi fare starts at 8, 10 RMB. Never had a bad experience.
* A beer in a shop is 3 RMB. Good wine can be found for 100 RMB/bottle.
If you want to live cheap, have a bike and eat local ^^ Suzhou is very enjoyable by bike, and it's completely flat. Beware the smog, budget for masks.
There is a website that lists the average cost of living in all cities around the world. it even allows the comparing of several cities...
But i will not tell you the site. A basic internet search will yield results.
