SUZHOU: Garden City

Friends He Yan and Zhao Xiaohong took me to Suzhou this past weekend.   It's supposed to have the most beautiful gardens.   (It's also a hot city with quite a few old parts of town.)

We arrive by fast train after 25 minutes of travel at 140 MPH.We check in and immediately start looking for lunch.   The plan for the day is simple, eat first, check out the first garden and then go shopping and then eat.  A simple but sensible plan.

Finding a place to eat is a little difficult, and we end up in a hole in the wall and bowls of steaming hot noodle soup Suzhou style.  Nothing like a bowl of noodles in good, tasty broth; though a little salty, it is what we probably need on a 95degree afternoon.

Yes, we ate here for around a 1 yuan a bowl. 

We decide to walk to the Garden of the Master of the Nets.   Today I discover that I have left my camera phone at the hotel in Shanghai, and I am forced to use the Lenovo phone I bought in China.  It's the cheapest phone I could find; it is so slow connecting to the Internet that I disabled that part of the service and haven't noticed the difference.  The phone has no email.  No flash on the camera; no selfie capability; and the zoom and the light conditions and increasing or decreasing exposure is all done manually.  I learn these skills as the weekend goes  on.

After about a mile, we come to the Garden of the Master of the Nets, named after a retired administrator turned fisherman who had a beautiful garden.  It is the smallest garden but possibly the nicest, according to the guide book. Now, every tourist attraction has a row of souvenir venders; they gather down an alley with little business to show for their time.   It's so hot, I start searching for a hat, and find a foldable straw one.

Rock sculptures,  like the ponds, appear to be  ubiquitous residents of  Chinese gardens.

 

 This garden seems to distinguish itself in part by the number of buildings it has in such a small space.

It's an amazing maze; in fact all the garden have the feeling of being formed in maze-mold..  I'm pretty quickly lost, though I recognize a building or two the second time we pass through.    We have to find maps to be sure which way to exit.

 As we came out of  one building,  we find a yard full on bonsai. 

Notice the poetic names for the pavilions and rooms.

Zhao Xiaohong and He Yan

We spend a couple hours here before we head back to the main road where we can catch a taxi to the shopping center. (I use words with tongue in cheek.).  It looks like the size of a small town!

Here's the entrance to the shopping area; like Shanghai's Nanjing Road, this road too is clear of traffic.

What to buy, what to eat, where or where will I go next?  ...I know, a candy shop!

 BUT happily, we come across a Taoist Temple.  Really? This is the Taoist Temple of  Mysteries. 

 Here's the altar.

This temple is very similar to a Buddhist temple.   It's got the incense burners, the guardians, and a series of other gods or immortals lining the side walls. And the huge main statue.   There are several smaller temples as well in the side buildings.   We have about a half an hour before the temple closes, so we rush through to catch what we can.  It's already a blur.   .

The piece on the right fascinated us because it looks so figurative,  and yet it's also clearly a piece of calligraphy that apparently was written quickly into the wet material.   My friends couldn't read the characters, but were also drawn to it.  

After walking a little more, we headed for a well-know "Bite of China" restaurant where we feasted on sweet and sour fish, fish  soup,  eggplant, and a variety of vegetables. 

 

 After dinner we have a choice to see the lights of the city or go to the older traditional section; I opted for the traditional which resulted in a quarter mile walk down a very old and poor neighborhood directly across from the shopping area.  A few doors were open due to the heat, and it looks like people are living in bare rooms. The buildings are similar, but the street evolves into little places of business and then shops with a little river running between them.   We sat here for a bit in the dark.   I took photos of a lady selling chicken feet and other cooked meats near the bridge we sat on.She seemed to enjoy being the subject of the photo.  Here she is:

                                

 

 

He Yan found a shop with a little performance room and came running up to tell us about a Pippa music being played.   So we walked back and found this couple performing. 

Thus ends our evening and we find a taxi back to the hotel. Tomorrow?  The Humble Administrators Garden, a boat ride and the Suzhou Museum.

DAY TWO

The next morning we head to the Humble Administrator's Garden.   This place is huge.  It is park- size and though spacious because of its popularity,  it feels  more crowded than the Garden of the Master of the Nets.

While it too is filled with ponds and stone sculptures, and a variety of buildings, all of which have wonderful names, it also has a sculptural feel to the landscape with rolling knolls and steep hills with little pavilions, where one can sit and relax.   There's also a very large bonsai garden, a bamboo garden and more.  Just its very space gives it a different feel from both the Master of Nets and Yuyuan garden in Shanghai. 

 

 Before we enter the museum, we are approached by a two people who want to sell us a deal--50Y off of the museum and 25Y off a tour boat trip around Suzhou.   It sounds good.  We should have time.  After all we have only the garden and the museum planned, so after some hemming and hawing, and thinking a boat ride might be relaxing, we relent.  I pay (for once this weekend, they let me pay!), and we head for the garden, which you see above and below.

 

Clearly some things are survivors.  These two definitely are.

Of course both of these trees catch our attention. 

 One of many steep rockeries that line hills located in this garden.

Strolling through the grape arbor.

A cottage with  a thatched roof.

One of many special places in this garden.

We need a map to find where the exit is.

 We leave a little early because we are on our way to our boat ride. After a longer than expected walk back to the entrance of the garden and back down the road a couple of Chinese length blocks, we get to an air-conditioned bus, where we wait for 25 minutes.  Then it's off to a 15 minute ride to the boat ramp, and a 40 minute boat ride around central Suzhou.  Here are some pictures.

The bulwark that keeps theter from the bank.

 

Of course everything takes longer than we planned.   It's after two -- almost 2:15 and the guide wants everyone to shop at a silk shop, but we need to move on to the museum, for our train leaves around 5 p.m.   We head for the street, looking for a taxi, but there are no taxis on this relatively untraveled road.   People get here by tour bus, not by taxi.   But we're lucky, an illegal driver says he can drive us to the museum for only 40 Y, and Xiaohong always the bargainer is able to shave 5 Y off the price and we're on our way.   It's 2:45 and we have an hour left, but first, we haven't had lunch, so we stop across from the museum for a filling lunch of fried  rice and custard soup and vegetables.

WE

 Oh, oh.  It's  a long line into the museum, but luckily it moves fast.
  

He Yan says the museum was designed by a Chinese American architect.  The white and black have been chosen to match the colors of the local exterior walls.

Inside the museum, looking out into the back "yard"

  We're rally more interested in the building than the contents, which are traditional, historical pieces, similar to those I have seen in the Shanghai Museum.

Jade.

In fact, they have three bed pans, which is two more than the Shanghai Museum showed. 

Xiaohong identifies them as wine containers, an entirely plausible conclusion,  until I explain the concept of "form follows function."

A special pool in the basement of the museum

These are the eight  immortals.

Jade dragon carving

This was pretty spectacular.  The photo does not do it justice.

Wisteria

Tea at the museum, a place to rest.

 But we rush out to catch a taxi.  It's almost 4 pm. and we have to get our luggage and get to the train station to catch the 5:15 p.m. to Shanghai.  

 We're on the taxi, on the way to the train station, when we pass this Buddhist temple.

 The train station in Suzhou.......

 

We make it with too much time to spare.   We stand around a bit, and finally get to board.   Exhausted.   I think so.  Thank you He Yan and Zhao Xiaohong for the generosity you've shown with your time, your money, your good humor, and patience!   It was a great trip.   One that I'll definitely remember.