Visit to Suzhou

The city of Suzhou was amazing with its many gardens and canals.  It was a bit crowded at some of the gardens but well worth the effort to see the place.

The first garden was the Lingering Garden which as a few hundred years old.  This is the residence of the owner as of a couple hundred years ago.

One of my favorite parts of the nice Chinese gardens are the many miniature trees.  I'll refrain from calling them by their Japanese names because the Chinese are quick to point out that they have been cultivating this style of planting since long before the Japanese had.  And given that historically the Japanese descended from the Chinese it is hard to argue the contrary.  Regardless of what you call them, I marvel at how they manage to grow these ancient little trees of all varieties.

I loved the mental image of "omnivorously" putting waste into the garbage can.

There are often musicians playing for the enjoyment of the visitors.  This garden had this artist and one out on a boat being paddled around in a small pond.

This is Tiger Hill park.  The pagoda above is at the top of the hill.  This is a very unique design unlike any other I have seen in China.  It looks more like something I'd see in cambodia or Thailand.  Breathe in.....Breathe out.....

This is one of favorite photos.  Chinese girls like wearing colorful clothing.

Okay, the camera isn't crooked and I'm not leaning.  The Pagoda has a significant tilt.

I loved the many, many, many flowers......achoooo......
This is at the Humble Administrators Garden which is an ironic given that the Humble Administrator's garden is a huge section of the old city.  The Humble Administrator was loaded to afford all of this.

And of course they have many miniature, sculpted trees.....fascinating.

Suzhou is the most popular place in China to get married...followed closely by Hangzhou.  Suzhou has a long street lined with wedding dress shops.  Red is the traditional color for good luck.  White dresses reflect the strong influence of western culture.  Many of the young people prefer a less expensive western style wedding with a white dress.  A wealthy couple may buy two or more wedding dresses and have pictures taken in the traditional red dress and also with the white dress.

We took another boat ride along the canals of Suzhou

The water wasn't the cleanest.  Sewage wasn't dumped into the canals but often sink drains or water from cleaning buckets are thrown into the canal.  On the narrow section they warn us to keep the windows on the boats closed because people in the homes are often throwing water from a window into the canal.  There were a couple of close calls on our boat.

As we drive away from Suzhou I took a picture looking back at the ancient city area.  The ancient city is layed out as a square surrounded by a moat.  You can see one of the corners of the city with moats going down both sides and the watch tower at the corner of the old city walls.  There is little left of the actual city wall but the moats and canals are still there.

Trip to Hangzhou City and Xitang Village

During the Chinese May day holiday I traveled with the BYU China Teachers group to the cities of Hangzhou (hang joe) and Suzhou (Sue joe), and the ancient Yangtze River delta village of Xitang (she tang).  This area is the Venice of the Orient because of the myriad canals and rivers criss-crossing the cities and the countryside in general.

The first two days were spend in Hangzhou and Xitang.  The following pictures are from visits to those two places.  I'll talk about the visit to Suzhou in a separate blog.

Hangzhou's streets and canals are lined with trees and flowers.  The architecture is distinctive.

Stone and cement block arched bridges are everywhere throughout the city.

Many Chinese stroll along the banks of the canals and rivers.

This canal is the moat of the ancient city of Hangzhou.  You can see one of the only remaining segments of the old city wall behind me across the moat.  The Chinese temple-like structure is the old city gate in that segment of the old wall.

View from on top of the old city wall.

Along the waterfront of West Lake there was a Las Vegas style music, light and fountain show.  Just above the jets of water you can see one of the temples on a hill overlooking West Lake.  West Lake has been apart of Chinese legends and lore for over 2000 years.  It is the most popular destination for China's romantically inclined.  Hangzhou and Suzhou according to Chinese folklore were created as the closest things to being in Heaven in China....even in their ancient poetry.

Tour boats for sailing on West Lake.  We didn't ride on the Dragon boat in the picture.

There are many parks, paths and bridges that connect the myriad small islands along the east side of West Lake.  Many gardens decorate the islands.  So although it was a busy tourist time there was plenty of room.  You didn't feel crowded.

Did I mention there were many scenic bridges?

Outside of the city enroute to the village of Xitang were many small rural areas with these homes.  I haven't seen this style of housing in rural China.  Obviously the farmers that live in these rural homes are wealthy.  In fact, the spires with the 3 spheres on them is representative of the amount of money the owner has....an open boast of their wealth.  The small ball is a half million chinese dollars, the next size up is one million, and the big ball is 2 million.  So these owners have more than 3.5 million dollars which is about a half million US.

The village of Xitang had narrow alleys and many sizes of canals.  There has been a village at this site for  well over 1300 years.  There are 104 bridges in the town the oldest of which was built over 1000 years ago.