August 2, 2012

• Suzhou + Xujing wedding 2 Jan 2012 (Day 3)

  Wake up in the morning, my friend had to leave me as he was heading to work. So, I enjoy Suzhou by myself.

  Suzhou is such a nice place. I love its air, its environment, its people. Spending a morning walking on Pingjiang Road is definitely one of the nicest things to do in Suzhou.

  Got some daylight shots of Archi-Garden, my historical hotel.

  

  A very nice reading area in my hotel, what a pity I did not have time to read.

  

  Spent a short time wandering around PingJiang Road. It is one of the oldest street in Suzhou and it kept a lot of old habitat and neighborhood of old Suzhou.

  

  

  

  

  Then I slowly walked to The Lion Forest Garden (獅子林）

  The Lion Forest Garden (獅子林）

  This is one of the 4 most important garden in Suzhou. With its creativity of placing the stone forest in the garden, The Lion Forest Garden for sure was one of the best garden I ever visited.

  It was kinda a small garden, but with the small path and walkway inside the stone hills, you can spend a long time in the garden. The scenery changed with your footsteps, high and low, left and right. It was very interesting to walk around in such a creatively decorated garden. That was why even the emperor Qianlong (乾隆）could not help writing “very interesting” (真趣) after visiting.

  The surprise was that this garden was built by a monk. So, it is believed that he implies some Buddhist thoughts in this garden.

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

   

  

  

  

  I sat down at the tea house at the second floor and had a hot tea. Only by this, you can experience the life of Suzhou people. Listening to Kun Opera, Sitting at the garden, drinking tea. That is how they live.
  Full of art and culture, amazing.

  

  Then I walked to the stone ship. It looked very similar as the one in Summer Palace in Beijing.

  

  

  

  

   

  

  What a beautiful door

  

  

  

  After visiting The Lion Forest Garden, I came to The Lingering Garden (留園）.

  The Lingering Garden (留園）

  Comparatively, it was not as famous as The Lion Garden and Humble Administrator’s Garden. However, it got much quieter because of less tourists. Lingering Garden is a garden full of artwork and detailed design of the designer. It contains a lot of Chinese culture. I just enjoy sitting there and look at all the details.

  

  The marble is art of nature. With the pattern of marble, we can see the sky and the mountain. It must be the inspiration of Chinese painting.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Nice Shadow

  

  

  

  This round marble used to be a table in the house. There is sun, mountain, cloud and water reflection in the pattern.
  Nature is the greatest artist in the world. Unblievable!
  I stood in front of this marble for a long time. I just could not believe my eyes.

  

  The specials of the design of living room. 2 similar room with detailed difference show the difference in statue, gender and class.

  

  

  

  

  

   

  

  

  After visiting The Lingering Garden, I rushed back to my hotel and got to the train station. And I lost my sunglasses on the way. >.<
  Taking a train from Suzhou to Shanghai is extremely quick.

  There, I met Xujing again, after all these years………..

   

  • 10:33 am
  • 1 Comment