Land of Gardens
We took a short train ride through Shanghai to Suzhou which is the mecca of gardens in China with 100 of gardens of all sizes and quality. We checked out two main gardens. The Humble Administrator's Garden Was built by a corrupted High Official that took so many bribes he was kicked out of the party, but found enough money to build the biggest garden in Suzhou. He always claimed his innocence though, thus naming the huge and expensive garden "The Humble Administrator's Garden" Master of Nets Garden Is the smallest garden in Suzhou and built by a great military general that moved to Suzhou to retire. He came up with the name as he wanted to live the simple life of a fisherman and his garden was his refuge.
The next day we headed to the leaning Pagoda on Tiger Hill. The three main highlights of the site are as follows: He Lu Tomb A ruler of the area who was buried in the hill with his 3000 swords. The day after he was buried a White Tiger was seen on the hill as the legend goes and the way the hill got its name. 1000 Man Stone Is a huge flat stone that He Lu ordered the 1000 people who built his tomb to be put to death so no one would know where he was buried. Yunyun Pagoda Which is on top of Tiger Hill and as half of the foundation was clay it started to lean. In the 90's the government decided to fix the structure so it won't fall over but didn't correct the tilt.
Finally we went to see silk embroidery and had a tour of Tongli an ancient water town where we purchased a silk embroidery. More thumbnails ...
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