China Assignment (Suzhou) bio picture
  • Welcome to my Suzhou blog!

    For the next two years (starting on Feb 14, 2011) I will use this blog to chronicle our travels while on assignment in Suzhou, China. My wife and I (OK, mostly me) consider this a great opportunity to get to know one of the oldest and richest cultures in the world. We are excited about the opportunity and hope you will join us as we explore this amazing land and it's surroundings. We encourage you to add comments as you see best.
    Thanks for visiting!
    My assignment ended on March 8, 2013. If you like to follow our next adventure click HERE
    Carlos & Bethe

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Humble Administration Garden

This garden is the largest in Suzhou and generally considered the finest in Southern China. The day was sunny and cool; spring flowers showing their bright colors for a large crowd to enjoy. We hired a tour guide to ensure we got the most out of this tour. It took us about 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete. Really nice place, but way too crowded. The tour guide told us; “if you like to take some nice pictures, you must come back on a weekday”. Maybe when our two daughters come back in a few weeks we will visit during a week day.

The garden covers 12.8 acres and has three distinct parts. There are so many gardens in Suzhou; for many they all start blurring a bit and looking the same. However, if you pay close attention each has their unique story and overall design. Excerpt from the plaque at the garden’s entrance…

In the 4th year of the reign of Zhenged (1509 A.D.) under the Ming Dynasty the Humble Administrator’s Garden was laid out by the Imperial Inspector Wang Xianchen who returned to Suzhou after retiring from public life. He borrowed the idea from an essay entitled “Staying at Home Idle” by the Jin writer Pan Yue, saying, “To cultivate my garden and sell my vegetable crop … is the policy of a humble man”; hence the name. Since 1997 UNESCO has inscribed it on the World Heritage List.

Below just a few pictures of a very nice place. Could easily spend a whole day looking around, but time was short. Hope you enjoy it.

Next post will be right after our return from the US; we are attending our oldest daughter (Sarah) graduation from Ball State University. Congratulations Sarah! We love you.

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A view from the current tourist entrance to the garden.

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The amount of flowers everywhere is simply amazing.

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A close-up of what it seemed to be peach blossoms. There was a large number of them lining one of the many man-made ponds around the garden.

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A wider view of one of the ponds around the garden. All of the ponds are man-made; designed to maximize a tranquil place for the owner. I like to experience this place with very little people around, I bet at dawn or sunset is just amazing.

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Another pond. This one had several small buildings on its flanks, and a great looking pagoda way back. Actually, that pagoda is not in the park, but a couple of miles away. I saw a picture of this spot after snow had fallen; wow was it nice. Hope I get to capture some like that plus fall colors.

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Ever wondered why the roofs in Chinese buildings have ends that point upward? In addition to giving the roof a very distinctive look, the Chinese believe that this shape keeps evil spirits away. Why? They believe evil spirits only travel in straight lines. Hence, this shape roofs will keep the evil spirits from entering their home.

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Inside one of the visitors buildings. Here they would have some tea and pass time reading or chatting with each other.

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Just a view I liked. Over all color and the shape of the roof caught my attention.

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Always thought Bonsai trees were little trees. According to our guide the word means potted trees, it has nothing to do with the size of tree. Was not able to confirm this. Actually, in Wikipedia, the definition of Bonsai contradicts our guide explanation and lines up with small tree. Having said that, this picture shows the largest potted trees I have seen. Bonsai or not, very nice.

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What I thought to be a nice view of another building in the garden.

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Boats used by the pond maintenance crew.

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My wife and I before leaving the garden. We will be back for a different views during fall and winter.

Sunny Day In Old Town Suzhou

Saturday, April 23rd; a beautiful sunny Saturday in Suzhou. The sky is blue and the air seems very clear and clean (probably not, but it just looks like that). Spring is in the air and the days are getting nicer. May is supposed to be a rainy month, well, May is almost here and we will deal with whatever it brings, for now we decided to go to the old part of town and take a look around.

See below for some of the many sights we saw. Will only post a few today, will follow with more later on this week. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the captions under each. Please note that we will be traveling to the US on May 2 to attend our oldest daughter graduation from college so we will not be posting next week; at least from China. HAPPY EASTER to everyone!!! (Matthew 21-1-10)

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A view from the end of Yuan Lin Lu Road. A very busy comercial street that ends where the Suzhou museum is located. At the end of this street there is a T; where left to right you have a wide variety of craft vendors. Many have really unique stuff, a few have very common stuff you see every where. In this view you can see 3 Rickshaws waiting for customers to take them to the main road on the other end of this street. Probably a 6 to 10 Yuan (RBM) ride - about $.93 to $1.50.

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This fruit looks great, but was told to keep away. The fruit looks great, but usually it is not what you get and were caution by a national about the scale they use to measure weight. Not exactly accurate.

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A view of a side street; just like the fruit color a lot.

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Meet Birgitte & Henrik, an extremely nice couple from Denmark we have gotten to know over the past couple of months. We happened to bumped into them and they treated us some awesome German coffee at this little side cafe.

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Just a lady waiting for someone.

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Tea is a big part of Chinese culture and there are many tea houses everywhere. We were a bit tired so we decided to have our first experience of having tea the traditional way. This tea house was off the main street and it looked good so we decided to try it.

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This is a traditional tea set. The little ceramic pot is made of a special clay that is supposed to enhance the taste of the tea. I chose the local green tea since I was told that the Spring is the best for it. They pour a bunch of very small dry tea leaves in the little clay pot, pour hot water in, place the lid and wait a few seconds. Then they place the strainer (bottom right) on the clear jar and pour the tea. Then the attendant pours hot water over the clay pot (do not know why) the water washes over the clay pot and then it goes thru small holes in the wooden tray and rest below the first level. The tea is then poured in the small white and blue cup. The aroma of this tea was really nice; the taste very different than any other tea I ever had - loved it!

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A view out the window right next to the table we sat in at the tea house. Tranquil and nice area; quite a contrast to the opposite end of the tea house which connected to the busy comercial street of Yaun Lin Lu

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A table set for two at the tea house we had tea at. Again, very tranquil place and yes, they have wireless! Watch out Starbucks

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Many artists are found on this street. This was one of the two we spent a good amount of time looking at. This one did very good clay sculpture as you posed for him. It seemed to take him about 30 minutes to do one head. As you can see he had quite a number of people looking on.

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In this view he was putting the finishing touches to a sculpture of a couple together

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Another view of the couple he worked on. Yes, Obama in on the left.

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One more, you can see a very good likeness; do you? This one will cost you between 150 and 200 Yuan (RMB) or about $23 to $31 dollars.

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As we prepared to leave the area this view caught out attention. Have a great week!

 

 

Tiger Hill

Tiger Hill is a popular tourist attraction in Suzhou, China. The poet, Su Dongpo, a well-know poet of Northern Dynasty, left this praise about Tiger Hill: It’s a great pity if one comes to Suzhou without visiting Huqiu (Tiger Hill). From the plaque at the entrance, which reads in part… “The place attributes its reputation to dozens of different-shaped hills and rocks as well as vibrant springs and woods. Every corner of it is suitable for making poems. According to historical records, Fuchai, Emperor of Wu State during the Spring and Autumn Period buried his father Helu in here. It was legendarily said that three days after burial, a white tiger was seen to be crouching on the tomb, hence the name Tiger Hill…”

…” The area enjoys a cultural history of over 2,500 years. The thousand-year old pagoda, shooting high into the clouds, is a symbol of Suzhou the famous historical and cultural city.

The day we visited was a holiday, so the park was really crowded. Would really like to come early on a weekday and see if I can get more pictures without people. Hope you enjoy it.

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My lovely wife at the entrance of Tiger Hill. The main pagoda can be seen in the distance.

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Throughout the park you can see many beautiful flower arrangements; here is one example.

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The park has a canal that seems to circle it. The boats you see are for rent, but decided to wait until the girls visit in May.

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I think the girls will like to go on one of these.

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Detail from one of the many stone carvings adorning a bridge in the park. It does not look old, but liked it anyways.

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See the little lions on top of the bridge pillars? The previous picture was taken while on the bridge.

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The flower arrangements were really beautiful. This is a fine example; the color is just the way it was.

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The leaning tower of Pisa. Actually it should be called that since this pagoda predates the tower of Pisa in Italy by many centuries. This pagoda was built-in 957 A.D. That makes it 1054 years old so over time the pagoda started to lean. Its lean is now 3 degrees, but should slow since a few years back the government reinforced the foundation.

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The park has many hills and levels. I can imagine myself 600 years ago walking around it and having a quiet time. Ah, sounds great!. If it is beautiful today, I think it would have been 10 times nicer then.

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A different angle of view of Huqiu Tower.

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A closeup of the tower. As you can see the brick work looks good for such an old structure. They used to allow visitors inside, but it was closed a few years back after they did preventive work to stop the tower from leaning. Hope it works.

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From one of the many terraces you can see many fine examples of the architecture of the time.

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We really like this round openings.

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Just a nice spot we liked.

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My wife probably thinking she is glad she does not have to take care of the grounds. I certainly am.

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We did not take a boat ride, but we did take a horse-drawn carriage around a portion of the park. This view is from that ride and it overlooks some really nice private home backyards.

At the Boardwalk

Across from our apartment complex there is a very nice boardwalk that goes for quite a long way. To the right, it goes into Li Gong Di – a very nice area on the shores of Jin Ji lake with a large variety of restaurants (our favorite Italian place – Piccola Italia – is in this area – July, 22, 2012 update – we have been disappointed by this place and no longer go there. Namaste -Indian Food- right behind it and owned by the same couple is much better). To the left, it goes into the Rainbow Walk area also with restaurants, to mention a few they have Mexican, German, Korean, Japanese, a great Chinese steak house, and an England style pub.

Last Tuesday, the last day of our four-day holiday, we had a sunny and warm day, so we decided to take a long stroll from one end to the other of the boardwalk. Below are some of the sights we saw.

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A view of the boardwalk. A very nice day and a large number of people were enjoying the day. The white part of the posts you see light up at night.

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A look at one of several piers off the boardwalk. Notice the large semi circular building on the background. This is Suzhou’s Birds Nest; a smaller version of the one in Beijing. We have not made it there yet, but sounds like we must. They supposedly have one of the largest and most elaborate theaters in the world. We will wait for our daughters and will take them there next month.

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This was really cool. Kids get inside and seem to have a blast rolling around a circled portion of the lake shore.

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Lots of fun for kids. A dad and his daughter having fun on a pedal bumper boat.

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This little girls was fascinated by the bubbles another kids was blowing her way. The wind kept on moving the bubbles just out of her reach, but she was having a great time chasing them down. We really laugh with her and many other watching this little one enjoying herself.

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Audis are highly priced by the Chinese. It is seen as a status symbol few can afford. This two are getting ready for when they grow up. Their was an adult steering the car remotely from close behind them.

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This couple saw me aiming at them and seemed to like the idea I was taking their picture.

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Most of the bikes we saw were rented from a couple of rental buildings in the boardwalk. This elaborate and comfy ride was very popular.

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So were three seater tandems.

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I am thinking having the steering on the front seat may be better, but hey, they are having fun.

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This was a very different rental. It work similar to a unicycle. You steer by leaning left or right. No thanks, give me two wheels.

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Many young people walking and having a grand time with their friends. These three were having their picture taken by a friend and also me. That is it for this week!

F o l l o w   u s