The park is located by one of the major canals on the North / East side of SuZhou. It is not far from the Old Water Gate, and right behind it is the SuZhou Zoo. I have been in YanCheng now for 6 months and no longer have a map of SuZhou from which to give precise directions.
The entrance looks great from the overpass, but otherwise you wouldn't know it is there. I did take some photos of it at night when I was on the canal tour. That tour leaves from 'ShiLu' which is the 'small' walking street - not Guanqian Jie which is the big walking street.
I spent a couple of hours just wandering around. I forget what the entrance fee was. I just remember being surprised that there was so much to see and that tour buses went there. There were heaps of them.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photographs. They are presented consecutively as I walked around.
The first 5 photographs are merely of old architecture.
Located on the other side of the highway from the Park.
The Day I took these I was just out walking around.
Located on the northeastern edge of the ancient city of SuZhou, the garden was first created in the early Qing period as a pleasure garden of Baoning Prefect Lu Jingzhi. In the 13th year of Tong ZhiReign (1874 AD), Shen Bingcheng, governor of Susongtai Region, acquired it and expanded it into the present scale. Later, Shen and his wife lived a retired life here, and renamed it "the Garden of Couple's Retreat". In 1941, Liu Guojun, an industrialist from Changzhou (once vice-govenor of Jiangsu Province and vice-chairman of Jiangsu Provincial People's Political Consultative Conference after Liberation), bought it and spent several years on renovation of the garden. In 1955, upon Liu's instruction, Tao Shunan, Manager of Zhenya Silk Weaving Mill (once vice-mayor of Suzhou), donated the garden to the People's Government of SuZhou Municipality. In 1961, the Municipal Government assigned the garden to the Municipal Garden Administration for renovation and management and to open to the public. Currently, the farden is an officially listed cultural relic under state protection and a registered World Heritage.
With an area of 0.8 hectare, the garden is divided into eastern and western gardens and residential quarters in the middle, linked up by an extended upper corridor. A river quay is built by the back door of the garden, which is a unique sight in Suzhou gardens.
An artificial yellow granite mountain in the central position highlights the eastern garden, the quintessence of the garden landscape. The stately and quaint-looking mountain is full of sheer cliffs and towering peaks, as a valuable piece of work among its kind in Suzhou. All the major buildings are elegant and peculiar in structure, such as "the Thatched Cottage at the City Bend" and "the Hall of Wine Storage", etc. The circular floor screen in the waterside pavilion "Between the Mountain and "Water" is an exquisite piece of perforated wood carving in three dimensions, and the best of its kind in Suzhou.
In the western garden, a series of delicate buildings ("the Old Curtain Weaving House" and "Tower of Book Collection" etc) form a typical court of study rooms.
3 close up photos of the craftsmanship
The Old House for Curtain Weaving
Curtain weaving means the weaving of bamboo products such as straw mat, bamboo curtains etc. The name of the house comes from the tale of make a living by weaving curtain, and teach disciples by composing books" depicting the life of Shen Lin, a holy hermit in Southern Dynastine, Modern scholars and ci (classical poetry conforming to a definite pattern) writers Zhen Wenzhuo, Zhu Zumou etc, have come here for several times to praise the garden with words and chants.
Ink Slab returning Studio
Looking across to a main road.
Follow the Canal and you will end up near the Guan Qian Jie Walking Street.
I hope you have enjoyed this little trip out near the Suzhou Zhou
R.P.BenDedek is from Brisbane Australia and is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at http://www.kingscalendar.com His academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
He writes photographic 'Stories from China' and social editorial commentaries, both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing newspaper columnist. He currently teaches Conversational English in China and in addition to his English Lessons at KingsCalendar, he has created specific sites for Students of English.
