We decided to go to Suzhou in the morning of Saturday. We arrived at the train station at 9:10am. No ticket for the next train (9:35am) was available. The one after the 9:35am will depart at 11:30am. Someone came to talk to us that they were the travel agency of the railway and had some tickets reserved. However, we need to take their bus day tour in Suzhou. It was only CNY15(CAD2) for the bus and tour guide. No one wanted to wait another two hours at the station so we agreed. We could opt for not joining the tour anyways and CNY15 is not a big amount. The ticket for the train was only CNY22 (CAD3). However, there was no more seat available, so we could just stand to Suzhou which took about 50min.
We decided to join the tour after we arrived and paid another CNY135 (CAD20) to the tour guide for the entrance tickets. Suzhou is famous for the Chinese style gardens. There is an old saying that "up there is heaven, down there is Su & Hang". Here "Su" represents Suzhou. And "Hang" represents Hangzhou, another city about 3 hours train from Shanghai. Both are known as the lake region south of the Yangtze River, where the cultivation of rice and the breeding of fish flourish. A lot of graceful poetry of Tang Dynasty (around 600AD) and prose of Song Dynastry (around 1000AD) described the sceneraris of Su Zhou, which I could hardly translate.
The most famous four gardens in Suzhou are: Shi Zi Lin, Zhuo Zheng Yuan, Liu Yuan & Cang Lang Ting. All are on the world heritage list of UNESCO which website says "Classical Chinese garden design, which seeks to recreate natural landscapes in miniature, is nowhere better illustrated than in the nine gardens in the historic city of Suzhou. They are generally acknowledged to be masterpieces of the genre. Dating from the 11th-19th century, the gardens reflect the profound metaphysical importance of natural beauty in Chinese culture in their meticulous design". (to be con'd)
We decided to join the tour after we arrived and paid another CNY135 (CAD20) to the tour guide for the entrance tickets. Suzhou is famous for the Chinese style gardens. There is an old saying that "up there is heaven, down there is Su & Hang". Here "Su" represents Suzhou. And "Hang" represents Hangzhou, another city about 3 hours train from Shanghai. Both are known as the lake region south of the Yangtze River, where the cultivation of rice and the breeding of fish flourish. A lot of graceful poetry of Tang Dynasty (around 600AD) and prose of Song Dynastry (around 1000AD) described the sceneraris of Su Zhou, which I could hardly translate.
The most famous four gardens in Suzhou are: Shi Zi Lin, Zhuo Zheng Yuan, Liu Yuan & Cang Lang Ting. All are on the world heritage list of UNESCO which website says "Classical Chinese garden design, which seeks to recreate natural landscapes in miniature, is nowhere better illustrated than in the nine gardens in the historic city of Suzhou. They are generally acknowledged to be masterpieces of the genre. Dating from the 11th-19th century, the gardens reflect the profound metaphysical importance of natural beauty in Chinese culture in their meticulous design". (to be con'd)
No comments:
Post a Comment