Monday Miscellany

Weekly random images


The Lion's Grove Garden, a labyrinth of stone paths, tunnels, and bridges.





The Jade Belt Bridge (or Precious Belt Bridge), a stately 9th century Song Dynasty bridge along the Grand Canal that would be a lot more interesting if it were still in the country, rather than within an industrial area. I rode my bicycle out to in on a Saturday morning with H.K., a Korean friend from our LDS branch.




Wildcat dumping along a canal north of Suzhou Industrial Park




Found out by the trashcans in front of our building. The ugliest chair, and I mean ever...

I offered to rescue this chair for our friend Elvina, whose landlord supplied her living room with cheap wicker patio furniture, and doesn't see a problem with that. Citing how uncomfortable the furniture is, Elvina (who is Chinese American and speaks Mandarin) asked for a new couch. The landlord said "there is only one of you, so just stack the cushions". I've been teasing her that she isn't allowed to have friends over or date. Still, she refused my helpful offer, so maybe I'll have to go visit it the chair again in the wildcat dumping area from above.

Dealing with clueless landlords is something that will get its own post sometime, after I collect a few more stories.

Tiger Hill

This is the second half of the same outing from Thursday. Tiger hill is a large park of hillside gardens. It is topped off by a 1000 year old pagoda, which leans. Suzhou already dubs itself the "Venice of the East" because of all its canals. So I guess this the "Pisa of the East". It really is a nice area, and it also has the best tourist trap shops I've seen so far.

Two views of the pagoda at Tiger Hill

The family

The saddest little broken down slope-backed horse I've ever seen

Day trip to Taihu

We have the week off from work and school for Chinese National Day. Although we have been here for over six weeks, we had only done local sightseeing. Yesterday we took our first real outing. We hired a local driver and he took us out to Taihu. the "hu" means lake, and Taihu, which is west of Suzhou, is one of the largest freshwater lakes in China. The following satellite image shows the location.


Taihu is the large lake at center left. The river is the Yangtze. There are four large cities visible in the image. Shanghai east at the far right. Suzhou is just east of the lake. Wuxi is at the northern edge of the lake. Changzhou is northwest of the lake at the corner of the image. The large island is Xi shan, or West Hill. The end of the large peninsula is Dong shan, or East Hill. We went to Xi shan, which is linked to the mainland by a series of causeways. It includes some nice resorts, and a pleasant little town that is obviously off the beaten path for foreign tourists (I didn't see a single westerner all day).

The following images are from that morning.


A cave we visited. It was kind of fun, but not especially spectacular. There are some additional caves west of the lake that are said to be much cooler (one has a waterfall, and in another you traverse an underground lake by ferry). Initially, I planned for yesterday's outing to go to those caves, but it proved to be too much of a logistical challenge, so I will work on it for another time.


John in a little pocket of rock off of the trail. Just outside of the picture to the right are the Chinese girls who thought this scene was very, very funny.



Lee and Allyne near the summit of the hill over the cave.



The second level within the pagoda. I think the guy here wanted to sell me my fortune.


A view from the summit.


Two views of the lake from another area of the island. The sky was very clear for the first half of this week, but the usual haze was back. Still, it was all very pleasant, it just doesn't photograph as well.


Two more images from the same general area. I should have kept track of the names of all these places.



Lunch. An interesting experience. Our driver recommended this little place. In the cities, most restaurants have picture menus to help out the foreigners. Here, the lady just took me out back to show me what they could cook for us. Everything was local, and most was right out of the lake. I chose a fish, a chicken, and I pointed to various vegetables. I specifically did not point to the little freshwater shrimp, but we got them anyway. Just because I pointed didn't mean I knew what they were going to do to them, so as each dish came out, we had no idea what it would actually be.

All in all, we had way too much food, but I've learned that ordering way too much food is a cultural characteristic here. Everything was good, even the scrambled eggs with little eel-like critters mixed in. The only thing I didn't like at all were the little shrimp. It isn't that they are staring back, it is that they were too much work for too little reward. The chicken was cooked in an oily broth, with only the innards missing. Everything else, including head and feet, were there with it.

Don't worry, if you come visit us, we won't feed you this way. Tomorrow I will post on the afternoon portion of this outing.

Monday Miscellany

My weekly roundup of pictures that don't necessarily have a story to go with them.


One of the many security guards on the school campus. With straight backs, military clothes, and white gloves, they take their job very seriously. I am sure that here, they feel they have landed a good job, while back in the U.S., this would be seen as a "crap job", and they would make sure they looked like they hated it.


A school assembly. The kid in the foreground is a really nice Korean boy who goes by Danny. I can't even remember his real name.


The weekend light, fountain, and fire show on Rainbow Walk at Jinji Lake. It is bigger than the show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Cheesier too, but in a good way. The shows usually happen weekly, but they have been sporadic lately because of tunnel excavation under the lake at this exact spot for the new Suzhou subway, scheduled to open in 2010.




Two views of old Suzhou. The second photo is the back door of someone's kitchen, with ancient steps going right down to the canal. It is a very evocative scene for anyone who doesn't have to live in this kind of poverty. I'm sure that, whoever they are, the get tired of tourists photographing them.

Chinese gardens

Suzhou is famous for its traditional gardens. We have been to two of them so far, the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Master of the Nets Garden. The philosophy of gardens is that they are to have four elements: plants, water, stone, and buildings. They really are beautiful. First are some pictures of the Humble Administrator's Garden.

Once upon a time, Suzhou is said to have had hundreds of gardens like this. About a dozen major ones remain. This second set of photos is from the Master of the Nets Garden

The crest over a gate.

An opium smoking room, apparently for women only

Three more photos of the Master of the Nets Garden