Me & City (Suzhou, China)

Suzhou Garden Yearly Cards allow you visit almost all of Suzhou Gardens and tourist attractions freely. The cards are valid for one year and you can go up to 100 times per year without extra charge. The cards costs 120 RMB and another 40 RMB for the deposit and are issued twice annually, in June and in December. So it’s just the time to get one if your are a garden addict!

Though the application for Suzhou Garden Yearly Card is open to almost everyone living in Suzhou—natives,  new Suzhou residents came from other cities and foreign residents, as a foreigner you will get the card successfully on condition you can prove over 2 years of Suzhou residence showed by  your visas and plan to stay in Suzhou for at least the following 6 months.

Passports (must), residence permits(must) and police registration form(recommended)  should be brought when  you apply the card. And pay attention that you have to apply the card in person but not have anybody bring your materials to the service centers and act for you cause a mugshot of  you need to be taken and recorded in the card memory.  Meantime,  you are  not allowed to rent the card to anybody else when visiting the gardens.

There are several service centers for your choice as follows:

Hongsheng Dasha Suzhou Tong Customer Service Center
Tel. 0512 6522 3311
Address: 1st fl. Hongsheng Dasha, 566 Ganjiang Lu, Suzhou干将东路566号宏盛大厦一楼西侧

Fenghuo Lu Suzhou Tong Customer Service Center
Tel. 0512 6829 6688
Address: 56 Fenghuo Lu, Suzhou 烽火路56号

Suzhou Gongyuan – Suzhou Park
Address: 26 Minzhi Lu (Wusa Lu), Suzhou苏州市民治路26号(五卅路)

Tongjing Gongyuan – Tongjing Park
Address: Tongjing Nan Lu, Suzhou苏州市桐泾南路

I have to be honest there’s no high mountain in Suzhou.  However, if you would like to enjoy some hiking and climbing, Tianping Hill is the one you can’t miss though it is only 201 meters above the sea level.

Tianping hill locates in the southwest part of Suzou, which is named “No. 1 hill in the Central Wu”(Wu is the ancient name of Suzhou and around Suzhou).  What’s the most attraction of Tianping Hill is the colorful maple trees spreading over the foot of the hill.  Tianping Hill is regarded as one of the four best places for enjoying the red maples in fall, sharing the same popularity with the Xiang Hill in Beijing, Xixia Hill in Nanjing and Qiulu Hill in Hunan.

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I have a hint for you that according to my experience the second and the third weeks of Nov are the best period to enjoy red maples. During that time, the colors of the maples are most colorful, with the different levels of green to red to yellow.  The magic of nature!

Enjoy some pictures I took in the previous falls.

The Red Maple Festival this year is from 24th Oct to 6th Dec, and the admission is RMB 18.  Bus 315, 37  have stops at Tianping Hill.

If  you want to tour around the Jinji Lake, there is a very convenient and economical way I’d like to recommend that is taking the Jinji Lake Tour Bus.  It  is a circle line that covers almost all sightseeing spots around the Jinji Lake with a total length of 15.9 km.  And because it is a double-deck bus, you can have a more wide angle of view on the upstairs to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

The bus starts at Suzhou International Expo Center and gets by 17 stops in total including Culture Water Gallery, Modern Square, Yacht Terminal, Haitang Yuan, Jinji Base, Rose Bay, Lake Viewing Corner,  Wetland Park, Water Alley Neighborhood, Ligong Embankment,  Park of Wind, Lunar Calendar Square, Lakeside Avenue, Park of Camphor(City Square), Ling Long Bay, Suzhou Science and Cultural Arts Center.

The tour bus is available from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM and the intermission is about 20-25 minutes. The price is 2 RMB no matter at which stop you get on and how many stops you take.

I just enjoyed some great fireworks let off around Jinji Lake minutes ago. The fireworks tonight was so gorgeous that it is the greatest fireworks I have ever seen. The whole procedure started at about half past 7:00 PM and last more than one and half hours including the break time. And the fireworks was set off separately at four spots first starting at the east lakeside of Jinji Lake(close to the Suzhou Science and Cultural Arts Center), then at the island in the center of the lake and then on the southern sidewalk of Jinji Lake Bridge and finally at the west lake avenue of the lake.

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I always think fireworks is a kind of fantasy so dazzling with so instant lifetime. Enjoy fireworks can have me  feel my dreamland. Any way, keep dreaming is always a good thing:)

Enjoy a little fantasy with me if you can ignore my poor shooting skill, haa

The lotus festival is going on through to the end of August at The Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Lotus-pond Wetland Park in Xiangcheng District.  At the Lotus-pond Wetland Park, you may also enjoy picking lotus seed while rowing a small boat.

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I love lotus personally very much, which is my favourite flower. The elegant lotus have me feel clear and pure and the smell of them is really fresh. Watching the beautiful  lotus petals waving in the breeze like playing game with the jiggly reflections when a piece of cool summer wind touch over is so enjoyable.

Ok, share the nice pictures of lotus with me:)

As a Suzhou native, I was asked many times by visitors that what is the most specialty of Suzhou I could not miss to introduce to strangers. I bet absolutely 99% of the natives will have the same answer that is the classical gardens. Then pop the next question “Is there a garden that I must visit since there are quite a lot of gardens in Suzhou town?” Yes! If you have not enough time to visit several gardens one by one , there is one you really can’t miss it—The Humble Administrator Garden.

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Maybe you have no idea what’s the difference between gardens in Suzhou with other places. Different with the royal gardens in Beijing, the classical gardens in Suzhou are private gardens in history. Of course, almost all of them have become tour spots nowadays.

The Humble Administrator’s Garden, covering 5.2 ha., is built as early as the 4th year of the reign of Zhengde under the Ming Dynasty (1509 A..D). It is one of the four most famous gardens in China, enjoying the same reputation with The Summer Palace in Beijing, the Imperial Mountain Summer Resort in Chende and another Suzhou classical garden named The Lingering Garden.

Currently the whole garden is separated into three main parts, the east, middle and the west. And a part of the the housing complex has been converted for the use as the Suzhou Garden Museum.

The garden kept the style of the Ming Dynasty fully and it was inscribed  on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1997.  In 2003 it was listed as the National Tourist Attraction of Grade AAAA. I couldn’t remember how many times I have been to the garden since I was a little child and I personally think the beautiful waterscapes, exquisite buildings and luxuriant vegetation are matched so well, which make the garden has a unlimited scenery in a limited room. Every building, every pavilion has it’s own story to explore. I will add posts one by one later. Let’s first enjoy some pictures I took!