Monday 11th October 2010

12 October 2010

Monday 11th October 2010

A breather from the mayhem of Shanghai as we head out to explore a few of Monty Don’s ‘Around the World in 80 Gardens’ entrants in Suzhou. Aside from the immediate environs of the station, the town seemed relatively at ease with itself, little hassle from sales people, few people worrying too much about us being there. And they’re smart here - they even wear high heels with their pyjamas.

12 Oct 2010 12:34:17

The comments to this entry are closed.

Sunday 10th October 2010 After a very chaotic visit to Yuyuan Gardens and Bazaar we prepared ourselves for our evening visit to Expo 2010. We knew it was going to be big – it needs to be to accommodate all of the pavilions - but nothing had prepared us for the enormity of the place. It took us a good half hour to walk half way across the site to the UK pavilion. It was worth the walk though. The main element of the UK site is the Seed Cathedral, made from 60,000 rods, each holding seeds from the Millenium Seed Bank, to form what can be described as a dandelion building. It was quite lovely. More images can be found here (noting that the first image is the China Pavilion)

Tuesday 12th October 2010 A wet day in Suzhou, but that didn’t deter us resolute Brits, or about 3 billion Chinese from descending on ‘The Humble Administrator’s Garden’ and the ‘Lion’s Grove Garden’. Once again we were Canon fodder as busloads, were shipped in from Shanghai, causing near gridlock on Suzhou’s narrow roads. We wandered back, shell-shocked, through the touristificated old town along Pinglian Lu where we stopped for a splendid cup of coffee before our final push for the hotel.