Suzhou's Master of the Nets Garden

     Last week after we left Beijing we traveled to Suzhou, where Terry was visiting a factory to do an energy efficiency assessment.  Suzhou is a relatively small Chinese city of only 5.7 million people, not far from Shanghai.  It's a very old city that's most famous for its ancient gardens and canals.  There used to be over 100 gardens, but most have been destroyed as the city has modernized.  The few that remain draw lots of tourists.  Suzhou makes much of the old Chinese saying "Above there is Paradise, on earth there is Suzhou and Hangzhou".  

     We got into the city very late so I didn't have a chance to get my bearings until the next morning.  I used  our hotel address to get directions to the most famous of the gardens from Google Maps--twice--and was very surprised to discover that we were stuck in a hotel 70 km from the garden!  I asked at the hotel desk how people usually traveled from the hotel to the Suzhou Gardens.  By train?  No, no, not a train, you can take a taxi, the young man said.  How long does it take to get there, I asked, about an hour?   No, no, only about 10 minutes.  He handed me a map with all the major Suzhou tourist sites.  It turned out that Google Maps had been less than helpful:  the tourist map showed that our hotel was only a block away from one of the most famous sites, the Master of the Nets Garden.  So that's the one I visited.

     This is the smallest and probably the best-preserved garden in Suzhou.  It originated in the 12th century and was restored in the 18th century when a government administrator made it his retirement home and became a fisherman.  Like the other famous gardens in Suzhou, Master of the Nets features trees, water, rocks, pavilions and walkways, all carefully arranged for balance and harmony. What's unique about this garden is its clever design that gives the illusion of it being a much larger space.  I visited on a beautiful spring day, just warm enough, with a light overcast sky.  The plum and magnolia trees were in full bloom.  Here are some of my favorite scenes.