Three Thousand Images 
Suzhou is about an hour Southwest of Shanghai by train. It is still within the Yangtze river basin and is surrounded by fertile farming land. The city has a system of canals which gives it a feel somewhat like Venice. The major attraction is its fabulous gardens, beautifully designed in the Chinese fashion. It's the gardens that attract tourists to the city and are really a wonderful attraction. We visited several of the gardens, ranging from small private gardens, less well known, to the very famous Humble Admininistrator's Garden . It was built in 1513 in collaboration with the famous Ming artist Wen Zhenming. It has been restored many times, so I'm not sure how closely it resembles the original garden, but it is wonderful, never the less. Other gardens of note in Suzhou include;
Another site we visited was Tiger Hill . There is some history associated with the hill as it was the burial spot for Wu King Helu. One of my favorite features here was Sword Pond.This is a small rectangular pond, beneath which a treasure of 3000 swords is believed to be buried.
"We walked through many doorways and parts of the garden, and finally came out in the greenhouse part of the garden with bonsai and orchids. We wandered for awhile with many other people, and finally calmed down enough to enjoy the fish in the ponds, the plants and all the buildings, craftily built into a small space and arranged to make it seem like a garden covering many acres. There was a beautiful library building, the living quarters were upstairs. This was built in the 1500s. I would love to be there by myself. The lotus blossoms were out on the lily pads, a pale pink. The rock paths were gorgeous in earth/sky/bird designs. They were designed to massage the feet. Coming out of the garden, the stores were so much poorer and the views were much more open than we had seen in other cities. There were open canals everywhere, and they looked like a great place for mosquitoes. There were all sorts of vegetable markets and people with fruit baskets ready to sell us produce. There were beautiful melons and peaches. We got in the van and rode on to the Master of the Nets Garden."
"We walked through many other areas with gardens and buildings blending into each other until we reached the final area or gift shop. It was really a painting shop. I bought a beautiful silk painting of fish, and then we bought four woodblock prints of the seasons. The artist was there and I enjoyed talking to her. All of this was for 700 yuan."
"Then we walked down the 118 steps (there are 118 deeds or characteristics that a good person should have, you say these like rosary beads as you walk down). We declined the foot massage and headed right to our best hotel of the trip, a five star Sheraton built into what remained of the 2500-year old city wall. We all took showers in our glass walled enclosures and tried to get clean and then went to the bar to celebrate the end of our tour. We had all survived the trip quite well. A real success!"