When you hear the word “garden” in the United States, you immediately picture colorful blooming flowers filling up an area like a rainbow growing from the ground. You picture fountains and bird baths and maybe a quarter of an acre, right? But do you picture pagodas and temples and sitting rooms? Because the Chinese kick that stuff up a notch. A “garden” here in China is an entire collection of little temples, structures, buildings, flowers and rock structures that leave you constantly in awe.
We are now in the city of Suzhou, a few hours away from Shanghai and it has a completely different feel from the insanity and congestion of the booming city of Shanghai. Don’t get me wrong, I love the hustle and bustle of a busy city, but it was time to spread our wings and see another type of living. Suzhou is a water town with canals going in and out of parts of the neighborhoods. Imagine Venice but different architecture.
And it is home to gardens so amazing that I filled an entire memory card on my camera.
Our first stop was Humble Administrative Garden. Let me tell you guys what happened here back in history in the 1500’s. You’ll be shaking your head when I’m done and yelling, “NO!!!!!!” So here’s this 13 acres of gardens. Absolutely stunning with all these pagados and ponds and trees. And one night gambling with good-for-nothing friends, the owner’s son gambles it all away. NOT the owner – his damn stupid son. ALL OF IT! He loses the garden because of his dumb-ass son. How insane is that??? I’m mad when my kid eats my hidden snacks without me knowing, imagine the fury you’d feel if your son sold your gardens on a lousy pair of jacks.
That’s Vera (from Lady and the Blog) and I – though I have no idea why we look like we are on our honeymoon. Must be my hat – all the ladies love it…
And thanks to Dana Zucker (from Tri Wives Club for this pic) – you can see the Tiger Hill temple in the far distance.
Oh wait, here’s another crazy thing about the garden. And this was true for many of the gardens during this time period. See these beautiful mahogany chairs?
Okay, so this chair was in the “women’s section” of the resting room structure. By the way, the men’s side had a beautiful view of the gardens. The women’s section had a view of a white wall. You see where I’m going with this one. Well anyway, when the women sat down, they weren’t allowed to put their elbows on the arms of the chair – that was reserved for men. They had to put their hands folded in their laps. As you can guess, I’m not loving those chairs…
One of the things about the garden that makes it so amazing and took my breath away was that it had over 500 bonsai trees. And get this, bonsai is actually originally from China, not Japan. It’s now always associated with Japan but it originally came from Bonsai. And I felt freakishly giddy when we learned how to cut them and I got to try. As many of you know, I basically kill any living creature that isn’t human so this was highly entertaining for me.
However, the entertainment really didn’t kick into gear until we made our way to a private tea house where we got to sit, sip tea and listen to a woman play the pipa and a man play the sanxian. The sound lulls you right to a calm place where you don’t notice the differences between you and the people around you. You just see a sea of neighbors enjoying the music together.
But I had to kick it up a notch. So when it was Sue (from the blog Field Trips with Sue) and I’s turn to sit and hold the instruments, we sat ourselves right down and got to singing. Yeah, I’m not kidding. We actually sang, “Miss American Pie” and “Take Me Home, Country Road” and had the people on their feet singing along. We brought down that tea house like it has never been brought down before.
After that dynamic performance, we were off to lunch. And by lunch, I mean that you sit around the largest round table with a lazy susan you have ever seen and try to wrap your head around the constant influx of food that is being brought to the table and shared. From duck to pork to vegetables to soup, eat dish dropped gets you one step closer to heaven. And then this arrived.
The fish presentation to rival any fish presentation. We cheered, we laughed. And my god, we ate. If you are nervous about the food in China, let me reassure you. There is something for everyone. They embrace vegetarians, but they also have incredible meat dishes. You can go adventurous or keep it closer to your norm – those options are here. But I will say this – everyone on this trip was a bit nervous to try some of the unknown dishes and the most commonly heard phrase is, “Wow, that’s actually really good.” So my view here is to go for it.
From lunch we took a boat trip on one of the canals and were amazed by the beauty of a city so rich with history. But when later in the night came and it was time for dinner, it was a new kind of history we saw. We were guests at the Lamborghini Hotel – yep, you read that right. It’s the hotel owned by the famous car-making family. And parked right out front, begging for me to be its car model was a crazy Fast and the Furious lamborghini.
But the thing I loved most about this stunning hotel on the water was this. Every door number is a set of books. And also, there’s quotes to The Beatles songs on the carpet. How damn cool is that?
And just when we felt our feet might fall off and our eyes might close completely on their own, we hit one final garden. The only garden open at night – The Fisherman’s Garden. With eight different performances throughout the garden, we saw Chinese opera, theater, musical performances, and my favorite – the two old men dancing out a story about all of us becoming wealthy.
When my head hit the pillow, I felt as if I lived the entire day in a dream. I didn’t have time to miss my children or think about what works waits for me at home. I didn’t have one moment to give in to stress or worry. I was too busy smiling and breathing in all the culture the country was giving me with open arms.
Beautiful day with Mandarin Journeys. Tomorrow, off to another town, another adventure… Stay tuned!