Jiangsu, part 9: Humble Administrator's Garden

Suzhou's Humble Administrator's Garden is nice, but not spectaular. If you get caught in the wrong spot, the tour guides can drive you crazy. Other places and times, however, it can almost be relaxing. Perhaps it would have been nicer in the morning, but we arrived in the middle of the afternoon.

We took a city bus from the train station to the garden. It was a "tourist" bus that circulated to the local highlights that they expected tourists to go to. We had a bit of a walk from the bus stop to the garden, though.


Past a fancy new museum and past plenty of tourist-oriented shops.

Through the gates and into the Humble Administrator's Garden, which was originally the personal garden of an imperial administrator for this region. With a huge garden like this, I'm not sure how humble he actually was...















This city had more foreigners than anywhere in China outside the World Expo. Or so it seemed. French and Russian and German and too much English.

Having no blonds in a crowd was weird, but having blonds in a crowd was weird to me, too.



Since we were tired enough to fall asleep on our feet, we decided to not visit any of the other gardens in Suzhou, even if they may have been quieter.

As you might expect, I've posted more photos of this garden on flickr.