How to plan for a day trip to Suzhou

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sakuraoink

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Joined: May 05, 2008
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Posted: May 07, 2008 - 01:36 PM
Post subject: How to plan for a day trip to Suzhou

Hi, sorry i have so many questions.
I was thinking of planning a trip to Suzhou.
of the 3 water townships - Mudu, Tongli & Lu Zhi, which is worth to visit?

i had done some reading online and i cant decide.....

of the 2 - 狮子林 (The Lion Grove Garden) & 拙政园 (The Humble Administrator's Garden), which is worth the visit?

and how far are the water townships to the gardens??

thank you in advance.

lilypink

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Joined: June 10, 2007
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Posted: May 10, 2008 - 11:50 AM

1st q: in general I will choose Tongli for 1st, while it seems more isolated from the city and demonstrates an original ancient style. Lu Zhi stands on the 2nd choice, it is not far from shanghai, but a similar style to Tongli. Mudu is quiet different from the above 2. It locates in the Suzhou New Distric which is an industrial area. Although it is quiet attractive due to historic legend between Wu and Yue Kingdoms(770 B.C.-476 B.C. Spring and Autumn period in chinese history), and story about one of china's 4 most beautiful ladies in the ancient time, namely XI SHI, concubine of the king of Wu, this town is less well-known than the above 2. In Mudu there is only one garden to see which is called Garden of Yan Family. In addition maybe Linyan mountain nearby to visit.

2nd q: I will choose both, reason 1: the 2 gardens are almost sticked together like teeth and tongue, just one street cross way; reason 2: Lion garden is well-known for it's lion-like-stones, which reflects a vivid funny scene u should never miss, especially when u have kids in hand. While the Humble Administors Garden helds the title of the biggest ancient garden in suzhou style nation wide, and is visited annually by thousands of million tourists, it is called the garden which gathers the comprehensive characteristics of chinese gardens. Dont miss it or u will regret forever.The display of it's summer lotus in pond is graceful.

Wish u good luck and big fun in Suzhou...... ;_)

sakuraoink

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Posted: May 14, 2008 - 11:31 AM

thanks lilypink, i took your advice and decided on Tongli. since its much bigger than Luzhi. Luzhi is really small.
and i will visit the 2 gardens Smile

Silk_Road_Seth

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Posted: May 14, 2008 - 01:17 PM

I went to Tongli for the May holiday, which meant it was packed, but I still had a good time. My friend and I took the train to Suzhou and then the bus to Tongli. At the bus station we bought an 80rmb ticket, which let us take the bus to Tongli, get into Tongli and visit all of the major sites in Tongli. However, we had to purchase a bus ticket back to Suzhou.

Tongli was a great place just to walk around and check out new things. I didn't make it to all of the places on my ticket, but I wasn't really in a rush to do so. Sorry to say, but once I saw one of the old houses, the others I were the same to me.

I believe there are buses from Shanghai directly to Tongli, but the they will greatly shorten your time.

*There is a great deal of construction in Suzhou near the station. To get to the bus station just walk straight out of the train station, across the river and turn right. There you can purchase tickets and catch the bus.

sakuraoink

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Posted: May 21, 2008 - 01:09 PM

just went suzhou over weekend, it was nice. thanks for your suggestion Lilypink, i love the 2 gardens and Tong Li is quite nice, though i find it a bit too commericalised.....compared to Li Keng (Wu Yuan) which i had been to. I supposed all these watertowns are getting more commericalised. still all in all, its nice to visit Tong Li, its quite big and they have a few attractions in it.