Flowers along fence at the base of Tiger Hill in Suzhou

Photo by Gene Field

Day 5, Monday - Flight to Shanghai, Bus to Suzhou, Tiger Hill, & the National Embroidery Institute

We rose early on Monday morning, had breakfast and took the 8:40 a.m. flight to Shanghai on Air China. After arriving at the Shanghai airport, we boarded a bus for Suzhou, a small city of over six million people as our new guide, Joe, liked to say. Andrew, our Beijing guide, was now in charge of all the buses, guides and logistics for the rest of the trip and so we got a new guide. Joe had a great sense of humor and was also from Suzhou and knew a lot about the area.

Close-up of leaning pagoda at Tiger Hill

Photo by Gene Field

Suzhou, is in the Yangtze River area, and in contrast to Beijing's dry landscape, the city and countryside is very wet with lots of swampy land, waterways, and canals. Joe referred to Suzhou as the Venice of the East. Suzhou is well known for it's many gardens, the Grand Canal, and Tiger Hill.

We spent a couple hours at Tiger Hill in northwest Suzhou where the dominant feature is the Leaning Pagoda, over one thousand years old. Supposedly, one half was built on solid rock and the other on earth which has since settled.

A king who had his imperial palace built on this hill, died and was buried there. Three days after his burial, a white tiger appeared on the hill, thus the name Tiger Hill. One of the first things we saw as we went over the bridge and started up the hill was the beautiful flowers and rustic fence in the photo at the top. The landscaping was very lush and very natural looking and there were flats and flats of flowers everywhere waiting to be planted or arranged for some upcoming festivity.

Everyone went their separate ways here as we were just told to be back at the bus at a certain time. Besides the pagoda, the area was full of all pavilions, temples, bridges, waterfalls, pathways and beautiful buildings. There were lots of Chinese tourists here as well but it did not seem overcrowded because the grounds were so large and people were very spread out.