The Chinese upper crust, really liked their gardens

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Woke up to a beautiful day in Suzhou, 50F, sunny, limited smog, good day. We decided to walk to one of the very nice gardens, eat lunch, and hit up another garden.

The walk to the Lion Grove Garden took about 45 minutes, and introduced us to a different part of the city. The various canals make navigating without GPS pretty easy, as they are pretty significant landmarks.

This garden is nearly 700 years old, one of the very few that have survived the centuries. The signage in the garden claims the garden was "donated" to the Chinese government in 1949 by the family that had owned it for the previous decades, which is the same year that all private property was nationalized...

It is mostly a rock garden, similar to the rock seen in the Beijing gardens. These rocks are said to have looked like a lion, whch is where the garden gets its name. The garden was gorgeous, and very large. There were indoor reception areas, and tea drinking spots, and then all kinds of nooks and crannies outside, little man made caves and mountains, made of rocks stacked together and cemented together.

There were various informational points explaining that this spot was used for meditating, and this for observing nature.

After wandering around this garden we were ready for lunch.

I had spotted a place while we had the full google suite back in the hotel. This place was between the two gardens we intended to hit. When we found the place it was closed, more than closed for lunch, they were closed for business. BUT at the same time we were turning away, a Chinese couple was jut as surprised/disappointed as us, though they could read the sign... the place was no longer in business.

So we ate some street food. We had flaky meat pockets from a little storefront restaurant. We asked for meat, the kid behind the counter pointed at one, we asked for 2, he asked for 10CNY, and we went on our way. We think they were pork, but they were heavily seasoned with sesame, and they were pretty dry, the would however go very well with a beer, though we dont know what the open container laws are here, and Im not tryna be on locked up abroad ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banged_Up_Abroad ) for something as petty as drinking a beer on the street.

We made our way to the next garden, The Humble Administrator's Garden. This is a UNESCO heritage site, occupying over 50,000 square meters. The area has been a site of a garden of some kind or another since the 1150s, though it didnt become what we see today until the 16th century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Administrator%27s_Garden

This garden is what the architects of the Summer Palace in Beijing was emulating. It was pretty spectacular, a maze of paths and waterways, with more reception halls and minor residences throughout. They even had a bonsai garden that was very extensive.

At one point there was a gaggle of elderly Chinese tourists that were very excitedly taking pictures of a thing on top of a mini rock mountain. We saw them piling up to take pictures at the base, so obviously we took a picture ourselves. And then we walked around, and up the mini mountain to incpect more thuroughly. And there was nothing remarkable, no data plate telling us why poeple would take pictures of it. I think the key was in the tourguides...telling some anecdotal story that would mean alot to Chinese culture/history aficionados.

After this, we made the trek home, found a hotpot place, and ate. This was one of the moments where being a very obviously lost tourists is a benefit. The staff was super helpful, voluntarily busting out their phone to translate their Chinese, and help us along, while we had our phones out to translate our english to ask questions. We got a 1.5L beer, which came in a little table-tap, that tasted a little off. Turns out the Chinese cheat with their cheap beer like we do, but instead of using High Fructose Corn Syrup like we do in our PBRs and Milwaukee's Best, they use a rice mash in their Tsingtao and Snow beers.

We got a hotpot of bone soup, for extra flavor, then went to choose our ingredients. We went to the cooler/refrigerator (configured much like the egg/dairy section of a grocery store) to select vegetables and meats to throw in our pot. Everything comes on skewers to make it easier to cook, and to keep tab, as they charge straight up by number of skewers. After we ate some, one of the staff came over and offered to help us select what to eat.

Laura went with him to choose foods, and warned them that I cannot eat fish (i can eat fish, we just prefer to keep fishballs and other heavily fishy foods out of the hot pot, because the instant you toss a fishball into the broth, EVERYTHING now tastes like fish, pork belly now tastes like fish, cabbage; fish, fine sliced beef sirloin...fish).

The spread brought back was great, and the guy kept coming around and pointing out which stuff was done and ready to eat.

After clearing our hotpot, and our beer, we closed the tab, 105CNY, so $15 bucks, for 1.5L of beer and plenty of foods.

Not quite satisfied, we ordered cheap room service, partly because we have never done that before, inhaled the noodles that were delivered by the staff, and settled in to watch a movie.