Suzhou, about 100km west of Shanghai, was where I was working for a week. I liked it a lot better than Shanghai, but unfortunately I only had one afternoon and one morning to explore as I was stuck doing work things during the weekday evenings.

Suzhou is apparently called the “Venice of the East” because it has so many canals. A lot of the city is very modern but some of the old Suzhou has been preserved and I went for a wander around one of these bits after arriving Sunday afternoon.

canals_scale

As well as canals, Suzhou is also famous for its gardens. On the following Saturday before I left I went to look around the most well known, the “Humble Administrator’s Garden”. I’m not by any means knowledgeable about traditional Chinese gardens, but the autumn colours were nice and the water features and little houses were quite impressive. Also the weather finally cleared up for the first time since I reached China!

garden_scale

Lots more pictures below, including a few from Shanghai.