The Lion Grove Garden of Suzhou

A little over two weeks ago I came to Shanghai to earn my living making pancakes in a basement. But that's a story for another time. Happy new year. 

Suzhou is a bit inland from Shanghai, and takes only about twenty minutes to get there by bullet train. It's a much older city than Shanghai, and looks it -- it's even surrounded by medieval-looking walls and a moat. Other than escaping the smog of Shanghai for the day, my main goal was to visit the Suzhou Museum, whose building was designed by I. M. Pei and which is supposed to have a lot of cool ancient Chinese art. 

By these measures, the trip was a complete failure. The PM2.5 AQI in Suzhou was well over 150 the entire day, and the museum had closed early. With face mask securely blocking my nose and mouth and nowhere else to go, I settled for the nearby Lion Grove Garden. 

The garden is a complex of carved stone, with multiple levels of intertwining trails that make it feel sort of like a maze, and sort of like that structure you can test out hiking boots on at REI.  It was supposedly started in the 14th century by a monk named Tianru (were any non-monks starting gardens back then? Apparently none have survived). The garden is now in the yard of a big house that for most of the early 20th century belonged to the renowned Bei family, and was then appropriated by the government and in the 50s opened up to tourists. 

This stone is supposed to be in the shape of a lion

The apex of the artificial mountain

A lake in the middle of the courtyard, next to the artificial mountain. This was taken from the walkway that crosses the lake.

On the deck of a stone double-decker boat (stationary)

A secret passage behind the house

The entrance to the artificial mountain

A park in Suzhou, not far from the Lion Grove Garden