Tomorrow is last day of low season so I'm trying to whack the most impt gardens first, before ticket prices rise by 10-20 yuan.. went to Liu Yuan (Garden to Linger in) and Shi Zi Lin (Lion's Grove) today.. both very nice, but for the tour groups that started appearing after 10/11am.. I love the way they plan the gardens..

Lion's Grove was like a maze of stone caves and narrow passages through which you can always see other parts of the garden/the place you want to go, but which you can never quite reach... great for kids.. and lovers =P

Liu Yuan was also fab. I love that every bit of it is so well designed.. the borrowing of scenery, that every view is a landscape or arrangement of some sort, such that all views are beautiful.. and the flowers!! lovely gardens and bonsai... as if I didn't have a million photos of flowers already...

but the flowers, while sort of the same (as I'm in rel the same region), are changing too, with the seasons.. when I first arrived in hangzhou the plum blossoms were in bloom or blooming, and the floor was littered with their pink and while petals, then came the dandelions (?) floating in the air, and the wisteria and those bis blooms you see in chinese paintings (I forget the name right now) were blooming... today, along with the dandelions, the wisteria petals were also starting to grace the air and the streets, and other flowers are blooming...

food is good and cheap n everywhere =) had rice gruel and yu tiao for 1.5Y for breakfast, 4Y noodles for lunch, 1Y for 4 pieces of fried toufu... went to the I M Pei designed Suzhou Museum today... Nicer than I expected. Bigger too. I think it's because now that I'm here and have seen suzhou's architecture, I can better understand how it fits into its surroundings and culture. There's an old residence (of some impt guy) attached to it that was very quiet and pleasant..

the canals are all very nice in the evenings, when the residents hang out outside.. and throw their day's waste water into it...

but I'm really very tired now, after a whole day of walking around and not much lingering in the gardens at all (it's not very restful with so the constant flow of tour groups). so. ciao! tml: the Humble Ambassador's Garden, and the Garden of the Master of the Nets..