Suzhou Old Town

Our last full day in China! We spent it in Suzhou, a small city west of Shanghai and just half an hour away by bullet train. It's famous for it's gardens and we duly visited three of them. The first, and most famous, the Humble Administrator's Garden, was a letdown just because it was choc-a-block so you really couldn't appreciate it at all. However, we'd an amazing experience of seeing hundreds of dragonflies zipping in and looking for shelter ahead of a thunderstorm. That was worth the visit on its own.
I thought the second, the Lion Grove Garden, was fabulous; designed around fantastically shaped rocks with shelters, pavilions, running water and pond. And it was (relatively) quiet.
Onward to Tiger Hill, much bigger, really a park built around the hill, with a bamboo forest, a great pagoda, a stunning bonsai collection, a temple and lots of little trails. Nice.

And our final meal? Dumplings of course, fried and filled with soup, a first for us and maybe the best so far. Didn't really need the bowl of wonton soup as a side-dish but I forced it down. It's fair to say that we are now well and truly nackered!!