Over drinks with Howe Choon & Jolyn at Constellation Bar (junction of MaoMingNanLu and YongJiaLu) the night before, we had Howe Choon scrutinise our pre-booked train ticket to Suzhou, only to have him frown and say that we should've gotten the 1st Class train ticket instead of the 2nd Class ticket. Upon further inspection, he said we should've gotten the "Dong" ticket instead of the G ticket to save time. Bummer. No wonder the ticket was so cheap, just 41 yuan (S$8) from Shanghai to Suzhou.
Surprisingly, not only were the 2nd class seats fairly comfortable, the G-train turned out to be a high-speed train as well, getting us into Suzhou in half an hour, with 3 stops in between.
Suzhou Museum was a 10 minute cab ride from the train station. Couldn't make up our minds whether it should be the Humble Administrator's Garden first or the museum since we were told IM Pei drew inspiration from the garden for his museum design.
The new Suzhou Museum designed by IM Pei was completed in October 2006 and covered an area of 10,700m2. I read somewhere that the design concept was "Chinese style with innovation, Suzhou style with creativity" and the idea of "not too high, not too large and not too abrupt". Well the result was a simple stylised graphic extraction of traditional chinese architecture, stripped to minimal white walls with grey lines on the exterior and timber coloured metal sunscreens and wooden panelling lined the interiors.
Main entrance hall with a framed view of the museum garden.
Another framed window view of the museum garden.
Step detailing to reflect edges of traditional clay roof tiles.
Looks like timber trellises, but upon closer inspection, they are actually metal sunscreens.
More framing of garden views from the museum exhibition halls.
Some artefacts that caught my eye. I guess i'm generally not all that into ancient artefacts although their preservation from centuries of generations ago never fail to amaze me.
Intricate web of carvings on a porcelain bowl.
Nephrite ornament - i think it was the name nephrite that caught my attention for some reason. I also kinda like the almost-opaque translucent white jade look.
The transparency of this material intrigued me and under the light you could see crack lines and folds from within.
Just something about the intricate carvings and reliefs on this seal-red container that made me take a picture. I should take notes about its material and origins next time.
Ink slabs came with reliefs of damsels or dragons at one corner.
Simple yet exquisitely constructed bird cage.
Ooh i loved these paintings by this chinese artist who painted scenes from countries outside China. Again i should have taken notes and credited the artist.
Lai Yeow photographing the lily fronds.
Teehee trial wedding photography shots for Ivan & Lai Yeow.
Stopped for lunch before moving on to the Humble Administrator's Garden.
Check out the amount of oil. I guess we forgot to do the healthy singaporean "shao yan, shao you" mantra while our orders were being taken.
Alas we spent so much time at the museum we had to rush through the garden which we originally thought we'd spend more time at. Did i mention that i liked the name Humble Admistrator's Garden? It sounds like the title of one of those children's chinese books translated into english. And before i forget for the umpteenth time, the chinese name for the garden is Zhuo Zheng Yuan. Although i'm not exactly sure if the yuan here refers to garden or scholar. Then again, scholar in mandarin is zhuang yuan, not zheng yuan isn't it? Oops. And my guess is that Zhuo would be the humble administrator's family name? Oh wait. Then whoever said anything about a scholar?
Thank goodness for Howe Choon and Jolyn, our visit to the garden was made more meaningful. I swear i wouldn't have even taken a second look at the pavilion otherwise. It is rather poetic i thought. So this pavilion has 4 sides and was designed so that he (the humble admistrator i suppose) would face a particular view during summer, another during winter and yet another during autumn and spring. It would mean that since we are visiting during the summer, the other 3 views would require a bit of imagination of the appropriate season to be appreciated. Oooh, this sort of thing kinda excites me. I was looking forward to guessing which view was designed for which season. So here goes!
Autumn? i can imagine the pathway covered with orange and red coloured leaves.
Summer? Um evergreen trees?
Spring? cos perhaps the lotuses would be in bloom?
Winter? cos snow would collect on the roof eves?
I don't have the answers so feel free to challenge my guesses if you've been there yourself.
Fragrant Sorghum Hall in the East Garden
Abandoned sampan
Lai Yeow at the "With whom shall i sit" pavilion. Seriously. i didn't make it up. You've got to hand it to the poets of ancient chinese days.
Floating Green Tower. I kinda like the random stepping up towards the pavilion tower, which served as sitting terraces for tourists.
Overheard a guide explaining the floor pattern. Something about having a coin motif followed by a flower motif , meaning to say "you qian hua" which in mandarin sounds like "having money to spend". Hahaha... interesting.
The garden was huge, about 52,000m2 but unfortunately we had to rush through most of it cos we had a train to catch. I must say i enjoyed reading the names of the pavilions and halls and wished that i could have related each name to the actual thing just to get a kick of how apt they actually were. Like the Looking Far Away Pavilion, or the Pavilion of the Leaning Against Rainbow, the Listening to the Sound of Rain Hall, or the Think Deep Aim High Hall and the Good for Both Families Hall.
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