Suzhou Museum

Before we left Suzhou back to Shanghai we managed to take a whirlwind tour of a very interesting museum designed by the most famous Chinese-American architect - I M PeiThe Suzhou museum was designed by Pei almost in parallel to when he was designing the Islamic Arts Museum in Doha and the similarities in design are very apparent although this is built in a completely different context. Check this post from Doha - http://goo.gl/Dsary - to see the parallels.
The rock feature in the central courtyard that pays homage to the use of rock forms in the traditional gardens of the city is to my mind the most interesting design feature of this complex.As always Pei is unable to imagine anything that is not pyramidal in its overall form..Even though the similarity with the museum in Doha is quiet disturbing the overall complex is quiet interesting and completely worth a visit if you had some time to spare in Suzhou.

The gardens of Suzhou

Less than an hour away from Shanghai is the city of Suzhou. We spend the whole of today seeing the older parts of this amazing city.

We were here mainly to see the city's famed gardens which are collectively listed by the UNESCO as a world heritage site, but the fabric of the old city is probably as exciting as the gardens and is made up of dense collection of traditional courtyard houses.

The best place to appreciate the city's layout is from the top of the Beisi Pagoda as it is one of the only tall structures in the old city.
The Pagoda itself was built between 1131 and 1162 during the Song Dynasty (with later renovations) and is 76 m (243 ft) tall.
Within the premises of the Pagoda was our first garden of the day.
After that we started our tour of the more famous gardens in the city ...

Classical Chinese garden design, which seeks to recreate natural landscapes in miniature, is nowhere better illustrated than in the nine gardens in the historic city of Suzhou. They are generally acknowledged to be masterpieces of the genre. Dating from the 11th-19th century, the gardens reflect the profound metaphysical importance of natural beauty in Chinese culture in their meticulous design.After seeing the garden we headed out to see the ancient water town part of the city The main canal in downtown Suzhou from where we decided to take an hour long canal tour.
Though we had heard that Suzhou was partly a water town we had no idea that it was this awesome .. An elaborate network of smaller canals connected all the houses in this area with the larger canals... it was like being in Venice .. probably we better than being in the greater Italian city as we were not expecting it at all..I end this post with another image of the great stone bridge that arched over the grand canal.

What a pity we have only one day to spent in this amazing city!

Shanghai images

Before we move on to other cities here's a whole bunch of images that capture different aspects of Shanghai..
Xintiandi - reconstructed history
Loitering on Nanjing RoadA tower with the traditional Chinese Lotus flower pattern The famous Yuyuan market streetA traditional tea house in Yuyuan (interior below)The next 4 images are from the impressive Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition CentreThe above image shows the relation of the World Expo site vis-à-vis the cityShanghai's CBD - PudongThe Oriental Pearl TV Tower in the distance
The Jinmao Tower (right) and the Shanghai World Finance Center [SWFC] (left)More photos of SWFCA view of the city's Bund side from a river cruiseA couple of images from the BundThat's us (Me, Neha, Shreshth, Ekta and Shivani) with the impressive Pudong district in the background on a foggy night..... leaving from Shanghai railway station.. next stop Suzhou