Day 250 – Humble Administrator’s Garden, Tiger Hill, and Lingering Garden

After breakfast, we all met in the lobby at 8 a.m. to get the day started.  We drove through heavy traffic to the Humble Administrator’s Garden.  It was so busy there that we had to get off the bus early and walk to the entrance for a little way.  There were already a lot of people there, being this was the other day off for the National Labor Day Holiday.  It was pretty crowded in the garden and we had a hard time getting through in some areas because of the wall-to-wall people.  The gardens were beautiful and there were some interesting stories that guide had to tell us.

Just an interesting old tree in the Humble Administrator's Garden.

One of the beautiful structures.

This was inside the music room of the summer house.

A bridge loaded with people trying to cross it- in both directions.

We stayed in the garden for three hours, but we were pretty much done and tired after being on our feet after one and a half hours, so we went to the museum and found a place to sit (along with several of the others from our group).  We just talked until it was time to go find the guide. 

This pagoda was build by a man that wanted to see into the Humble Administrator's Garden. 

It was a beautiful day to be out.  Just wish we could do some of this travel at times when the crowds aren't so big.

I had stopped to put my leg up for a bit and David was my backrest.  Someone in the group thought it would make a cure picture, so she took it for us.

I have found it interesting that each area seems to have a unique form of transportation that people can rent to get where they want to go.

Silk worms hungrily munching on mulberry leaves.

They have several different methods where they get the worms to grow their cocoons,  This was just one of them.

Here they are unwinding the silk strands from the cocoons.  It takes eight cocoons to make one strand of thread.  They thread the machine with eight cocoon stands and then turn it on.  The wheels at the top are gathering the strings.

The leaning pagoda at the top of Tiger Hill.  

This is us on Tiger Hill.

As we were coming down the hill, this family was taking a photo in a place where David and I were going to take a photo.  His mom wanted a picture of David with her son, so David put his hat on him and then the father snuck into the picture too.  It was such a fun moment. 

 

Caught a cute little guy peeking our of the stone structure that kids were playing in.

We had lunch at a restaurant near the silk factory that we were to visit next. It was an okay lunch, but not the best we have had. 

We had an interesting time at the silk factory, except most of it we had learned on a trip earlier this year in Guilin.  There were some different things there, so it was made interesting for us.  At the end of the tour are all the shops for you to make your way through, but all I was looking for was a place to sit down for a while at.

Driving to Tiger Hill didn’t take as long as the tour guide thought it would, so we got there earlier than he had planned.  That was okay.  We climbed the hill, which wasn’t too bad, and it was interesting and beautiful.  This place was a little less crowded than the Humble Administrator’s Garden, but still had good crowds.

On the way to the Lingering Garden, we passed by a street that is called “Bridal Gown Street.”  There were probably a hundred or so shops that sell bridal gowns and fancy dresses.  That was kind of interesting.

At the Lingering Garden, we saw a bonsai garden that was many hundreds of years old.  This garden was much smaller than the Humble Administrator’s Garden, but it had nice charm to it.  The best part of the garden was that most of the people had gone home by now, so it wasn’t too hard to maneuver in.  When we were trying to get a group photo in, there was one woman who, when the guide was counting down to take the picture, she would do something funny at that moment that would make all of us laugh.  When we were leaving that area of the garden we all thanked her for making the picture fun.

Bonsai trees.

I liked this one where they were growing the bonsai among the stones.

This tree seemed to be one of the oldest ones.

Dinner was on our own tonight.  David and I were too tired to travel around the city with most of the others, so we opted for the KFC that was just steps away from the hotel.  Deanne Hughes came in while we were finishing up and we had a fun time visiting while she ate her dinner.  Now to relax.