China Trip: Day 5 – Suzhou & the Panmen Scenic Area

Early on day 5, we took a bus to the airport, bid farewell to our local Beijing tourguide, David, & headed to Shanghai. When we arrived, we were met by our new GAT tourguide, Tina. Our first stop was the beautiful Panmen Scenic Area in the ancient city of Suzhou.

The entryway to the Panmen Scenic Area is dotted with red lanterns beckoning you to enter the grounds.

Once inside, your eyes are immediately drawn to the towering Pagoda of Auspicious Light (great name, eh?)

This amazing pagoda was originally built 13 stories tall by Sun Quan, King of Wu, during the Three Kingdoms period in China (around 247 BC). Destroyed by fire several times, the pagoda was rebuilt between 1119 and 1125 to its current 144-foot tall, 7-story octagon structure. Amazingly enough there are no nails holding this pagoda together…its core is brick & its outer wood pieces are all interconnected!

Another interesting fact – in 1978, many cultural relics were found in a brick recess inside the third story, including more than one hundred twenty volumes of Buddhist scriptures and a pillar inscribed with Buddha’s name and scriptures. The pillar is covered with pearls and precious beads and combines the art of jade sculpture, gold and silver ware, wood carving, gold tracing and carved lacquerware. It is regarded as a rare treasure of extreme value. Click on more…

Near the pagoda was another example of the Chinese “landscaping with flower pots” phenomenon.

As we began walking towards the old city wall & the famous Panmen Gate, I stopped to take a few pictures of the beautiful water gardens nearby.

I found this lonely lotus flower as well…

Now for more interesting tidbits. With a history of 2,500 years, The Panmen City Gate (built as part of the original city wall in 514 BC) is the most completely preserved part of the ruins of the ancient city of Suzhou. Although it has been renovated and rebuilt many times through the ages, its location has never changed an inch. The gate was actually a rather inventive defense mechanism. It had both inner & outer land gates with a small courtyard between them. Once invading enemies were seduced into the first gate, it would close & the Suzhou army could attack their helpless enemies.

Walking back towards the front exit, here’s a pic of our tourguide, Tina, with parasol & green flag in hand. The flag ended up being quite handy. In some of the more crowded tourist spots, it is fairly easy to separate from your group, especially if you want to take as many pictures as I did! We always knew to look for the green flag if we fell behind.

Another view of the pagoda behind a waterfall.

And here is a neat image of some Chinese characters carved in an old stone near the front gate. Very cool.

Next stop – the silk factory!