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Showing posts with label Suzhou. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suzhou. Show all posts

Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Couple's Garden Retreat Ouyuan耦园

 After the Golden Rooster Lake we went to the Couple's Retreat Garden or Ouyuan

Ouyuan 耦园


  1. Couple's Retreat Garden located in Suzhou city, Jiangsu province, China is a famous classical Chinese garden. It is recognized with other classical Suzhou gardens as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wikipedia
  2. Address: China, Jiangsu, Suzhou, 平江区小新桥巷6号
 The Couple's Retreat Garden is one of the Suzhou classic gardens, featuring a series of pavilions, halls, towers, mountain and water scenery.
 The classical gardens of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China date back to the 6th century BC. The origins of the Couple's Garden Retreat date back to the Qing dynasty,
 but these visitors date back to only the fifties and sixties!!!
 Wow!! lucky James Bond with three lovely ladies!!!

 Welcome to couple's retreat garden.....masterpieces of landscaped garden copied everywhere..we seem to say..
 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 

 I love this picture because we all look so happy and colourfully dressed, with weeping willows that complete the picture
 see how the flowing leaves of the weeping willow seem fraem our picture making it unique?

 Dancing Aunties look glowing in Suzhou..must be the cold bracing weather!!
 our tour guide for Suzhou
under the ginghow tree


















 Ann!
 ME!



 YY and her mum are surrounded by the most picturesque man made scenery you can imagine

 A beautiful picture of all the ladies in our group, taken by the only man in our party!!!

 YY and her mum!
YY is an accountant and is more widely travelled than me!!
The ultimate retreat for the loving couple!!!
(she burst out laughing after this shot!)

GuanQian Jie (观前街)Guan Qian Shopping Street in Suzhou

观前街

or GuanQian Jie

Maggie my attractive model points to the road sign saying
Guanqian Street!


Guanqian Street (Chinese: 观前街; pinyin: guàn qián jiē) is a street in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. The street is located in Suzhou city centre, an area covering 0.52 square kilometres, the commercial part of the city
Lying in the downtown core of Suzhou, the main theme of the street involves eating, shopping and entertaining. There are hundreds of shops, restaurants, bars, stores and clubs in old fashioned structures surrounded by colorful signs and neon lights along the street
 Ha ha ha!! It is raining so one of our tour members has put a shawl over her head, I think it is Jenny.
 Lying in the downtown core of Suzhou, the main theme of the street involves eating, shopping and entertaining. There are hundreds of shops, restaurants, bars, stores and clubs in old fashioned structures surrounded by colorful signs and neon lights along the street

Century-old shops

 Tourists  are attracted by these century-old shops because there is variety of Jiangnan dishes available in those century-old shops. Meanwhile, some of the shops have a long history of more than 100 years, which gives the tourists deep impressions and many of the tourists visiting Guanqian street just come to enjoy the delicious food.
 Our tour guide Wang tells us that we have 20 minutes to walk the streets!  all our spots are allocated 10 to 20 minutes only!!



 This  Pedestrian Street is a main pedestrianized shopping street. It located in the heart area of Suzhou old city is the must visit place of Suzhou. The name Guan Qian Jie boasting a history of over 150 years means "a street in front of a temple". Guan Qian Jie is named so because of reposing in front of Xuanmiao Guan (Temple). 

 This street has existed since 1930 and has been renovated many times since then. On June 1982, the street was designated by the municipal authority as a “walking street” and a new night market was established. The street has been honored as the one of the Four Most Famous Walking Streets in China (other three: Nanjing’s Fuzimiao, Shanghai’s Cheng Huang Miao and Beijing’s Tianqiao).



 A Taoism temple, the Xuanmiao Temple, is situated on Guanqian with its front entrance facing the street and providing the thriving and noisy street with solemnity and calm. The temple has a history of 1,300 years and is a cultural site for locals and visitors

What did we do and buy here?
Bengie bought a lot of sweets for her officemates, we strolled down the streets a lot, and we spied shops like H and M, Uniqlo and of course Starbucks!!


Location:Suzhou
Address:Downtown of the city, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China