2 Days' Yangzhou Tour

If we could have more days, we would better enjoy ourselves in Yangzhou, while we can only spend our weekends here, so there are still some scenic spots we didn't touch upon. There are quite a lot famous tourist attractions in Yangzhou, including Slender West Lake, Da Ming temple, Flat Hills (Ping Shan) Hall, Pavilion of Flourishing Culture, Stone Pagoda, Tomb of Puhaddin, Ge Garden, He Garden, Yechun Garden, Yangzhou Museum & Yangzhou Block Printing Museum, Jiangdu Hydro Project, Yangzhou's three knives. Due to our limited time, we choose three most famous ones: Slender West Lake, He Garden and Ge Garden.

Yangzhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, it borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the southwest, 318 km away from Suzhou and 589 km away from Hangzhou, transportation to these cities is quite convenient.

Compared to some bold cities in North China, like Beijing, Tianjin, Yangzhou is more a gentle girl, not occupying quite a large area, but it is clean, moist, warm and fine all the year round. Yangzhou architecture preserves traditional Jiangnan style: built in white wall and black roof, somewhat similar to the gardens in Suzhou and Hangzhou.

We arrived Yangzhou the Friday night, we have dinner at a small restaurant, by the way, Huaiyang cuisine is somewhat different from other 7 major Chinese cuisines. It applies more vinegar, and taste a little bit sweeter and almost never spicy, different from Sichuan or Hunan food, and also bearing less "brash" eating styles of northern China.

After dinner, we went to 1912, a street of bars, the sign of "1912" is interesting and particular. We stood on the plaza to enjoy the open-door performance rather entering any bars. The lights around the Jing-Hang Canal is also beautiful. He Garden is situated not far from "1912", we planned to go there the next morning, and Ge Garden the next after, the Slender West Lake is much bigger, so the day after the next day was left to the lake.

He Garden, I didn't clear up these photos immediately, so I don't know whether I remember correctly, I indefinitely recognize it is the front yard of He Garden

He Garden was built by He Zhidao, a Qing government official in the  19th century. He Garden is famous for a 430 m. (1,377 ft) two storied winding corridor, the walls of which are lined with stone tablets carved with lines of classical poetry, In the garden is also an open air theater set on an island in the middle of a fish pond.

one of the rooms in the garden, though it was still under the reign of the Qing government, it can be clearly found that western culture has already permeated in this house, the bed, the curtain, and the table near the window are all not in the traditional Chinese style.

our journey make you so happy?

Ge Garden: actually, it is a high rockery, while due to my poor skills in photography, it is not so obvious to notice its height.

finally, we arrived at the Slendar West Lake,though it is much smaller than the West Lake in Hangzhou, it preserves its own peculiarities. To see those colourful boats through dense willow leaves is interesting.

Hiring a boat and tour around the lake is certainly a good idea, but we are in a group of more than 20 members, and we want to see the beautiful scenery together, there is no boat can take all of us in, so we decided to visit the lake on foot.

sweeping willows are too common here, esp, around the lake

White Pagoda and Lotus Flower Pagoda

Guess what it is? It is the roof of the Lotus Flower, red-crowned crane is a symbol of longevity in China

Only when we stand at the foot of the pagoda, can we truely find how high it is. According to a guard standing nearby,  the tower is a little bit leaning, but we cannot see by our naked eyes

"24 bridge", it is famous for its appearance in Du Mu's poem(Du Mu, a famous Chinese poet in the Tang Dynasty). But it remains a mystery that whether it is the name of only one bridge or a collection name of 24 bridges as the original bridge(s) is already damaged.

Mao Zedong's calligraphy of Tang dynasty poet Du Mu poem

have a rest among so many beautiful and verdant flowers is so enjoyable 

where is the road heading for? so unwillingly to leave