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The Humble Administrator's Garden
The Humble Administrator's Garden (Zhouzheng Yuan) is the biggest garden in Suzhou. It is loacted in the northeastern part of the city, and one of the four most famous classical gardens in China. The garden's scenery is centered on a pond with various structures of pavilions, terraces, chambers, and towers etc. The garden is a presentation of Chinese classical gardens in the Ming Dynasty. It was first built in 1513 by the official, Wang Xiancheng after his retirement from official life. He gave the name to the garden after an essay by Pan Yue of Jing Era --"On Idle Living- "Setting up a house and planting some  trees, grew a garden and planted some vegetables are the things of humble people." It is divided into three parts; the eastern, middle and the western parts. The house lies in the south of the garden.
To the south of the garden is the building area, which is the featuring living place in Suzhou. On the north-south axis there are four successive houses, namely the Sedan-Chair Hall, the Reception Hall and two two-storeyed buildings. To the east of the axis are the Mandarin Ducks' Hall with flower-basket decoration, the Flower Hall and the Four -Sided Viewing Hall.
The Humble administrator's Garden boasts altogether about 50 different buildings, 101 parallel couplets and door plateaux, 40 stelae, 21 precious old trees, namely Wistaria, Sabina chinensis, Pterocarya stenoptera,etc. It has over 700 bonsai ( potted landscape) kept in the Bonsai Garden in the western part of the garden, representing the Suzhou style bonsai, one of the four leading bonsai styles in china.
Entrance Fee: RMB 70
Open Hours: 08:15 to 16:15
How to get there: 2, 3, Tourism Bus No. 1, 2 & 5
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