Glass and stone and fried fish

I.M. Pei, illustrious architect and maker of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has a number of ties to Suzhou, the most recent of which is as the designer of the new Suzhou Museum. Besides being the perfect place to go on a rainy afternoon (admission is free), the museum is worth a visit if only to see the glass and granite courtyard, which is reminiscent of his Pyramide du Louvre but with overt Chinese flair like small rocks shaped like giant mountains and fancy carp.

To our surprise, the lovely woman helping us in the museum shop turned out to be Mr. Pei's niece and, again to our surprise, is a fellow Ohioan! With her help, we picked up some fun souvenirs and a restaurant recommendation: Wumen Renjia, 吴门人家, a converted home and garden specializing in Suzhou cuisine (Read: sweet and fried) at 31 Panru Xiang, 潘儒巷31号. It's just three blocks from the museum. Exit the museum gate and turn east (left) on Dongbei Jie, 東北街, then turn south (right) at the bridge. Walk a block down Yuanling Lu, 园林路, and walk a block. The restaurant is in the quiet alley, just to your right. It looks like this:

Windows

Suzhou is known for its elaborate gardens. These spaces were never intended for the crowds that pass through these days but were instead the private courtyards, usually of scholars, living as long ago as 1000 AD. Those scholars wanted to do their calligraphy in peace, and so the landscape architects of the time accomplished amazing feats with strategically placed trees, water, and stone. Stepping into these gardens today is like donning noise-canceling headphones. Suddenly, the peal of bus brakes and lost tourists gives way to the sounds of a waterfall, a flock of song birds, or the wind, and all you can hear is whatever was meant to be heard.

We visited a number of gardens, each with its own unique aesthetic and ingenious design, but a favorite was Canglang Ting, 沧浪亭, the Great Wave Pavilion, for its 108 windows, no two of which are alike. This garden was also of special interest to my dad, who had read a poem about it as a boy, and seventy years later got to see it.