Lingering Garden is one of top four famous gardens of China and was organized as a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 1997. It was first built by Xu Taishi, who was resigned from senior offical of national government in 1593. It is well-known for the exquisite beauty of its magnificent halls and 700-meters-long corrider.

Lingering Garden changed several hands during past 400 plus years, but each owner contributed a lot to develop the garden well. It has three sections including living building cluster in the east, main garden in the middle and natural scenery in the north and west.

The middle section is the core of the garden. The essence of the garden is for each owner to pursue harmony between nature and human beings, so the owners built lake, pavilions, mountains and four seasonal scenery at their homes.  

The owners could enjoy wisteria flowers in spring, lotus flowers in summer, osmanthus in fall and plum blossom in winter without going outdoors.

I strong recommend you to visit Lingering Garden in rainy days because of the perfect corridor.

Windows without frames seem like the beautiful pictures hanging on the walls when we see the wonderful scenery through the windows.

Celestial Hall of five peaks is the biggest hall not only in Lingering Garden but also in all Gardens of Suzhou. The owners built five peaks based on Chinese famous mountain called Lushan in the front of the house.

Cloud Capped Peak is the most beautiful Taihu stone, which is common used in Chinese classical gardens. The buildings around the stone were well designed and erected so that the stone looked so slender, high and outstanding. 

The garden is so popular that many domestic and international tourists come everyday.

I am happy to be volunteer as an English guide every last Sunday of each month. I also learnt a lot from foreign visitors. Matt is from Germany and plans to stay at Suzhou for ten days on business while Will from America works in Kunshan and first comes to downtown of Suzhou with his Chinese girl friend. They both love Lingering Garden very much after my introduction.

The gardens are essential part of Suzhou culture and play a lot important roles on Suzhou people's personalities. It is impossible for visitors to really understand Suzhou if they haven't traveled at least three different gardens.