Suzhou is such an ancient city with 2500-year-old culture and history that it must have a lot legendary stories hidden in alleys. I like to guide friends to discover more secrets of suzhou through City Walk as a volunteer. With the help of Album of Suzhou, I recently led some expats to walk long Dinghuisi Lane/定慧寺巷. 

Dinghui Temple was built about 1200 years ago in Tang Dynasty, but was ruined several times in different dynasties. Many present buildings were rebuilt in Qing dynasty.



The temple is small and similar to other buddhism temples, but it had a legendary story about Mr. Sushi/苏轼, who was a famous poet in Song dynasty. It was reported the abbot was a good friend of Sushi, but Sushi was demoted to Huizhou, which belongs to Guangdong province now, very far away from Suzhou. The abbot assigned his subordinate to bring letters of his oldest son in Wuxian to Sushi back and forth. In order to memorate the friendship between two of them, local people built one memorial hall of Sushi, but what's a pity it was destoried afterwards.

The next to the temple is the Twin Pagodas, which were built in Song Dynasty. The Twin Pagodas look like almost same from their appearance, but the western one is at the height of 33.7 meters, which is a little higher than the eastern one. People are still curious about how such two heavy tower spires were conducted to the top over one thousand years ago.

There is one ruined temple behind the Twin Pagodas. We can imagine how magnificent it was in Song Dynasty from some relics, which were inscribed sublime patterns.

Guantaiwei river/官太尉河 is located at the eastern end of Dinghuisi Alley. Taiwei had been a high offical name in the imperial period, but its name was called becaused of one school nearby, where local government held the city-level scholar examination. All participants stopped their boats here and hoped they had a good performance so as to become high officers in the future.

There are some ancient bridges across Guantaiwei river, one of which was named the Longevity bridge. It is reported people would get a longer life if they often walk across the bridge, so it usually attracks many people to sit for a while on the bridge. 

Shizi Street situates at the southern end of the Guantaiwei river. We can see Wangxing Bridge/望星桥 and it was named after scholars, who were eager to wait for their result enclosed in envelopes afer they took the examination.

St. John's Church was built in 1881 by American missionary, Mr. Panshenwen/潘慎文 and it was the first church in Suzhou, which was designed by Dr. Mul from America. There are three same churches like St. John's Church in the world. The other two are located in St. Louis, America and Kobe, Japan respectively. 

The former Boxi hospital/博习医院 next to the church was the first missionary hospital established by the America Methodist Episcopal Church in China.

Soochow University was at the eastern end of Shizi Street and was built in 1900. The second president of Boxi hospital, David L. Anderson, was elected the first president of Soochow University. What's more, another Soochow University was built in 1951 in Taiwan.

The City Walk above took about two hours and we really had a good time together. Please let me know if you also like such this City Walk or not. What's more, I would like to offer a free guide if I am available.