5 Days Shanghai and Suzhou Tour

Day 1

Arrival Shanghai
Arrive in Shanghai, Paris of the Oriental, you will be met at the airport and transferred to your hotel. Free at leisure for the rest of the day.
Meals: No meals
Accommodation: In Shanghai

Shanghai is a city unlike any other in China. It is the bustling economic heartbeat of China that enjoys all of the comforts and amenities of a fully modern metropolis. Shanghai today looks to regain its former position at the turn of 20th of being one of the largest financial centers in the world behind New York and London. It is a city that seamlessly blends East and West.

Day 2

Shanghai
Today, enjoy your full day city tour covering the Jade Buddha Temple. Then move to Yuyuan Garden, a Chinese classic garden in city downtown, and the nearby old street. Afterwards, have a leisure stroll along the Bund, Shanghai famed waterfront promenade and Nanjing Road, China No. 1 commercial street for souvenir shopping. Tonight if you are interested, if you are interested you can choose the Acrobatics show has an optional activity.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: In Shanghai
 
Today you'll find a Buddhism shrine - Jade Buddha Temple, which is located in a crowd of Shanghai City. It was first built in 1882 in Jiangwan on the southern outskirts of Shanghai. In order to make it convenient for the adherents to visit, it was bodily moved to Shanghai City at the present sire in 1918. It is named for its two bejeweled white jade Buddha. It receives thousands of visitors and worshipers everyday while keeps its sanctity and charming. Carved from a whole piece of white jade, the sitting jade Buddha statue is translucent with a solemn expression, displaying the excellent skill and extraordinary art of Chinese people.

Yuyuan Garden has a lot of stories for it was severely damaged in the 19th century and was restored in 1961. This garden was first built in the 16th century by provincial governor, Pan Yunduan, in honor of his father who was the then government minister. It has many scenic courtyards decorated with baroque rockery, pools, and flora that are all connected by corridors and passageways. The delicate design and exquisite layout of the whole garden reveals a strong impression of 'garden in the garden, whole in the part.

Then it comes to the Bund, the showcase with the old buildings of colonial-era leftover along Huangpu River. The renowned waterfront district is the city's most famous landmark. The word BUND is of Anglo-India origin meaning embankment on the waterfront. It is also the popular site to enjoy the night view of the city.

Nanjing Road which is a good shopping area, starts at the Bund and runs westward, with People's Square in the middle. Renown for its bustling and modernization, Nanjing Road earns its reputation as the 'First Commercial Road in China', which is the good shopping heaven for your trip as the same as the Fifth Avenue in New York and Avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris. Some of the traditional food and handicrafts of Shanghai can be found here. 

Shanghai offers colorful recreations with rich contents and creative form. Your night may be filled with an interactive old form of art known as the Acrobatics. Those professional performers have been trained of as early as age six or seven so that they can play so well and excellent. It definitely will be an unforgettable night in your memory.
 

Day 3

Shanghai      Suzhou 
In the morning, take a short driving to Suzhou and start your leisure tour there. With 2,500 years of history, Suzhou is an ancient town interlaced by canals and has been aptly nicknamed the Venice of the East. Your sightseeing tour of Suzhou will cover the Humble Administrator Garden and New Suzhou Museum designed by I.M. Pei. Then continue to Silk Factory to find out how silk is being made.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: In Tongli

Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou is one of the oldest towns in the Yangtze Basin. And Suzhou remains one of the most beautiful cities in China with its blue web of interlocking canals and classical gardens that inspired the Chinese to name it "paradise on earth" and Marco Polo to call the city the "Venice of the East" during his visit.

Humble Administrator Garden (Zhuozheng yuan) is the best representation of Chinese classical gardens of the Ming Dynasty. Its design is duplicated in many gardens throughout China, and there is even a replica in the New York Metropolitan Museum. In total, the garden contains 48 different buildings with 101 tablets, 40 stelae, 21 precious old trees, and over 700 Suzhou-style penza. In 1997, Zhuozheng Yuan, along with other classical gardens of Suzhou was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Suzhou Museum is a museum of more than 15,000 pieces of collections. Most are ancient paintings and calligraphy, ceramics, crafts, unearthed relics and revolution relics. New Suzhou Museum is the last design of Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei in his career. It is not only a public construction symbol in Suzhou, but also an innovative mark bridging Chinese architectural culture from the tradition to the future.

Silk has a history of some 4,500 years in China, so they have become adept at producing many different types of silk, as well as dyeing it and weaving different patterns into the fabric. Suzhou is famous for its silk production. In the Silk Factory you can see a display of the life-cycle of the silk worm and demonstrations of how the silk is harvested from the cocoons and eventually woven into fabric. It is quite astonishing to learn that one cocoon can produce about 2 km of silk strand, and that several of these strands are twined together to make a single thread. The process is so slow and painstaking; it comes as no surprise that genuine hand-made silk articles are so expensive.
 

Day 4

Suzhou    Tongli    Shanghai 
In the morning, you will be transferred to the peaceful Tongli Water Town and touch its profound culture and representative vista of water town in Southern China. Be transferred back to Shanghai after the visit.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: In Shanghai

Originally named Fushi, Tongli is an old but very well preserved water township with a history of more than 1,000 years. Built in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it encloses 5 lakes and 15 canals dividing the town into 7 islands which are connected by 20 ancient bridges of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.  Tongli is famous for its one garden, two halls and three bridges. One garden refers to Tuisi Garden. Two halls are Chongben Hall and Jiayin Hall. Three bridges are Taiping Bridge ('Safety' in English), Jili Bridge ('Good luck' in English) and Changqing Bridge ('Longevity' in English). Local tradition calls for those celebrating a Wedding or Birthday to pass over all three bridges.   
 

Day 5

Departure Shanghai
Be transferred to the airport for the flight to your next stop.
Meals: Breakfast

Service Ends 

Full price of this tour (per person in US$):

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