We’ve moved just up the road from Shanghai to the ‘small’ city of Suzhou (1 million people). Before we left I found a spot on the corner near our hotel at the intersection of Yan’an and Ruijin roads, where the Yan’an elevated roadway passes overhead.

Behind me was a small park, which are surprisingly quite common in the city. A cluster of large cycads caught my attention. I added the watercolour later.

We only have one day in Suzhou. A  boat trip on the Grand Canal  was followed by a visit to the Master of Nets garden, which was overrun by horticultural students, drawing plans of the gardens and making sktches of the pavilions. I felt like shaking some of them because rather than draw from what was in front of their eyes they were taking a photo then drawing from that!
Anyway here are some extremely quick sketches which I did from the boat.

Last stop of the day for most of the group was the Humble Administrator’s Garden, perhaps the most famous in China. However I arranged with our guide to go instead to the Suzhou Museum, designed by I M Pei, whose family comes from this city. But that story will have to wait for another wifi connection.