虎丘 - Tiger Hill
虎丘 (Hu Qiu – Tiger Hill) is a site with a very layered history in Suzhou…over the years it has been the location of many historical happenings, including famous speeches, famous battles and famous burials. To paraphrase Art Spiegelman, it simply bleeds history. Some of these events stretch back circa BCE (into the Spring and Autumn Period), and others have happened rather more recently.
The site itself takes its name from a legend regarding the death of King 阖闾 (Helu), ruler of the Kingdom of Wu and friend of 伍子胥 (Wu Zixu – remember him from my Dragon Boat Festival post?), He died in 496 BCE while fighting the Yue and was buried in the hillside by his son. Three days after his burial, a white tiger supposedly came and sat over his grave as though guarding it. Thusly Tiger Hill is named.
The instinct to carve your initials into a tree must be universal…
Yuki and Graham claim this rockfall/sculpture/craggy dam in the name of WVU…
...then Graham promptly climbs up a tree and hides.
“Clouds melted in tea fragrance.” We should learn a lesson from place names like this…no longer will we have E. Moore Hall! Rather, it is now to be called Manor House Glistening By Azaleas! ;)
Yuki and Aka pausing before continuing our near-vertical climb to Yunyansi Pagoda.
George, Yuki and Jillian doing what they do best…making strange faces at the camera… ;)
A startling resemblance to the previous shot!
Tiger Hill cresting off in the horizon…
Finally! The pagoda at last! This is actually China’s answer to the leaning Tower of Pisa…it leans about 359 degrees northwest and is huge!
A detail of the facade…
Leaning almost completely backwards against a fence to get this shot…
Natalie…
One of several Buddhas and altars scattered around the hillside…
This was, apparently, the place to be…you couldn’t walk anywhere that you didn’t stumble over a memorial or a rock carving or somewhere that hundreds of people were killed…
Two Faeries Pavilion…
Thousand People Rock…supposedly after completing work on the tomb for King Helu, his son had all the workers driven together to stand on this rock where they were ritually murdered and then buried with his father…the remains of these workers have never been discovered, but they are assumed to indeed be buried here along with the approximately 3000 ancient swords that King Helu was known for having collected…this rock is supposedly stained forever red with the blood of the dead…and, indeed, it does look a little pinkish…a little…
Zhen Niang’s Tomb…
The Stone Peach…actually nothing that special, just a rock shaped apparently like a peach pit…I like trivial things like this scattered throughout huge historic markers…
Sword testing stone…note the giant crease in the middle…this site is famous for 干將 (Gan Jiang) and 莫邪 (Mo Ye), a famous swordmaking couple who supposedly fashioned master swords at this spot…
Han Han Spring…this is named after a cute little legend involving a young monk and his hardworking, honest character…
And, of course, boating…
One of the park staff took this photo of us…we only took, I think, two complete group shots during the entire trip…
For further information, check out this link—虎丘 ...
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