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Shanghai offers convenient bus and train day-trip or one-night stayover service to its surrounding tourist spots. Hangzhou, Zhouzhuang, Tongli, and Suzhou are notable scenic attractions. Hangzhou is an over-rated attraction. It offers a nice natural setting. But its fame seems to have been derived more by who (poets and government officials) have visited it in the past than by its natural or man-made beauty. My favorite attractions are Zhouzhuang and Tongli. Zhouzhuang is a well preserved and renovated living water town with many stone bridges. It is recognized by the UN as an International Heritage Site. Tongli's Tuisi Yuan is my favorite Chinese garden architecture. Suzhou's gardens are nice. But mostly over-rated. It seems that those who rated Chinese gardens in the past had not seen all the gardens there were. But with convenient travel today, a lot of these traditional ratings are up for much-needed revisions.
K. K. Fung
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