Your tour leader will be welcoming you at your hotel lobby or Suzhou Railway Station at 08:30 a.m. Tongli is a semi-residential village and the historical canalside hums with activity in the mornings before the crowds arrive. A boat tour can take you through narrow rivers, straight stretches, winding turns and under beautiful bridges. The oarsman of your boat will go slowly so that you can take in all the sights and beauty.

Paper-cutting is a very distinctive visual art of Chinese handicrafts. It originated from the 6th century. Today, paper-cuttings are chiefly decorative. They are pasted on the walls, windows, doors, columns and lanterns to express people’s hopes, gratitude and other emotions. It is easy to learn about cutting a piece of paper but very difficult to master it with perfection. Let's experience traditional Chinese handicrafts by learning paper-cutting.

After lunch, we will visit Tuisi Garden. This Chinese classical garden, built in 19th-century, delightfully translates as the ‘Withdraw and Reflect Garden’, so named because it was the retirement home of a demoted Qing government official. The 'Tower of Fanning Delight' served as the living quarters, while the garden itself is a meditative portrait of a shimmering pond, rockeries and pavilions.

After visiting Tuisi Garden, we will head over to Pearl Tower. In the north of town, quiet Pearl Tower dates from the Qing dynasty and contains a spacious residential complex decorated with Qing-era antiques, an ancestral hall, a garden and an opera stage. It gets its name from a tiny model pagoda draped in pearls.