Shanghai Botanical Gardens

In mid April I went to the Shanghai Botanical Garden, ME was away for the weekend and I was so pleasantly surprised by the Shanghai Flower Port I decided to check out this garden. The garden is in the Southwest suburb of Shanghai. It original started as a nursery in 1954 and in 1974 turned into the Shanghai Botanical Garden. It covers 202 acres and after many years of improvements it has become a comprehensive base for plant research, production, tourism, and natural science education and it has won many prizes in international flower show competitions.

The garden has many features including the renowned penjing garden. Penjing means potted scenery.  It is an ancient Chinese art of depicting artistically formed trees, plants, and landscapes in miniature form. In this case it is tree penjing that focuses on planting one or more trees in a container and then shaping the tree through trimming, pruning and wiring to creating a pleasant composition. It is different from the bonsai, it allows for a wider range of tree shapes that are more "wild-looking"  and by planting them in creatively shaped pots. The penjing Garden cover 9.9 acres including a museum and over 2000 containers. The reason I my telling you all of this, is because the penjing garden was quite fascinating and I took many pictures in this area.

The Shanghai Botanical Garden also features cherry, peach, plum, and maple tree orchards, a  rose garden, and a peony garden, which is the national flower of China. There is a 5000-plant azalea garden, and a magnolia garden. There is a 50,000-plant bamboo garden, the garden does studies on bamboo because it is a great resource that grows in most places in China. There is a 5000 square meter conservatory which has 3500 species of tropical and subtropical plants. Then there are the exhibits and the boat rides etc. and the list goes on.

I visited the garden on a nice Saturday afternoon which is also a popular time for families to spend time together outdoors. For me it is a wonderful way to observe what the Chinese do as families. In many ways it is very similar to what we do when we go for a walk in the park , but there are some subtle differences. We of course like to walk for many hours around the park looking at all the different gardens and so do the Chinese. We would bring a blanket to lay out in the sun, have a picnic etc. The Chinese like to pitch a tent where, they can get out of the sun, take a nap, have a picnic etc. What I found many times when visiting the larger parks around Shanghai, families set up tents. I recently visited a sporting goods store that sells camping gear and I asked the sales person about camping in China. I was told that camping grounds do not exist in China, the Chinese do not go camping the way the westerns do. These tents and other supplies are sold to be enjoyed for several hours at a time set up in the public parks and gardens.

The other big activity is taking pictures. It seems like they take pictures of everything, especially themselves. The funny thing is that there are so many pictures being taken that in some areas of the garden the tulips are stomped on or the grass is worn away with folks trying to get that perfect picture.

Badminton is also very popular and looking around an open field there will be family after family playing, very much like us playing frisbee. Flying a kite is very big here and taken very seriously. And almost anywhere you find a lake or a stream you will find men fishing. Below are some photos of the different gardens in the park and some of the typical activities enjoyed by the Chinese. 

shumu penjing

shumu penjing

shumu penjing

click to enlarge

enjoying the spring afternoon

serious about flying kites

activities on the field with tents in the back ground

taking pictures in the tulip bed

smile

another picture?

at the azalea garden

adults fishing

kids fishing

more pictures with worn grass

bamboo garden

boat rides

in the conservatory 

Chinese garden

playing badminton

Shanghai Flower Port

Spring is a wonderful time of year here is Shanghai. Spring comes early with the cherry blossoms arriving mid to end of March and the tulips popping up in early April. The Shanghai Flower Port is a 28-hectare exhibition area featuring tulips and bulbs in the spring, aquatic flowers in the summer and  chrysanthemums in the fall. Opened in September 2002, it is an hour car ride southeast of Shanghai sitting very near to the East China Sea.  It is a very well designed theme park with small lakes, winding paths, wonderfully planned flower beds,  windmills, and beautiful views, it has a relaxing and peaceful setting with fresh sea breezes. Over 3.2 million tulips imported directly from the Netherlands have been planted with more than 500 species including hyacinths as well as other blooms. ME and I and ME's colleague, Joyce, visited the park the first Sunday in April and were pleasantly surprised and very impressed. It reminded us of the Keukenhof Garden in the Netherlands. We walked for several hours around the grounds, below are some pictures that did not quite capture the beauty of the park.   

click to enlarge

Shanghai Slow Food and birthday lunch

Margot has been working for a company called Sprout. http://www.sproutlifestyle.com/ Their tag line is "growing healthy habits", a  wonderful lady, Kimberly Ashton, founded it with her close friend and business partner, Georgia Zhou. Besides selling specialty, highly nutritious foods, doing demos on healthy eating for moms, kids, ayi's, or busy office professionals, holding programs to educate folks on how to improve their holistic health through mind and body, speaking to groups regularly about making the right food choices, and working on opening Sprout's healthy food cafe, she is also the point person for the Slow Food movement in Shanghai. Please view and join by clicking  http://www.slowfood-shanghai.org/ . Every month Shanghai Slow Food organizes an event celebrating their passion for food that is "good, clean, and fair". In March it was held at the Celadon, a restaurant on the 26th Floor of the Renaissance Shanghai Zhongshan Park Hotel. Hector Pliego the restaurant manager lined up four chefs to work up a wonderful Slow Food lunch.

Margot invited her cousin Beau, who is doing an internship in Shanghai this Spring, to the lunch, it was also his birthday. The meal was wonderful, one of the best experiences we have had in Shanghai.

Beau, Margot, and friends 

Mumbai street food sampler
Chef Negi Surendra
with wine paring

shredded chicken and glass noodle soup
Chef Gordon Tzang

Vietnamese fish salad
Chef Sang Duong

        the main course consisted of the three dishes below with steamed rice and local green vegetables

braised pork with egg
Chef Sang Duong

red duck curry
Chef Sang duong

fish head curry
Chef Sang Duong

Osmanthus and red bean soup with dumpling, Chinese mountain honey and yellow wine ice cream
Chef Alex Xue

surprise birthday cake compliments of Hector and Celadon

making a wish

this is for you Robin

being the good host

relaxing after a wonderful meal

Candy Man

A man making candy sugar lollipops, stands almost every day at the entrance to Fuxing Park. I have seen him there many times but really never paid much attention to him. As I exited the park one day during Qingming Festival holiday a crowd had gathered around him. The Chinese are very curious and will stop and look if something catches there eye.

The man had families lined up with their kids waiting for lollipop. Next to his marble slab are pictures of the Chinese zodiac and other images, you pay 10Yaun ($1.75) spin the spinner and where the arrow lands is what shape he makes for you. He was quite the craftsman's making very elaborate lollipops. Here are some of the pictures I took.  

all of this is done on the back of a bike

charcoal burner heating up the sugar

click on to enlarge

working his craft

girl patiently waiting

fish with bubbles and view of spinner

melting more sugar

candy sugar lollipops