Yuyuan Garden

April 23, 2012

The Yuyuan Garden used to belong to a rich family.  Chinese gardens are different from our gardens.  When you see a regular US garden you look at the yard and see the entire garden. Chinese gardens seem enormous because they are divided into little garden rooms.  They use rocks to represent mountains.  They use a lot of special rocks.

 

Only the emperor can have a “real” dragon.  This rich family had “fake” dragons. “Real” dragons have five claws.  So the rich family could not have a dragon with five claws or they would be executed.  So, they made dragons with only three claws and called them “fake” dragons.

 

This dragon has a pearl in his mouth which symbolizes riches and money.  If you look below the dragon’s chin there is a three-legged frog.  This was a story about getting money if you are not the emperor.  The frog sits under the dragon’s mouth and licks up wealth from the dragon's saliva. Gross!

 

Noni and Pop Pop liked the garden.  So did I.

In the famous places we could see people who were getting married having their pictures taken.  They would stand in front of beautiful scenes and a photographer would take their picture.

 

In Chinese gardens and houses they like to make doors and windows like picture frames.  A doorway to a garden is shaped like a picture frame so when you look at the door it is like you are looking at a picture. 

They make the windows look the same way.

For lunch we had Mongolian barbeque. At a Mongolian barbeque place you pick out the vegetables, meats and sauces you want to eat.  I picked out carrots. 

 

Then you take them to a place where the cook puts them on a big round stove and cooks them.

The cook was not careful and mixed my carrots with meat he was cooking for somebody else. I ate noodles and rice with soy sauce.

Naturally, Pop Pop bought ice cream for dessert!