I have visited the botanical garden in Guangshan twice now. To be honest both times were about three weeks ago, but in the mean time we’ve been to Beijing and I haven’t managed to select and edit any photos, not to mention writing a post. Everything will be here eventually, no need to worry. I could never deprive you of this amazingness (it could be a word?).
The first time we went it was at around 8 or 9 o’clock in the evening. The garden has no illumination, so we basically didn’t see anything but the path, which was sort of white and bright enough in the light of the city and the moon to walk on. Okay, we also saw some tree shadows. You might think the visit was pointless, but the main feature of the garden during the night are frogs. More accurately, the sounds the frogs make. Again, we didn’t see any frogs, but we heard them loud and clear. It sounded like there where thousands out there. We saw some fishermen (not hunting frogs, only fish!) with lights and I tried to take a photo of them, but it didn’t turn out so well. The combination of the “musical background” and chilly air made the walk very pleasant, if a little different than what you would expect from a botanical garden.
The second time we went was three days after the first, if I remember correctly; this time during the day. The garden is very big and it has a path that goes all around it. It is not only for pedestrians, you also meet bikes, scooters and even cars. In my mind botanical gardens are dense little areas with tons of different plants that have tags with names on them. Here there were definitely no tags, it was more like a grid divided into big sections and there was one or two species per section. Like little monoforests (probably not a word). The colours were beautiful, lots of pink and violet leaves, and even some autumnal hues.
The photo below features Sabina and our project coordinator’s brother, whom everyone just calls Lin Gege (Big brother Lin), who took us to the garden. He and his family are very hospitable and often take us to dinner or to go out somewhere. When our coordinator was in Vietnam for ten days, he took it upon himself to fill the volunteers’ days with activities and this was one of them. Never doubt Chinese hospitality!
Wo xi huan! 🙂