Today Anna and I visited the Yu Yuan Gardens. I liked it better than the garden we saw at Suzhou mainly because it was much emptier inside. When we were at the one in Suzhou I think I was up against people 70% of the time. I really like the old Chinese gardens. It’s amazing how much art goes into them. I think all the doorways cut from the stone walls are suppose to be like picture frames so that when you look through them you see a picture on the other side.
Getting to places is always fun. We took a bus to the subway and from the subway took a taxi. I wasn’t really sure how to say Yu Yuan Gardens in Chinese to the driver and the guide book we were looking at didn’t have the name in Chinese so I told him “Yu Yuan huayuan” since huayuan is suppose to be gardens. Only I think saying “Yu huayuan” would have been better but he got the message. While stuck in traffic he turned to me and went, “You, China?” Which I guess was his way of asking if I was Chinese; I told him I was American and that seemed to satisfy him. It’s great that telling people that I’m American gives me an auto excuse for not knowing Chinese when I look so Chinese.
After the gardens we looked at all the shops outside the garden in the Yu Bazaar. Most of it was just tourist stuff and over priced as well. The shops inside the garden were worst lol. I saw a slightly bigger version of a hand embroidered scene being sold for over 1000 yuan whereas I got mine for 50. Fans were being sold for over 100 where I’ve gotten them for as cheap as 10 yuan. I also doubt much of the jade was real but who knows.