Shanghai Attractions

Our next stop on the Big Bus is old Shanghai; this is a small microcosm of what Shanghai used to look like.  It also heralds us into the Yu Gardens.

This environment would have created a feeling of a neighbourhood.

Find John?

Can you imagine that Shanghai looked liked this way back when….instead of the skyscrapers we see today?

We kept on taking the wrong turns but eventually we got to the Yu Gardens Gate.

The Yu Gardens was finally built in 1577 after many delays, and opened to the public in 1780.  Many of the original buildings were destroyed by different wars; they were repaired from 1956 to 1961and once again opened to the public.  I do apologize I have no booklet to describe the buildings, ponds, bridges, etc, so like John and I did, just enjoy the pictorial of the gardens.

John, doing the tourist pose.

We know this is zigzag bridge.

There were so many bridges and pathways to explore and they always led us to somewhere very special.

The very large koi, in a pond, they were large enough to eat, when they are this big they really look like carp!

I included this photo to show the different elevations in the gardens, although when you are walking around you do not notice, a stair here two stairs there, quite amazing when you see the photo and where you have been and how high up we climbed without realizing it .

The keyhole entrance led us to this koi pond.

This was another garden that had very interesting architecture.

Another koi pond and zig zag bridge.

They love to use rocks in the gardens and not the smooth rocks but lava like rocks.

It is too bad the gate was closed as these odd shape openings seem to be beckoning you to explore what was behind the gate.

This was one of my favourite spots, you could have a nice cup of tea whilst listening to the birds singing and watching the koi.  This would be quite the feature in a Canadian backyard!!!!

We walked through this labyrinth and found a small stream at the end of our travels.

We are now trying to find our way out of the gardens???

The window grill was no help at all as they were on many, many windows, but this fellow we had not seen before...so we knew we were going in the wrong direction.

If you turned one way you were on your way towards the the exit, if you turned another you were back in the gardens.

Just look at the workmanship that it took to create this one building, even the windows are in the wave shape.

We remembered this bridge, it was our way out.  I would love to visit these sort of gardens and temples throughout China in the spring, fall and yes winter!