Shanghai, 7 June 2010

  Shanghai Old City and The Yuyuan Gardens

 

The sculpted Yuyuan Gardens are so classically beautiful I thought they deserved their own page.  After a tour of the city we walked through the preserved and reconstructed Shanghai Old City on our way to  the Gardens.  Taking us back to a bygone era with its shops and markets it was touristy but well worth exploring with colours blazing and cooking aromas, some good some not so good, wafting from every direction.  The tightly packed shops and market stalls, each offering their own specialty - one shop selling only chopsticks.

 

  Shanghai Old City

To see a KFC sign on this beautiful old building is rather disturbing, don't you think?

 

 Yuyuan Gardens

  

The traditional Chinese Ming style once private gardens were first established in 1559 and finished in 1577 by a government officer of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) named Pan Yunduan. Occupying an area of five acres and filled with pavilions, halls, rockeries, ponds and cloisters.  Yu in Chinese means pleasing and satisfying, and this garden was specially built for Pan's parents as a place for them to enjoy a tranquil and happy time in their old age. Falling in and out of various states of ruin they went under five years of restoration by the Shanghai Government in 1956 and opened to the public in 1961, becoming a national monument in 1982. 

Photo shoot

At one time this side of the walkway was only for men .... The women's walkway was on the other side of the wall.

Men and women could talk with one another through these windows as they walked along their respective paths.

There were several of these windows / openings and no two were the same.

Rock Garden