OLD TOWN AND THE YUYUAN GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS

Here we are in Old Town.   The buildings are breathtakingly beautiful and old.  Unfortunately, for us, lucky for the buildings, several are draped in plastic, apparently being in the middle of some preservation work.

Ironically in the the middle of Old Town we find Dairy Queen and Haagen Dazs.

We make our way to the restaurant where the Clintons ate when they came to Old Town.  Here's our lunch:

Nothing too special.  From the left sweet and sour eel, braised asparagus, a lotus root roll with a sweet sauce and in the back a carton of black rice milk.

After lunch we head for Yuyuan Gardens, for what I think will be a quick 20 minute tour before we head for the Bund.   How wrong I am.

The garden was started in 1559, the guidebook says, was ransacked several times, once by the British and once by the French, but is now fully restored.   Now, I love Japanese Gardens for their simple lines and serenity, and I love our Vashon gardens, which we see during the June tours.  Here's a glance at a couple Vashon gardens:

Just before the entrance to the garden, we see this gentelman making tea, drying it in this heated metal bowl.

Nothing in the other gardens can compare to Yuyuan Gardens.   It's not a big garden, but it's laid out in a maze, and we walk for three hours never sure if we are seeing something for the first or the third time; in reality we see only a few things twice.  So these forking paths are not Borges's figurative, literary, or even imaginative paths, but real ones.   The paths don't always fork, but there are doorways and there are entrances, all of which take you to places you don't expect . 

Take a look at the detail in the walkways, the buildings, the rockery, the ponds, and the flowers and trees. We spend three hours here and leave only because we are up against the 5 p.m. closing.

We never make it to the Bund!  nor to any of the other recommended tourist venues in the area.


And here is the garden:

Rockeries abound.

400 year old Gingko

 The pathways are all "tiled" with stones.

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This is the path we walked.   In other places the tiling is even more elaborate.

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And the roofs are filled with warriors, phoenixes, and dragons.

Under the dragon's chin, is that a toad?

Obviously, dueling dragons.

Not quite a doorway.

Which way will you go?

Another doorway.

These carp may have caught our vibes.   It is 5 PM and closing time.  And there is so much more.