Yu Guardens

After the temple, we headed to Yuyuan Gardens, a centuries-old garden complex including bridges, koi ponds and various outbuildings.

It was really cool. The weight of years hung off the place, in the worn cobblestones, the narrow archways and the stunted, gnarled trees. It was every bit my picture of a an old chinese garden -- Pai Mei would have been very comfortable.

Check it out.



On the famous "zig-zag bridge", there was a local entrepreneur gently cooking fresh green tea leaves in a large, heated wok. They finished product was going for something like 3000RMB a kilo, which is a little less than $500. When Kenny asked what it smelled like, my mother chimed in with marijuana". We quickly moved on.



In a cultural aside, here is an example of the hair favored by today's Shanghaiese youth. I can now confirm that the mullet is a worldwide phenomenon. Scandinavia. The Mediterranean. South America. The Far East. The American South. You cannot escape.



Hey look, I took my picture in a mirror. Now all I need is a MySpace page. Though it's a little hard to tell from the picture, there are benches to my right and left, and the mirror allows the people sitting with their backs to the garden to enjoy the view.



For those of you who don't know what koi look like, they look like goldfish on steroids.



Here we are, at the Yu Gardens.