Saturday 8 September 2012

Park gardens, Chinese gardens and Vegie gardens!

Yesterday I rode around Stanley Park, you can hire bikes for about $12 for two hours. The view of the mountains and the sea was amazing. Unfortunately I thought I had forgotten my camera (then found it later in the bottom of my bag grrr) so I didn't take any pictures. Maybe google image search 'view from Stanley Park' if you want to know what I am talking about haha. On the way home the bus passes through Chinatown and I got off at the stop outside the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. This traditional chinese garden is situated right in the heart of Chinatown and the Down town area. It was built in 1985, with 100% of the materials used brought over from China, to ensure it was as authentic as possible. The garden represents how an Ancient Chinese scholar's house and garden would have looked like. To become a scholar in ancient China you had to study for many, many years. Scholars would then live in a house in regional China with up to 200 other people (close relatives, relative's families, servants etc.) The scholar had to stay at the house 365 days of the year, and they lived here for 7-10 years. Therefore the garden of the house was created to represent the natural environment outside the walls of the Scholar's house; so the Scholar would never feel that he was missing out on the outside world. To reflect the Chinese culture, the entire garden in Vancouver was designed through Feng Shui theories. Therefore everything is in its place for a reason and there are multiple metaphors and symbols behind the placement. In ancient China, all the buildings, towns and cities were developed by Feng Shui practitioners. Nowadays they are called architects or town planners. I thought that was pretty cool!





This morning I went to the farmer's market at Trout Lake, it is about 5 minutes down the road via bus. The market took place in the carpark which backs on to a beautiful parkland and lake. It was full of people this morning; cyclists, families and people walking their dogs. I made a roast vegetable lasagne this afternoon with the produce I bought this morning, hopefully it will last me a week of dinners!





Trout Lake...and the biggest bulldog I have ever seen!



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