Chinese Gardens

The nice part about today's outing was that it didn't coast anything to do...just a ride on the MRT. Two stops down to the Chinese Gardens and the weather was perfect (besides being HOT, but that's nothing new).

The Chinese Gardens were built in 1975 by Yuen-chen Yu, an architect from Taiwan, but intended to make visitors feel like they were walking through ancient China. The picture above is an arch entryway that leads into two courtyards and a fishpond. We happened to catch the fish as they were being fed! There is also a Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum, but we decided not to visit that.

When we first walked in off the MRT, you immediately see the seven story Pagoda that is a focal point for the gardens. It's a beautiful structure that you can walk up and visit, which we did not due to having the stroller and seeing all the stairs. We ended up visiting the Twin Pagodas instead and Jacob & Juliana walked up to the top. These two structures are just off land, built into the shore. Juliana had a good time crawling around in the grass and looking at all of the trees and plants around us.

There are a bunch of mini gardens to visit, but we only managed to see a few. My favorite was the Garden of Abundance which was filled with twelve stone sculptures of the twelve different Chinese Zodiac animals There was also four small bridges that represent blessings, such as love & romance, luck & prosperity and feritility.

All together, it was a relaxing day, but we were all exhausted from the heat by mid-afternoon and decided to head back to the apartment. We will return again soon to visit the Japanese Gardens, just over a short bridge from the Chinese Gardens.