0 The Only Royal Garden in South China

Hi, happy new year. It has been 5 days since last year i post an entry. So, this entry is kinda my first entry of the year 2013.  I have been officially blogging for about 9 months ( aww..late bloomer) which i started on April last year. Blogging keeps me busy during those crazy lonely nights during the weekdays. Fyi, i am still working as far as 114 km from where i work now with my son and now that Steven has moved working to other part of northern Sabah , in Banggi i could not be any lonelier than now. Will i be better blogger from this situations? Lets see..

Sorry, i took you so long to get to the actual entry. Long introduction, ey. Forgive me, ey because i did not do any entry for the end of the year. So, i am just going to do it in short here before i tell you more of my stories during my vacations in China last December. There has just too many to tell , that's why it all comes in  different packages. Each places own its own entry. Here we go...

We know about Forbidden City in Beijing. 

We know about the Great Wall of China in Beijing. 

We think we heard of the Yuan Mingyuan Garden in Beijing. Did you ever heard of it anyway? 

China is the 4th largest country in the world and largest in Asia with 9,630,960 km square total areas, and Beijing is just a part of China located at the northern part. And we know that everything royals about China must be in Beijing. 

Well, if you are just hanging around the southern China, there is royal stuff there too. We know that when we go to China, we want to see the royals stuff there. One we knew makes China 's so amazing. Once upon a time and to me until now it is still. The royals stuff that i am talking about is the New Yuan Ming  Palace Garden.

Travelling to China can never be complete if you don't visit this kinda place.

The main hall where emperor held court with the ministries. This palatial also is the first part of the garden.

It is a replica of the Yuan Mingyuan Garden or Old Summer Palace in Beijing which was destroyed in 1860 by French and British troops during the 2nd Opium War. The war had took almost everything from the Old Summer Palace, from the architectures , valuable paintings to gold treasures being robbed by the troops. The New Yuan Ming Palace Garden is only 1/6 from the original one in Beijing and it was rather a successful attempt that has been made by China authorities to recover the old one. This is because , there has been many efforts to recover but none had been approved until 1997 the New Yuan Ming Palace Garden built and opened for tourist in Zhuhai, China. Now, it attracts millions of tourist to come to visit it. It is not only mere replicas of the original buildings but also functions as recreational park. The garden now consists of three parts, the imperial garden of Qing and Ming dynasties, the classical garden of Southern China and the western building.

Steven looks like a happy king who has to hold his machoness in front of his ministries. Or he looks like he was in shocked. But, actually he was mad at the photographer there who told him not to smile too much because he wanted  to give a happy king looks. "emperor does not smile". 

Here in the main hall, there has these royal costumes that visitors can wear and have their photographer to take photos for you.

 We actually had to rent these costumes there and paid the photographer for best shots that we chose. One also can choose the size of the photos along with its frame. Size of photos will determined how much you have to pay for the costumes rent and photos.

Well, i ended up paying RMB320 for total of 4 photos in 5R size....

Ohh, there is a cute queen by the way .... that looked like me?

The Old Summer Place in Beijing also had many bridges there. Therefore this replica gardens too has number of bridges crossing the canals around the garden.

The recreational garden around a lake here, called Fuhai Lake is the second part of the garden. This road actually goes circle around the garden. So, you start the tour from the main hall, you will be back there too if you just walk along the road. This road too will take you to the third part of the garden.

Behind Steven is a Chinese fortress. You can find this along the road in the second part of the garden.

In this garden too held  more than 30 performances which starts at 10.30 a.m. daily. Performances are like the opera show  and so on. We were supposed to see one but, since we arrived at wrong timing, rainy days , maybe they just had to postpone one.

The performance hall. There is indoor and outdoor performances. The yellow chair is where audience gonna sit when there is outdoor performances

 The third part of the garden  has buildings of ancient architecture of European - Rome which  makes this garden palace unique with mixed architectures. Our driver asked us to hurry taking photos along the park so that we can see the following water fountain...

 But, this is common, right? The driver told us that every 12 noon there would be special water fountain in the Dreamy Water City but, there was just none when we were there. We were quite disappointed at that because whenever we went, something good gotta be down, or under maintenance and so on. However, the view of Romanian  like buildings and fountains  here stunts us. 

All the human-like statues  supposed to be fountains every 12 noon but they looked calm during our visit there. These statues actually the 12 animals in Chinese zodiacs.

These staircases of Gothic designs are so avant-garde!!

Walking around this enormous garden can be pretty tired but, it is not hard to find food stalls and souvenirs shops in  here. There were even street food selling just outside the garden too. And they are delicious! We bought almost anything that we thought could beat the cold.

Fried Sau Mai! Yummy.....

This a candid shot of Fredley (the white jacket) and the fortune teller outside the garden. The fortune teller insisted to have a look at Fredley's palm and went crazy when Steven took photo of them. I wondered why the Chinese in China do not like their picture taken. Even at a buffet restaurant. I was going around to take photos of their food but, someone i thought he must be the manager went to me and forbid me from pursuing my actions. I wanna asked why, but our tour group was on the way out already when the manager talking to me. So, i just get my ass outta there.

2013, wishing all you there especially married couples to stay happy, blessed and prosper.

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