Baomo Garden

On Saturday we went to Baomo Gardens about 45 minutes outside of Guangzhou. This side of town seemed nicer than the road to Guandong. We were uncertain if we were up for another day in the bus but it proved to be a worthwhile trip. The gardens were originally part of imperial gardens built at the end of the Qing dynasty. However they were completely destroyed in the 1950’s.

In 1995 a multi-year project began to rebuild the gardens. The resulting replica is really quite stunning. There's a series of beautiful lakes with intricate temples, carvings, scuptures and gardens surrounding them. There's also a nice museum with traditional art and jade pieces.

The highlight of gardens are a series of koi ponds with literally thousands of fish. Anita, one of the other grandmas on the trip, bought fish food for everyone and we spent at least 20 minutes just watching the koi swarm to the food. Naomi seemed fascinated with the motion and sounds of the carp as they piled on top of one another and opened their wide, round mouths to gobble the food.

On the bus ride back we stopped to check out an authentic farmer’s market. Everything from vegetables to clothes to fishing pools was being sold. The market was packed and everywhere you looked there was a miniature van or moped honking and hauling something to or from a vendor’s stall. Then it was back to the hotel for a mellow evening filled with play time, Chinese food and BBC news