Out with the ladies

Recently Mummy was invited to come along on an expat adventure. Her friend, Ellie, has been regularly getting together with other expat mums from the school her two eldest attend and heading out to see different places in and around Xiamen. They have had some interesting times indeed and today I was to join them. The itinerary (well actually that is a pretty loose term for it as Ellie explained) was to see a flower exhibition place followed by Tenfu's tea museum and be back in time to collect children from school. As Daddy has finished his face-to-face teaching for the semester, he kindly worked from home so as to look after Sebastien for the day.

Mummy took Alex to school (of itself a terrific treat for her) and then went to the Marco Polo area to meet up with the group. We were to be a large group of twelve in two cars - some expats who are here working for international companies have the use of cars and local drivers which they kindly shared for the occasion. The driver today, Scott, was a gem in that he also spoke good english. We set off and the discussion was lively and informative - usually on different trips that people had been on, the good and bad of them.

Pretty soon (after an hour and a half) we arrived at the flower exhibition. The entry price was 80RMB each which we baulked at and Scott negotiated a 50% discount for the group - in part because there was no electricity at the site today and, presumably, we'd be unable to ride in the ajoining amusement park. We were offered the use of electric golf carts for a further 10RMB but declined in order to walk around for the hour or so a tour would take. The guide spoke in Mandarin - and the group was fortunate to include several ladies who speak sufficient Mandarin to translate for us and were happy enough to do so.

The tour took us through several sections of the exhibit which were showing signs of neglect.

The first part included this rockgarden - a little different to what Mummy is used to.

The trees here were mainly bonsai-ed with this particularly old tree revered as it is perceived as being lucky. If you look closely (and half turn your head and squint your eyes - as the joke went) you might see the bottom of the trunk looks like a sea turtle with the head out the front and the front flipper to the side with the tree sprouting from its back.

And a poem wall that was hanzi written top to bottom in strips.The second section consisted of planted plants - including a shade area with pond. Here's Ellie checking out a plant that provides water to drink - in the desert.I wasn't sure what was planned for this planting bed - it looked as though empty glass bottles were being used to "beef up" the soil to create a wall?We did come across a little bit of Chinglish - Your choices areWe weren't able to work out what rubbish constitutes "assaulter" other than what one lady suggested - batteries - although I figure recyclable and non-recyclable works just fine.

We didn't really get to see the third section - to be production glasshouses of plants (flowers and vegetables/fruit) - as the doors were locked. We passed some miniturised houses of various styles on the way back to the entry. By then we had seen enough and it was time to head on to the Ten Fu tea museum and perhaps some lunch.

We knew that we didn't have a long time to see the tea museum - and not enough time to do so and also eat lunch - if we were to make it back before 4pm. Part of the group had lunch at a small restaurant whilst the remainder got started on the museum. The museum was wonderful - they had an english speaking guide as well. First we went upstairs to see the many displays on tea and tea making. How refreshing to see displays that included pretty good english in the descriptions as well as the headings - and it was also better than the usual chinglish seen at many tourist spots.

There were many displays and our limited time meant that we really only scratched the surface. Of particular interest to Mummy was the museum section which showed how tea had been preserved in the past. Sometimes as medallions with images or names on them, or as pieces of a chinese game, and

sometimes as a giant disc that was displayed in the hall.

There were static displays of various teapots and tea cups among other displays - here are displayed two dynasty's different tea habits.

A sample of the displays we passed.

Discs of tea were dried over coals whilst on metal rods.

I'm sure that at a different time we would have had a chance to take a closer look at this intriguing set up next to the stairs.

The museum grounds were very well landscaped and we appeared to be the only tourists there. Signposts showed the way and many tea trees were planted around. Once we'd finished at the tourist center, we also went to see the on-site calligraphy gallery (not as interesting to Mummy) and both the Korean and the Japanese tea houses. Unfortunately we were too early for their scheduled tea ceremony performances and weren't able to convince them to change it (or stay to see them).

By then it was time to leave - though we did have time to sample some pu'er tea (tastes a little too earthy for Mummy) and a cold flower tea. Some of the group purchased some tea from the shop. On the way home we passed a "Tea College" where students take up to two years to learn the art of tea production.

Ellie and Mummy caught the bus back to Xia Da with her two eldest children, not something that they like her to do - it's kind of embarassing to have your mom come along for the ride. Mummy said her goodbye's and thankyous and then went to collect Alex from the West Gate school bus stop. What a great day!