Clean Air, Quiet City, and the Ability to Take a Deep Breath Part 2

In the morning, we were greeted with the sight of rain and grey skies, but the air was clean. I was able to draw a deep breath without inhaling a lungful of exhaust or smog. In Wenzhou, most mornings don't have a sunrise. If you can see the sun, it is through a brownish haze. In Fuzhou, even though the skies were dark and it was raining, one could not mistake the coming of day. In fact, the only thing that was remotely like Wenzhou was the brown river. The rain upriver causes the river in Fuzhou to turn brown due to run-off.

Merged picture of the bridge and the river from the hotel.

Street Sweeper on a rainy day in Fuzhou.

After a quick breakfast of rice porrige, fruit, and some random sources of protein, we all leaded the busses again and set out in the rain for Fuzhou Botanical Garden. 

The Botanic Garden is one of the places that I could have missed. It is a park where rare and native trees and plants are grown and protected, but unless you are interested in the history of the gymnosperm and can read Chinese, it is a rather boring place. The few bright spots included the huge Koi lake where thousands of Koi live, a huge old tree, the local temple, and the small children's amusement park across the road from the Botanical Gardens.

Once again, us four laowai ditched the main group to go our own way and wander through the park. I can imagine just how annoyed the guides were with us, but oh well, we were bored and tired of listening to the girl with the microphone speaking in a language that most of us couldn't understand. So we wandered off and found a small temple complex. The artwork and statues were far more interesting to us than a stand of Cypress trees or clusters of the world's tallest grass (bamboo). After visiting the temple, we headed to the far end of the park and saw a small amusement park. There the other three played a ring-toss game while I watched and took pictures. Again, far more interesting and much more fun than some rain-soaked trees.

Old tree

Koi pond

Out for a walk

Dragon roof

Buddha

Guardian statue
 
 
 
 

Another Buddha altar

 

Goddess of Mercy

After visiting the amusement park, we realized that the departure time was getting close so we started walking back to the other side of the compound, but we didn't realize how far we had come until we had 7 minutes left. Luckily we managed to hail one of the park tour taxis and the lady took us back to the east gate. We got back on time, before most of the other people in fact even though we had less than 1 minute remaining of our allotted time. While we waited for the rest of the group to return, we wandered around the food and gift stalls. I bought some pineapple and icecream. both of which were incredibly sweet. About ten minutes later, the rest of the group returned and we headed to West Lake.

West Lake is a lake in Fuzhou that has a park surrounding it not unlike Blue Lake in Oregon. It also has an old house and traditional garden that you can wander through. When we were there, there was a karaoke show going on in one of the pergolas. Although some of the singers had good voices, imagine traditional Chinese music done karaoke style; it's not easy on the ears. Other than that however, the lake had lots of trees, water and of course the garden. It would have been a beautiful place to visit if not for the rain. I would like to wander around the gardens when the sun is out. This time, Aaron (one of the guides) decided to stay with us the whole time. I can't imagine why...Unfortunately, we were pressed for time, so the stop at the lake was not a long one. After lunch at an overcrowded restaurant, we were taken to the final stop on our weekend journey--Old Street.

Old Street is a combination of preserved and reconstructed old buildings in Fuzhou. It is a relatively new attraction in the city as many of the buildings are still undergoing renovations. The side streets are also rather barren as of this point in time, but eventually the whole neighborhood will be one large "Historic Downtown" complete with shopping, restaurants, and numerous other businesses. Right now, it is a place with many interesting Ming and Ching style buildings and old houses-turned-shops that is fast becoming a tourist trap. The buildings are beautiful however and many of the smaller gift shops offer some unique small gifts that are easy to pack or send to relatives. I bought some matchbooks with Chairman Mao and Che Gueverra on them. I was tempted to buy some Obama ones, but those only came in a set of 28 and cost too much for matchbooks. Other people bought dolls, figurines, statues, and local pieces of art that were a little on the pricey side. One of my biggest discoveries actually took place just off Old Street.

 

Old Street

Bronze sculpture of writing

Ming/Ching Dynasty House

Ching Dynasty building

Bronze sculpture of silk screening

Really expensive wood statues

Bystanders on Old Street

After wandering around Old Street for a while, I returned to the busses with about 15 minutes remaining on our schedule. While I was standing there about to be bored, I saw a group of tourists dressed in nice clothes being led by a guide into what looked like another old building so I decided to follow them. What I found was an old private residence that was open to the public. Incidentally, this house was involved in the drug wars of the 19th century and part of the property is now an office for China's version of the DEA. It was a beautiful house, and even though  the weather was still crappy I managed to get some decent pictures of the place. I wandered through corridors and hallways snapping photos of random sights; a courtyard, a statue, a Persian-style door, a bigger courtyard, a pond...Sadly I was not able to explore the whole house because I ran out of time. If I am ever back in Fuzhou, I plan on visiting both Old Street and this place again.

Entrance gallery

Small courtyard and pond

Cannons (from the 19th century Opium Wars)

Large courtyard and pond

 

Memorial plaques

Persian-style door

Unfortunately our rather busy, but interesting weekend had to end and before long we were all on the high-speed train back to Wenzhou. We arrived in Wenzhou to the fanfare of cars and smog and rain, but for at least a few hourse we were able to admire a clean city with clean air and take a big, deep, breath.