A glorious trip to China's Fairy Lake Garden, followed by an inglorious fall...

Shenzen blossoms

I have not posted for a while and this is why:

Twelve days ago (March 20th to be exact) Wayne and I celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary by using our newly acquired multiple-entry visas to China (yes, we need a visa to enter the mainland of China from Hong Kong).  We took the metro, and 45 minutes and two checkpoints later, we were in the great shopping land of Shenzen, where you can buy a cheap imitation of anything.  Anything.

We, however, did not linger in the shopping areas but splurged and took a ten minute taxi to a place I had read about called the Shenzen Fairy Lake Botanical Garden.  There we:

posed by trees planted by Deng Xiaoping in 1992

took turns posing...

on the Fairy Lake bridge.

Admired the Fairy Land landscape.

and lilypads...

lots and lots

of

lilypads

cacti gardens

and things besides cacti to look at!

Each cactus blooms in its own way...

At last, the petrified forest! I've always wanted to see a petrified forest.

Up close.

and even closer... petrified wood is like marble.

The 30th wedding anniversary meal in Shenzen was cheap, and the photography was free!!!

So why have I not posted in such a long time?  Because, alas, was it the wine? Was it the slightly loose sandals I was wearing? Was it the fact that I was tired and hurried too much to get an empty seat on the train back to Hong Kong?  The sad story is, I did not "mind the gap", I fell into the side of the tracks, got a gash on my shin, which got infected, which landed me in the hospital, which may be the subject of my next post... and then I'll try and get back on track with some of the great international student stories I have to tell...

So stay tuned!  Blessed Holy Week!