Flowers, Herbs and History. 3

The highlight of my trip was the 11th Annual Chrysanthemum Festival in Chung Shan. We arrived at the park only late afternoon on Sunday afternoon. The traffic was horrible. During the traffic jam, I saw bicycles, motor cycles, private cars, vans and even lorries run right on the "pedestrian" pavement! And no one seemed to care. They were passing right in front of the traffic policeman who apparently had decided to be suffering from temporary blindness because there was little he could do.

But before the chrysanthemum, I had to pass through some manicured trees and hedge plants,

And also a pond. But the surface of the pond was full of litter!

There were chrysanthemums of course. But there were other flowers too about to bloom.

As well as fading.

Some flowers in red vermilion, like duster in wool!.

There were red lanterns everywhere amongst trees

Amongst flowers...

and on top of pillars of flowers.

Four literal walls of flowers.

Finally, a sea of colors.

There were white chrysanthemum tinged with pink.

White chrysanthemum tinged with yellow

There were yellow chrysanthemum tinged with red.

And chrysanthemum in pure bright yellow.

There were smaller daisy like chrysanthemums.

Yellow chrysanthemums crowding in with their sisters in white.

Yellow carnations by the side of red flowers.

Waves in yellow red and white.

There were pinkish red daisies.


Not only flowers. Even more people: milling around, photo posing, sitting, strolling, chatting, smoking, snacks in hand, chasing each other around in the crowded garden paths and over the lawns. It was almost impossible to do any serious photography. Always people standing in front of, behind or beside the flowers. If you could not take a photo within three or four seconds, you'd have lost your chance. So I thought it made more sense to take snapshots of the people instead.

A girl checking out her text messages.

A  girl probably looking for her friend.

A girl laughing

Another girl laughing.

A girl getting slightly impatient at having to wait so long.

A girl posing for photograph

Another girl posing in front of some pink daisies. Perhaps it's' women's nature to want to associate themselves with beauty?

A young lady with a mask.

A young man doing roaring business selling tube balloons twisted into various shapes.

An immigrant worker watching others people.

Two brothers waiting for their photo to be taken by their dad.

A child whose attention was distracted from his balloons.

A child staring at her Chinese lollipop.

A child eating a candy

Another child making faces at her brother to provoke him..

A child with a plastic flute

A child being fascinated by the magic of bent fingers.

Another child trying to reach for another toy.

The same child looking around at a passer by.

A man sitting all alone by the river deep in reflection in the descending dusk.

Before I knew it, it was getting dark.

Some of the flowers had become mere silhouettes. 

The lanterns were lit.

So were the lights of this pagoda.

A new moon has come out over the top of a pavilion.

Lights along the main boulevard of Chung Shan.

The lights were changing color.

In the middle of the street were three dragons. Very late already. Time to go back to the hotel!