Daily Improvisations

  • Inside the Homestead
    • Sewing
    • crochet and knit
    • Playing House
    • In the Workshop
    • Cooking and Food
    • Helpless Female
  • Out in the Garden
    • In My Greenhouse
    • Gardening in Southwest Idaho
    • Straw Bale Garden Project
  • Out with Animals
    • Chickens
    • Goats
    • Horses
  • Around the Globe
    • Adventures with Wild Greg
    • Chocolate Shops Around the World
    • Life in Taipei
    • About Town
      • My Blogs
  • The DI Store
    • DI Gardener’s Shop
    • How to Build a Backyard Brick Oven From Scratch (Book)
    • Custom designs
  • DI Memberships
    • Log In
    • Sign up to be a DI Sewing Room Insider
    • Dream House Members Area
      • Dream House Eyewitness Login
      • Your Account
      • Dream House Project
    • Become a Dream House Eyewitness!

Official Residence Gardens

March 1, 2009 by Laura Blodgett 4 Comments

gardens 1

I can’t decide whether I should have known about this place sooner.   Would it have brought comfort or made me long for my garden?  It was definitely a wonderful place to visit last Thursday.  It is the now-open-to-the-public Official Residence Gardens.

Originally, the vast acreage was the main home of the Chinese leader who fled when the communists gained power (with the help of Russia).  He established a temporary, or so was his plan, government on Taiwan.  And either he or his wife liked to garden.
Of course, it will have changed some in the years since they were alive.  We (Natalie, Carlie, and Greg’s mom with me) spent two hours wandering around just gazing in appreciation and taking lots of pictures.

I immediately compared it to Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, which is billed as a 55 acre garden.  The Official Residence is supposedly about 40 acres.  It doesn’t have as much variation in height, seeing that it wasn’t built into a cement pit, but it is very well designed.

We were the only foreigners we saw there.  One elderly Chinese gentleman struck up a conversation with me.  He had been to a few places in the eastern USA during his years in the business world.  Several children on field trips said hello to me.  One asked in Chinese if we were Americans.  Another was apparently from a Japanese school.  He stood right in front of me in a friendly, but confident way and said hello.  I responded in kind.  When I saw that he stayed there continuing direct eye contact, I asked him how he was.  He then decided he was in ‘over his head’ and ran away laughing and calling “Sayonara!  That’s ‘good bye!’”

I think the best thing to do is just show you the pictures.   I hope you enjoy them half as much as I enjoyed being there.

gardens 2

gardens 3

gardens 4

just a ‘small’ car port

gardens 5

we didn’t follow these steps …

gardens 6

making our way past the ‘official’ coffee shop

gardens 7

we went this way first

gardens 8

gardens 9

gardens 10

we couldn’t tell yet that this was the ‘tip of the ice-berg

gardens 11

gardens 12

gardens 13

known as ‘Hot Cocoa’

gardens 14

gardens 15

gardens 16

gardens 17

gardens 18

we did stop to smell the roses

gardens 19

gardens 20

gardens 21

gardens 23

Carlie said, “I bet Chiang kai-Shek got to walk on the grass

gardens 22

apparently a green sculpture of Chiang kai-Shek’s face

gardens 24

gardens 25

gardens 26

gardens 27

a class field trip photo

gardens 28

coming out from under and behind the sculpture

gardens 29

must be a project in progress –

gardens 30

gardens 31

gardens 32

another ‘garden room’ around every turn

gardens 33

gardens 34

entering the pond area

gardens 35

gardens 36

gardens 37

gardens 38

gardens 39

gardens 40

gardens 41

gardens 42

gardens 43

gardens 44

gardens 45

gardens 46

gardens 47

gardens 48

upon exiting the pond area

gardens 49

gardens 50

gardens 51

gardens 52

translation pending??

gardens 53

gardens 54

gardens 55

looking out from the vine covered tree

gardens 56

gardens 57

gardens 58

gardens 59

gardens 60

gardens 61

gardens 62

gardens 63

gardens 64

this pond is in the center-front of the structure in the next photo

gardens 65

gardens 66

gardens 67

gardens 68

gardens 69

gardens 70

gardens 71

gardens 72

gardens 73

gardens 74

gardens 75

and another pond

gardens 76

gardens 77

gardens 78

gardens 79

gardens 80

gardens 81

gardens 82

gardens 83

the garden nursery under lock and key

gardens 84

gardens 85

and for the wrap-up, big sticks…

gardens 86

it’s interesting, but I preferred the flowers  🙂

gardens 87

it was fun to walk through the garden with you!

gardens 88

Filed Under: Around the Globe, Life in Taipei Tagged With: Gardens Around the Globe

If you want to read a heartwarming story about how a mother deals with a daughter's death, read this book.

If you have ever wanted to cook pizza in a brick oven in your own backyard, this book is for you!

Basic Facts Guides to Gardening in Southwest Idaho

a list of blog articles covering the basics to help you with your garden in southwest Idaho

My Other Blogs

  • Fun Fitness After 50
  • Fun Learning Chinese
  • LauraBlodgett.com
  • The Happy Homeschool

Blogroll

  • Anemone Flynn
  • Fine Gardening
  • Gourmet In The Field
  • Sew 4 Home

About me

 

 

Daily Improvisations is a project by Laura Blodgett

If you want to know more about what I’m up to and where to read about it, here is a summary!

Making sure you know that:

Some of the links on this site are affiliate links, including affiliate links to amazon.com. See disclosures here.

Contact Me

Contact Me
First

All pictures and content including the name and logo “Daily Improvisations” are Copyright (c) 2019 by Laura Blodgett, unless otherwise noted. Please contact the author with any questions or comments.

Tags

animals Backyard Oven backyard weeds book reviews Chef Betharoni chickens Cori Lou Costa Rica crochet and knit decorating even I can do dehydrating fabric stores around the world flowers flowers from seed Gardens Around the Globe helpless female homestead injuries insects interview Maui music organizing poems PVC Pipe Projects questioning the establishment recipes restaurant reviews sew sewing southwest Idaho gardening sprinklers stock market diaries Taipei Taiwan technology know-how The Best Little Chocolate Shops tools and equipment underground house unimpeded parenting Wild Greg Adventure

Copyright © 2023 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in