The Sun Yat-Sen Garden

Vancouver is home to the Sun Yat-Sen Garden, the first full-size Chinese "scholar's" garden built outside China. It's in the middle of the city's Chinatown, which is by North American Chinatown standards a very nice place -- with wide, uncrowded, clean sidewalks and not a lot of smells -- but not one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. Which makes the garden even more of an oasis:





All the materials were imported from China, as were all the craftsmen. The plants, all native to China, were carefully chosen for their flowering and foliage schedules. Even the rocks were imported, from a Chinese lake that is heavily acidic and has weathered the limestone into weird, Picassoesque shapes (look just to the right of my friend Steve):



The garden opened in 1986, and from its description as the "first" outside China I assume it's no longer the only such garden. But it's still well worth a visit if you're ever in Vancouver, and be sure to visit the private part (which charges admission, but where these pictures were taken) and not just the free public portion.