Admission to Chenshan Botanical Garden is 60 yuan. Getting there, however, is the part that tests your patience. The metro ride took an hour and a half, and after that the bus intervals were so long that taking a taxi became the only realistic option. These big suburban parks in Shanghai all seem to share the same problem: they are much better suited to people who drive.
Entering from Gate 1 and turning right, the cherry blossom area was already past its peak. I caught only the very end of the season. There were not many visitors, and workers were busy throughout the garden pruning branches and moving in new plants. It was hard not to imagine what this cherry-lined avenue must have looked like not long before, when it was probably packed shoulder to shoulder.
The wisteria had entered its blooming period. Early April really feels like the best time in Shanghai for a spring outing, camping, or a picnic in a park: the weather is warmer, clothes are lighter, there is wind, there are green lawns, and there are still plenty of flowers to look at. Wait a little longer and the mosquitoes arrive.
If you enter through Gate 1 at this time of year and wander around the area on the right, many of the aquatic plants are not yet in bloom. I had not done much planning and mostly just walked wherever I felt like going, so in half a day I went from Gate 1 to the Quarry Garden and then over to Gate 3, without visiting the conservatory closer to Gate 2.
For anyone who wants to explore more thoroughly, it is probably better to come early. On a weekday, the outdoor areas were genuinely much quieter. It was nothing like the weekend scenes where every lawn seems to be covered with tents. The garden is huge, and there are good angles for photos almost everywhere. The whole place has a quiet, lush feeling to it.
And then, unexpectedly: Shanghai has a waterfall this tall.
Seeing something that looks like a mountain stream and waterfall in Shanghai was honestly shocking, especially because I had not checked any guides beforehand. There is actually a viewing platform facing the waterfall, clearly made for photos. When I went, the tulips in front of the waterfall were being removed and replaced with other plantings, so the foreground was missing that layer of color. It probably would have looked even better with the tulips still there.
Chenshan is, in a way, one of Shanghai’s lesser-known Taoist mountains, though not many people seem to know much about its history. There is also a pagoda on the mountain, but I did not have the energy to climb up, so I only looked at it from a distance.
I found it strange that the area near the waterfall had trees while other parts of the mountain looked quite bare. After looking it up, I learned that Chenshan had been used for granite quarrying from the 20th century onward. During the Great Leap Forward period, the mountain was almost hollowed out, and the damage to the mountain body was severe. Quarrying only stopped in the 21st century. The garden now includes an area where the former quarry pit has been transformed into the Quarry Garden, and the waterfall is one of the artificial features created there, right at the center of the old quarry.
Once you know this, looking at the waterfall makes the scale of a century of quarrying feel very real. At first glance, I genuinely thought it was a natural landscape. Elsewhere in the garden there are artificial lakes lined with cobblestones, with ducks, black swans, and the like, and the ecology looks quite good. But after learning the story behind the site, the feeling becomes a little strange. Given enough motivation, humans really can do absurd things like move mountains. A mountain can be flattened, reshaped, packaged, and made to look like something new.
Near the children’s playground, there is also a fenced area with sheep. I still have no idea what the point of keeping animals there is.
I kept wandering past different flowerbeds until I reached Gate 3. Near the entrance there was a large blue field of baby blue eyes, with a faint floral scent drifting in the wind.
Looking back from a distance, it looked like this:
Even on a weekday, quite a few people were camping, picnicking, or simply lying down in the flower field. I immediately regretted not bringing a picnic mat. It would be so pleasant to lie there or sketch for a while: no insects, an open view, cool afternoon wind, and very fresh air. It reminded me of the flower field where Reiko lies down in Natsume’s Book of Friends. It turns out that kind of scene really is as comfortable as it looks.