More of the Gardens

The top picture is of the girls and I with our tour guide. She was great! I highly recommend taking the guided tours. The rocks in the garden were brought in from the bottom of the near by lakes. Our guide (Linda) kept saying "use your imagination, this one is a camel, lion, etc. Well, we were all trying to use our imaginations but feeling really dumb sometimes. Finally, she said they would smoke opium and see the animals in the rocks. Okay, so maybe the difficulty wasn't our lack of imagination!! There were also beautiful carvings on the ground before you entered each room. I can't believe i didn't snap a picture of them. Usually they were circles with bats, cranes, etc. Each symbolizing, health, longevity, happiness etc. So, we would walk around the bats stepping on each symbol to ensure long, healthy, happy lives.