Shanghai Guyi Garden, an ancient park dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), has unveiled a month-long entertainment schedule to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The garden covers an area of nearly 10 hectares. A flower show featuring winter species such as the plum blossoms and narcissus delights visitors with charming aroma.

To mark the Year of the Horse, gardeners have made a pair of 2-meter-tall horses with more than 3,000 narcissuses cultivated from Zhangzhou, Fujian province. The Zhangzhou narcissuses are famous for big bulbs, pronounced necks and are easily arranged into various shapes.

Around the garden's Plum Blossom Hall is planted hundreds of plum blossom trees of a dozen varieties. The delicate fragrance floats around the pavilions and artificial hills nearby, adding charm to the classical garden.

Cobblestones, porcelain and tiles are shaped into various plum blossom patterns on the roads. Inside the hall there are more than 20 stone tablets with inscriptions of poems and calligraphies on the flowers by well-known scholars.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, a folk-custom bazaar made its debut. Hundreds of big red lanterns in the garden made the extravaganza full of vibrant joy. Folk craftsmen showed off their skills in making various types of horses, like sugar horses, dough figurine horses, paper-cut horses and miniature carved horses.

Gourmands would be happy to visit the garden's food bazaar that boasts a wide variety of scrumptious regional Chinese snacks as well as cuisines from Thailand, India, Spain and other countries.

And visitors should not miss the chance to taste the most genuine Nanxiang soup dumplings, a snack in the Nanxiang area of Shanghai with a history of more than 100 years. The soup dumpling's skin is half see-through due to a special kind of pot which is made out of bamboo and its stuffing is rich and savory.

Apart from the feast to savor, there are also various interactive activities to keep visitors entertained such as riddle games. Jiang Gengsheng, the writer of Shanghai Riddles Ten Thousand, has contributed a total of 2,014 riddles for visitors to guess.

wuni@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/09/2014 page9)