2010-06-25 China - Yueyang Tower and Tea Garden

Today was our visit to Yueyang Tower and Tea Garden. On the way we passed Dong Ting Lake, but the haze in the air made the view very dim.

The Tower has three stories, but was covered with construction blankets, so we could not see the actual tower. In any case, it is the latest of many rebuilds and restorations. There were scale models of previous versions that were very picturesque. We could go inside the Tower and view a famous poem inspired by it, as well as a copy of the poem. Of course, it was in Chinese characters, so most of the group could not read it, but could admire the calligraphy (there is a scholarly study here). On the third level was a poem in extremely cursive calligraphy written by Chairman Mao when he visited the Tower in 1976. The study critiques it, and gives the English meaning for each of the characters, but it didn't make much sense to me.
After the Tower, we went to the Tea Shop where we were introduced to "Silver Needle Tea", also known as "Dancing Tea". We enjoyed seeing the tea needles rise and fall in the glass; if you add boiling hot water to the needles, they rise, then sink, then rise, then finally sink. Hence the "dancing" name.

The evening musical performance was "East meets West" when the 3-piece Chinese orchestra joined the Baker Street Duo to prove music can unite the cultures. It was interesting to hear the Chinese instruments performing Western music, they did an excellent job. I regretted not bringing my video camera to capture the performance.