An ideal fragment of China

The Chinese Friendship Garden is quite small on the outside - no more than a 2 minute walk along each edge - and most of the middle is taken up by a lake, but it still manages to be a good 2 hour walk around the inside. Traditional Chinese garden design creates winding paths lead up and down hills and across the water, holes in trees and walls are designed to frame views into the next section, and there's plenty to look at. Elaborate ceramic and wooden screens, interesting rocks, cases of artefacts, bonsai trees, bonsai mountains (yes, you read that correctly - tiny mountains, that are home to even tinier pagodas, boats and philosophers, with a precise misting system to ensure moss grows in all the right places), carved stone plaques, tiny zodiac figures hidden in the undergrowth and hanging from trees, and water dragons everywhere.

It's not quite as serene as the photos imply, though - it appears to be home to every cricket and grasshopper in Sydney. And they are LOUD.Read more