Chinese Garden of Friendship

Last night I did a little research on school holiday activities and saw that the Chinese Garden of Friendship offers a craft project where you can make your own shadow puppet. I'd been meaning to check out the garden anyway so we set it as our agenda for the day.

The Chinese Garden of Frienship is set in the heart of Sydney's CBD but once you go in the gates you feel like you're in another world. We had fun talking about China and pretending that's where we were. It helped distract me for a bit from the fact that I'm really missing Keene Valley.

We read a little about the 2,500 year old history of shadow puppets and then each child got to pick a character from the myth of the Monkey King. Both girls chose to create a princess. They have a link for more characters if any of you fancy making your own.

Emily put a lot of detail into hers including creating a unique pattern for the skirt. She liked the symbolism of the colors and made a point to do red for courage, black for honesty and to avoid white because it signifies meanness.

Tess enjoyed trying hers out against the white screen. I like the idea of making a toy that you can go on and use. At one point in the afternoon the girls pulled theirs out and made up a whole dialogue while moving their puppets around.

After making the puppets we set off to explore the gardens and stumbled across a spot to try on traditional Chinese dress. We took a few pictures in their formal setting. 

To our surprise and delight they let us go out and wander all over in the dresses. Emily loved posing for pictures. Tess not so much.

We finished off the afternoon with some playing at a fountain and then the trek back home. I love having these wide ranging unstructured days. After all the rigors of school Emily and Tess really enjoy having time for free play.