Bromeliads!

On Friday I met Mark Paul from the Greenwall company, and he kindly showed me round his greenhouse and lovely bromeliad collection.

Purple Trees

I've never seen trees so purple before...



The first thing I thought was... wow, they'll look fabulous in renderings! Jacaranda trees, some kind of a Sydney version of the cherry blossoms. They bloom for about 2 weeks in spring, and I happen to be around here at a lucky time!


Even the droppings, are just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous...

3mths.l8r

This past three months in Europe felt like a long time.
It must be a wanderlust's dream to be living and working across Europe the way I did, peddling on some green research project.

Many people that I have met during this trip I contacted for the first time by e-mail, and its always exciting to meet them for the very first time. Are they nice? And do I look like what they expected me to be? Excluding my encounter with the rude talking landlord in Sweden... the encounters have been all unbelievably good.

The Dreer award has opened up a chance of a lifetime to travel and work across Europe.

It has been wonderful.

And soon, off to Australia!


(Up) My wonderfully airy and plantly apartment room in Munich.

Linden tree

On the last week of october, I came back to Switzerland again to say bye to friends and plants of Waedensvil~


Cosmos flowers in the ZHAW garden...


I learnt a new smell while I'm in europe,
the smell of a street...
lined with blooming linden tree.

This tree is molting leaves right now and obviously not having flowers. Before in July though, it had fruits, and almost everyday I am there, we have tea here with Phillip and Simone, while drinking the linden tea (me) and expresso (them). I loved this tree so much that when I see them still in bloom in Sweden... I remembered, and breathed deeeply... oh, the sweet and gentle scent of a linden tree...


View of the Swiss alps from the plane.
Second must visit again place in Europe. After Rome, of course.

Oktoberfest

Can't go away from Munich without talking about THE Oktoberfest...


Endless lines of marching bands, girls on beerwagons for two hours long... as if they emptied out all the Bavarian villages aorund Munich!


This is my favorite display, a herd of heidi goats!


on and on...


Up movie mascots dressed up in Oktoberfest theme.


But the festival really is a two-faced one. On the good face is the traditional parade (above) and on the 'bad' face is the drinking. Almost needless to tell, Oktoberfest is the biggest drinking party in the world. And sight like this is kinda common in the fest area, around the station and even near my apartment! (Drunkard sleeping in the corner of the street on bright daylight)


In the meantime, for two weeks, Thereßenwiese is turned into a giant theme park with scary scary games...




"I love you" cookies thing...


No pretty beer pictures here though. I almost didn't drink the last week I'm in Munich because I've been getting sick practically every week for the past month. But there's the last beer I had in Munich! It's my fav beer, a Radler (beer with lemonade), with some tender pork cutlet~

Fünf Höfe Hanging Garden

The hanging garden at Salvatore Passage of Fünf Höfe is my favorite project from Indoorlandscaping, the office that I have been working for in the past month. The project was finished in 2002 with architects Herzog de Meuron, and seven years on, the plants are still looking healthy and gorgeous... here they are:




Set in a trendy shopping arcade (Armani, Zegna, D&G, Zara, etc.), this garden makes a reference to the mythical Hanging Gardens of the Babylon, the city of luxury of 600BC. But unlike the ever-perfect mythical gardens, this one is real and it drops leaf litters everyday, and hence require a lot of cleaning and care.


The plants hangs gently onto a chain, as it climbs down from fifth floor to the second floor... a height of over 10 meters long!


Above is the stunning view of the garden from the café on the second floor. The bright lights wakes up the plant everyday, and makes sure that the plant gets enough light to photosynthesize and grow. Below is the view from the fifth floor where the pots for the hanging garden sat on. These pots are irrigated hydroponically and there's almost 200 of these climber pots, comprising of six species, including Scindapsus, Passiflora, Tetrastigma and Philodendron. The white tabletop-like umbrella on them is used to shade them from too much sunlight.


This last picture was taken on a different day (my last noon in Munich in fact), hence the brighter daylighting.