My visits to four of the the world's great botanical gardens in the past two months ...

Life as BHL Program Director is not always windowless conference rooms in Natural History museums. Though there are plenty of those (as well as exciting tours through the nooks and crannies of those same museums), in the past few months I've had the great pleasure of seeing four of the world's great botanical gardens (and their libraries). I just missed on a fifth, the Royal Botanic Gardens (Melbourne) because of a packed schedule, but had see that a few years earlier.

This week I was at the Missouri Botanical Garden (pictures below). It was a very rainy couple of days (with some tornadoes thrown in), some my Garden time was mostly in the Climatron dome!

So, in order of visits, here they are:

Singapore Botanical Garden.
Beautiful location and lovely facilities.



Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Luckily, the rain held off for my visit and I had a great stroll all the way across the garden.



New York Botanical Garden.
My first visit to the NYBG! Had a surprise snowstorm that made the grounds charming.



Missouri Botanical Garden.
Rainy days and thunderstorms, so not much outside strolling.



I should also through in here some pictures of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, the amazing botanical garden in Cape Town, South Africa, that I visited in 2012:



And, some pictures from the Royal Botanic Gardens (Melbourne) from a 2010 visit:

Three Chinatowns in two weeks ... Philadelphia, Melbourne, Singapore

On my recent trips, I was able to stay in three different Chinatowns, Philadelphia, Melbourne, and Singapore. All three were quite different, but in some ways, had many similarities. I really like to visit Chinatowns around the world. I've been in quite a few now and in the past few weeks was able to see the dramatically different ones.

First stop, Philadelphia.

Chinatown - Philadelphia

In late January,I was in Philadelphia for a conference and stayed right near the Philly Chinatown. As an added bonus it was a snowy, winery visit, so I gat to see a snowy Chinatown.. The Philly Chinatown is on the small side, but conveniently located. This visit had an added bonus of occurring during a snowstorm, so it was interesting to see the Chinese arches in the snow. I didn't have much time in Philly on this trip, so didn't get to eat or explore all that much.

Chinatown - Melbourne

A few days later, I was off to Melbourne and stayed in Chinatown, just off Little Bourke Street. My bonus there was that it was at the start of the Year of the House and I got to see parades and fireworks!

Chinatown - Singapore

From Melbourne, I moved on to Singapore. Even though Singapore is mostly Chinese, I stayed in the historic Chinatown portion of the island. Still Chinese New Year when I was there, and the I saw many a dragon and heard many a drum. Along New Bridge Road one night was a mini-festival with music and performers.

See some previous Chinatown posts:

• Trying to find Chinatown ... and found it, in fact two, in South Korea
• Four Chinatowns in four months: Seattle, Incheon, Busan, and San Francisco