Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

A bad bunny in the Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai!

What better way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon in Shanghai than to visit the beautiful Yuyuan Gardens! They were SO exquisite…so Rulin Rabbit has decided to show you some of her favourite photos!

The Yuyuan Garden is located near the Bund in the Old Town of Shanghai. It was built during the Ming Dynasty by Pan Yunduan, a wealthy Chinese man. He wanted to please his Dad, an important official in the government,  by creating a lovely place for him to spend his retirement. He spent almost twenty years, from 1559 to 1578, on this special project, and used up all his savings! Now that’s filial devotion for you! 

Your tour begins here! Your job is to spot the bunny!

The famous ZigZag bridge:

 The exquisite pavilions:

Tranquil gardens, rockeries and ponds:

Even the interiors of the pavilions were lovely:

Look at this flying dragon!

Everything was touched by beauty: even the rooftops, walls and gates!

The magnificent carved windows and doorways:

But danger lurks in hidden places!

And bunnies have to watch their Ps and Qs, or something horrible might happen!

I think it’s time we left and found ourselves a nice cup of tea!

Dusk is falling as we leave the magical Yuyuan Garden… and the lights are going on all over Shanghai…

Goodbye beautiful Shanghai – we’ll see you again soon!

Hello all you SAS Puxi kids!

Well that was fun…three fabulous days with the kids of Shanghai American School Puxi! What with story readings and whistlestop workshops and lunches with the Library Experts and chats with aspiring authors, it was full on! Thanks to all the staff and especially Rosemary Kinyanjui for all the excellent preparation and support!

Happy Birthday Buddha!

Did you know that it’s Buddha’s Birthday today! In many Asian countries today it’s a public holiday in his honour, with processions and religious ceremonies and feasting! And if you’re living in Hong Kong, there’s even a Bun Festival on Cheung Chau Island with local kids running up bamboo towers studded with buns, to see who gets to the top first! Have a great day!

Are you a budding author? Do you want to publish a book?

If you live in Shanghai…and if you’ve ever dreamed of writing or illustrating a book…or even publishing your own …then here’s your chance to find out all the nuts and bolts to make your dream come true! I’m appearing at M on the Bund tomorrow (Sunday) at 11am to present my well-known workshop on Publishing a Picture Book from Brilliant Idea to Final Product! You can register today by phoning the Literary Festival hotline on 6350 9988 – or turn up on the day. I look forward to meeting you!

A Dirty Weekend at M on the Bund!

Oh dear….those dastardly Grots were running wild today at M on the Bund, Shanghai, where a whole lot of nifty Neats and gruesome Grots gathered for a reading of A Dirty Story! Here’s just some of them!

SAS Pudong was HOPPING!

Wow – what a fun couple of days! Rhonda Rabbit and I bounced up to Shanghai last week for a fabulous two day visit to Shanghai American School, Pudong campus, and had a whole lot of fun with hordes of rampant rabbits, aka very bright bunnies, finding out all about the mighty Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his fiendishly clever ways (not to mention his nasty temper and his even nastier pet!) A big THANK YOU to the lovely librarian Barbara Boyer, dedicated staff and clever kids!

Thank you CDNIS for a very Hoppy Day!

Rhonda Rabbit and I hopped into the Canadian International School today for four fabulous reading sessions and a quick poetry workshop with Karen Carmen’s talented Grade 5 class! Big thanks to Myrna, Joanne, the rest of the library team and all the teachers and little beavers for a wonderful visit!

A very satisfactory new Wicked Word awaits you!

Click on my Wicked Word page for the most satisfactory, hunky-dory, agreeable word you’re likely to ever meet! Quick – it’s waiting for you now!

Hello again! Just 4 weeks left till the competition deadline!

Hello all you chocoholic bunnies out there! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break and that you’re ready and raring to go back to school this week! Now that you’ve eaten all those chocolate Easter eggs, what better time than to enter my Clever Competition and write a truly delicious story about Chinese Emperors and Chocolate! See my Clever Competitions page for all the details! The deadline is 31 May, so you’d better get hopping!

Have a Happy Easter Holiday…I’ll be back in May!

Well it’s that time of the year – when schools close up for Easter and we pack our bags and head off on holidays! My family and I fly out tonight to visit our extended family in Queensland, Australia! I can’t wait to see them! So adios, amigos, I’ll be away for the next two weeks.  May the Easter Bunny be very good to you! And I hope to find lots of entries into my new competition about Chocolate and Chinese Emperors when I get back! So if you’re wondering what to do this holiday…go to my Clever Competitions page and get writing!