Beautiful Pictures

2012-01-28T00:25:00.000-08:00

Now Tet (Lunar New Year 2012) is over, and I can relax and post some pictures that I took before Tet. You can find the video of Flower festival and flower markets in Hanoi here. The flower markets in Hanoi is smaller than Saigon's, but you can enjoy this video and have a feeling about the Tet in Vietnam. The picture in this post is a flower girl selling flowering peaches before Tet on a street in Hanoi.
Last year, just before Christmas, I visited Hong Kong, and here are some pictures of the lovely city.
I'll post more pictures of Tet flowers in the next few days, please come back.

Slide shows with Vietnamese musics

2011-12-13T19:42:00.000-08:00

I made these slide shows last years, but I did not place in the Flowerpictures.net for public view. If you like to listen to some Vietnamese musics and watching beautiful pictures of flowers and Vietnamese sceneries, please visit this new Slide Shows.

Cai Bau island, Quang Ninh, Vietnam

2011-12-09T01:52:00.001-08:00

Visiting Cai Bau island on the Bai Tu Long bay, Quang Ninh, Vietnam.
The Bai Dai (Long Beach) of Cai Bau island is beautiful and clean with the view of Bai Tu Long bay.
Bai Tu Long bay is not as famous as Halong bay, but it is very beautiful, especially at the sunrise.

At Cai Bau, you can also visit the Truc Lam zen monastery and have a stunting view of the Bai Tu Long bay and Bai Dai beach.

2011-09-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

New Vegetable and herb gardens. Since retirement five years ago, I and my wife have been volunteering to work for MABA, a Buddhist temple in Augusta, Missouri (when at home, not traveling!). I grow vegetables for the monk and nuns (they are vegetarians), and take care of the temple's gardens. We also grow vegetables at home, it's fun! I have many pictures of vegetables and herbs that we grow, and also from botanical gardens. Please visit this vegetable and herb gardens. Thanks.

New improved flower ID page.

2011-09-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

Check out the new Flower ID page that is easier for you recognize flowers and their common English names. Some new flowers were also added.

Did you see the new Flower calendar page? I'd just added some new flowers in the month of July, especially, the lotus flowers on July 11. If you love lotus flowers you need to see the lotus flower slide show with the Gate chant from MABA on July 8. The summer is almost ended, enjoy the summer flowers in July of this flower calendar.

2011-08-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

Last year, we went to Florida and visited the headquarter of the American Orchid Society at Delray Beach, near Fort Lauderdale. I'd already posted the video of orchids displayed at the AOS's greenhouse, and now, here are the pictures of orchids and other flowers at AOS visitor and Botanical Garden in Florida.

2011-08-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

Last Summer, we took a 5-day-car trip to visit some places west of Missouri. From St. Louis, Missouri, we drove to Denver, Colorado, spent most of the time driving in the first day of the trip! The next day, we visited Garden of the Gods in Colorado Spring, Mount Evans near Denver, and the Denver Botanical Garden in Colorado. The next day, we visited the Rocky Mountain National Park in the Northwest of Colorado. From there, we drove north to South Dakota. In the 4th day of the trip, we visited Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and Devils Tower in Wyoming. Driving home on the 5th day! We already placed the videos of this trip on Youtube, you can watch them in my Video page.

2011-08-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

In the trip to San Jose last month, we visited a small, but beautiful Japanese garden in Saratoga. It's still cool in Saratoga in June, and it's so peaceful to walk around the garden, especially in the bamboo garden. Here are some pictures of this garden in my flowerpictures site.

2011-07-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

We took a cruise ship to Alaska last June, and I'd just uploaded some pictures of this Alaska trip to my flowerpictures site, in the Alaska cruise page. It's nice to take a few days to escape the Summer heat of this year in the Midwest USA. This year, it rains too much and too hot for human in the Midwest, but it seems very good for plants and grasses! I feel bad the Southern US (especially Texas, Arizona), they got one of the worst drought in history!

2011-07-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

We'd visited 2 special gardens during our Alaska cruise (Carnival Spirit) in June, 2011. The first garden is the Glacier garden in Juneau, Alaska. This garden is small but very special with unique upside down tree flower towers. The second garden is the Butchart gardens in Victoria, Canada. The Butchart gardens are very beautiful, and well organized. All pictures of the Butchart gardens were taken in the evening around 7-9 pm, therefore, they are are not very bright. We wish to visit this garden again on a sunny day!

Glacier garden in Juneau, Alaska

The Butchart gardens in Victoria, Canada.

2011-05-19T07:02:00.000-07:00

We'd just added a free Ipad app for flower pictures in the Apple App store, check it out and let me know what pictures that you want to see in this app.
I also had a video about the snow in the early Spring in St. Louis and some spring flowers after the snow, check it out at this link.

2011-05-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

I'd just added a new page with pictures of flowers 2 days after the snow storm in St. Louis on 3/26/11. Most flowers were not damage by the snow. See these pictures at the flower calendar on March 28.

2011-04-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

After come back from a long trip to Vietnam, I have been very busy during spring time in the US. Spring time means planting, taking pictures of flowers... To test my new compact camera (Nikon P7000), I took nearly 700 pictures plus some videos in the past few weeks. Here are some pictures of flowers in the early spring snow in St. Louis in the Picture Calendar page.

2011-03-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

If you want unspoiled, quiet beach for yourself, visit Con Dao island, about 45 min-flight from Saigon, Vietnam. I visited this beautiful island recently, and here are some pictures of Con Dao. Con Dao Island has been chosen by the UK publishing company Lonely Planet to enter the top 10 best inlands in the world in 2011 for romantic vacations.
I also put together a short video about some tropical flowers that bloom during my visit to Saigon in Spring 2011. Here is the link to Tropical flower video.

2011-03-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

Visiting the Dong Van Geographic Park of Ha Giang, Vietnam. Dong Van is a remote district of Ha giang province which is located at the extreme top of Vietnam, considered as the Vietnam rooftop. Many people think that the scenery of this UNESSCO heritage geopark is the most beautiful in Vietnam.

2011-02-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine!

I'd just completed first round of the Flower calendar, please visit it to see flowers year round!

2011-02-09T02:40:00.000-08:00

New videos showing the Golden Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. If you are a Buddhist, you should visit this beautiful sacred place. During the Tet festival in Vietnam (Lunar New Year), I visited some flower markets in Hanoi on the last day of last year (the day before Tet), and recorded some video clips about flowers at 3 main flower markets in Hanoi. Please watch this video, it beautiful with Vietnamese spring music.

2011-02-03T02:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
This year is the year of Cat in Vietnam, but in Chinese world, it is the year of Rabbit!
I'd just finish the 2010 calendar of flowers, please visit this page to see flowers distribution through the year. I'll add flowers in Tet (Vietnamese New Year) later.

2011-01-28T00:03:00.000-08:00

Hello from Hanoi!

In the last 2 months, I'd been very busy traveling around Vietnam and to one of the SEA country: Myanmar. I'd visited Quang Ngai, Danang in central Vietnam, then come Saigon, visited Con-dao. I'll upload some pictures of these places later. Now, please visit Myanmar at my new Myanmar webpage. You will see huge beautiful golden pagoda in Yangon, and other pagodas in Bago, Myanmar.
Only 5 more days to the Lunar New Year, "Tet" in Vietnamese. I wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year, the year of Cat.

2010-11-24T19:24:00.000-08:00

I'm now in Hanoi, Vietnam. After a week of adjustment for jet lag, I'm relax and have more time to add some pages to my flowerpictures website. Please visit 2 new pages about the botanical gardens in Denver and Houston. If you are in the Denver area, you should visit the Denver Botanic garden in downtown Denver. But if you are in the Houston area, you should visit the Mercer Arboretum and Botanic gardens in the suburb of Houston.

2010-11-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Please come to see the new Flower calendar in my Flowerpictures. I have pictures updated to October 2010. This flower calendar is convenient for people want to see what flowers are in bloom for each month in the Midwest USA, especially in the USDA zone 4-6.
If you like videos, please visit my video page to see flowers and some other places that we've visited this year.

I'll travel to Vietnam next week and will post pictures of flowers in November to February from Vietnam.

2010-09-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

New page at my flowerpictures: Calendar of flowers. You can can check for flower blooming time by clicking on the date that I took photographs on the flower calendar. Right now, I have only flowers from March to May. Please come back to see other months later.

2010-07-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

I bought a new HD camcorder last year, and recorded many beautiful and interesting places that we've visited. Since having some free time now, I start posting some of my videos on Youtube. Here is the link to my new Video Page in Flowerpictures.net. Please leave your comment on these videos. BTW, most my videos are in HD720p, so you can view them in HD!

2010-06-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

Since coming back to US in April, I was too busy to write this blog! This year is one of the best year for flowers in the Midwest. The temperature was mild, not too cold or too hot in April and May and plenty of rain. I took many pictures of spring flowers and I'll post them on my website in the near future. I'm adding new flowers to the Flower ID page, please visit the Flower ID page to identify the unknown flowers in your garden.

2010-03-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

Tropical flowers.
Every year, we stay in Vietnam during the winter time to avoid the cold weather in the US. Vietnam is a tropical country, especial Southern Vietnam, there is no winter here! Flowers are more beautiful and last longer in the winter because of the cool temperature. I took pictures of some popular tropical flowers that Vietnamese people likes to grow in southern Vietnam and you can see them in the "Tropical Flowers" page. In the temperate areas, most of these tropical flowers are exotic and can only grown in the greenhouse, but here in Vietnam, you can find them anywhere, around public buildings, along the streets...

2010-02-28T00:13:00.000-08:00

New pictures of Rice transplanting in Vietnam and Bai Dinh Temple, the biggest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia.
Traditional rice transplanting that the Vietnamese farmers do for hundred of years. Pictures of farmer transplanting are beautiful.
Bai Dinh temple in Ninh Binh province is still under construction, but thousands people already come to visit this new temple.

2010-02-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

Trip to India.

We took an eight-day trip to India in early Spring this year. The main goal of this trip is to visit some Buddhist holy sites in Northeast India, including Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar. The Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya is the place where the Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment. Sarnath is the place where the Buddha gave first dharma talk, and Kushinagar is the pace where the Buddha died.
We also visited New Delhi, Taj Mahal and the Ganges river.

Please visit my webpage Trip to India to see all the pictures.

2010-02-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

New pictures of Vĩnh Nghiêm Buddhist temple in Bắc Giang.
Traditionally, many Vietnamese people go to visit temples in the first month of the lunar New Year (Tết). They try to visit as many temples as possible to pray for their wealth, happiness, luck...
We went to visit an old Buddhist temple in Bắc Giang province a few days ago. This is the original Vĩnh Nghiêm Buddhist temple that is about 700 years old. Most Vietnamsese only know the new Vĩnh Nghiêm temple in Saigon which was built in the 60's.

2010-02-11T02:41:00.000-08:00

Tết is the biggest festival in Vietnam, it is the lunar New year. This year is the year of the Tiger (Canh Dần). If you visit Vietnam this time of the year, you'll see flowers displaying everywhere. You can see flowers in public park, in the streets, in office building, commercial buildings and private houses...
The traditional Tết flower in the South Vietnam is "Mai" flower (this name has the same sound as "lucky" in Vietnamese). In the North Vienam, the temperature is colder and the traditional Tết flower is peach (hoa đào). Recently, orchids become favorite flowers to many Vietnameses, because they are beautiful and more expensive. Most orchids are grown commercially in Dalat (central highland) and in the North.

You can see some Tết flowers in my webpage Vietnamese flowers.

2010-01-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

New pictures of Dalat, the flower city of Vietnam during the Flower festival 2010 in the Vietnam scenery page. In this page you can view:

You can also view the Vietnam famous Lady's slipper orchids at this flower festival.

2010-01-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

New lady's slipper orchid flowers from Dalat, Vietnam.
We visited the Flower park at Dalat, Vietnam last week during the Flower festival 2010. Here are some pictures of the lady's slipper orchids from Vietnam. Vietnam has about 20 different species of lady slipper orchids (Paphiopedilum), but many of them became extinct by poaching. I'll post more pictures of Dalat, please come back to visit my webpage in the next few days.

2009-12-26T20:19:00.000-08:00

We visited Mủi Né last weekend. We stayed at a friend's house at Sea Link resort, which over-looking the golf course and Mui Ne beach, a beautiful place! The beach was full with foreign visitors enjoying wind kite-surfing. Please visit this Mui Ne page.

2009-12-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

Spring is not comming yet, but I still have many pictures of spring flowers, specially, azalea that I took last year. You can see them in this azalea page from my flowerpictures site.

2009-11-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

I recently replaced some old pages of my website flowerpictures.net with new pictures, please visit these new pages:
Flowering cherry trees,
Magnolia flowers,
Some other Spring flowering trees.
Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

New page about colorful foliage plants. These plants have leaf colors as beautiful as flowers. Check out this new page: Colored Foliage Plants

2009-11-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

I'm in Hanoi now. It's cloudy and cool (15-18C). I'm testing video on this blog to see how it works, so here is a video clip from my Canon HF200:

This is the view of the water lily pond with the Climatron on the background.

2009-10-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

I'd been busy working in the garden at MABA during Spring and Summer, no time for posting! I'm a volunteer gardener at this Buddhist temple in the past 3 years. We have very good vegetable garden to supply fresh veggies for residents at MABA. If you are in the St. Louis, Missouri area, please come to visit us (see address at MABA website). I'll back to Vietnam next month to spent Winter there. BTW, I added hundreds more pictures of many different flowers in the Flower database, if you want to identify your unkown flowers, please visit this page

2009-03-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'd added many pictures from Vietnam recently, please visit this page to see the beautiful Vietnam: Vietnamese scenery. If you are a Buddhist, you should visit the page a bout Vietnamese pagoda.
I also added many pictures from America, including Sequoia park in California, Florida, San Diego. All these pictures from America can be seen at the America page.

2009-02-24T23:54:00.000-08:00

A trip to Cambodia.
We took a tour bus to travel to Cambodia from Saigon on the New Year of 2009. The tour took us to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and some other Angkor temples. On the third day of the trip, we continued to Phnom Penh where we visited the Royal Palace of Cambodia. The trip is relatively cheap and very interesting, we highly recommend this trip to people who like to discover ancient Angkor empire.

2009-02-09T17:16:00.000-08:00

Lunar new year (Tet) is a the biggest holiday in Vietnam, especially to the flower/plant loving people! Flowering plants are everywhere in the markets, public parks, hotels... I took many pictures of flowers during Tet in Saigon, Hanoi, Vietnam and put them on my website recently. Please visit them and enjoy the beauty of spring flowers in Vietnam.

2009-01-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

I'd just uploaded pictures of the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami, Florida. Last week, we took a 4-day bus trip to visit one of the Wonder of the world, the Angkor Wat, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We started from Saigon, went to Siem Reap, then to Phnom Penh, then back to Saigon. There are many ancient temple complex in Siem Reap and all of them are magnificients. If you travel to the Southeast Asia, you must visit these unbelievable temple ruins which were built more than thousand years ago by the Khmer empire. I'll post all pictures about Cambodia trip in the near future.

2008-12-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

I'm working on the improvement of the flower database on my website. You will find your favorite flower easier with some information in this new flower ID page. There are so many flowers in this database, therefore, it may take months to finish it. Please come back. In the meantime, please visit other pages, especially my other site FreeBeautifulPictures.com for many beautiful large size pictures of flowers and natural sceneries.

2008-12-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

The Montreal Botanical Garden.
We went to Montreal, Quebec, Canada last month and visited many places including the Montreal Botanical Garden. This garden is big and contains many different theme gardens. The Chinese and Japanese gardens are beautiful even in October with no flower blooming. The views of the Fall in the garden are stunning. There was displayed of the Chinese lanterns at the Chinese garden, very interesting and beautiful.

2008-12-07T19:42:00.000-08:00

A short trip to Bufadora, Mexico.
La Bufadora means the blowhole is a tourist attraction in Ensenada, Mexico. This marine geyser, blowing water up to 80 ft in the air, is the second biggest blowhole in the world. We took a bus tour from San Diego to Ensenada through the Baja highway along the coast of Baja California peninsula. View of the beaches along the highway are beautiful. This is our first trip to Mexico, I hope that we'll travel to more well-known places in Mexico like Cancun, Acapulco...in the near future.

2008-11-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

Hello from Vietnam! After 8 months in the US, we went to Vietnam for winter retreat. I have so many pictures of many trips that we'd gone this year including trip to the Sequoia park in California, visiting some beaches in Florida and recent trip to Canada (Montreal and Toronto). We'll post the pictures from these trips later. Now, I have more time working on my website. I'd just added two pages of Dahlia flowers and some Summer flowers at my other website: Freebeautifulpictures.com. Please visit this site to see beautiful large pictures of flowers and landscapes. I also added some new flowers in the flower database. If you need to identify your flowers, please visit the flower ID page in Flowerpictures.net.

2008-05-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

I was too busy after coming back from a long trip to Vietnam. The Spring this year is almost perfect for flower blooming in the Midwest area. There is plenty of rains and the temperature is not too cold to kill the flower buds like last year. All flowering trees bloomed beautifully. With my new camera (Nikon D-300), I'd taken thousands pictures of flowers in April and May. I selected 50 of them and displayed at my second website: http://www.freebeautifulpictures.com/. Please visit this website and see new spring flowers in St. Louis.

2008-02-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

New Spring flower from Vietnam.
The Vietnamese loves flowers. They always have flowers in their house during the Lunar New year (Tet), especially Mai flowers (Ochna) and flowering peach. The weather this year is relatively cold in the Spring, therefore, the flowering peach was not as good as last year.

2008-01-17T22:52:00.000-08:00

Hello from Vietnam. I've been in Vietnam the past several weeks visiting relatives, friends. I added some more pages in the Freebeautifulpictures.com . If you like a new way of seeing nature, please visit the raindrop. More pictures had been added at the Vietnamese scenery (Ben Tre and Can Gio). Please come back to my flower site, more Spring flowers from Vietnam during the "Tet" festival will be added.

2007-11-19T08:57:00.000-08:00

I'd added two new flower pages roses and lotus in my website FreeBeautifulPictures.com. Please visit them to get large pictures for your screen saver or wallpaper.

2007-10-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

New rose page at Freebeautifulpictures.com.
I'd just finished a new rose picture page at my freebeautifulpictures.com. These are new rose pictures that I took during the trip to California last spring. The roses are from the rose gardens at the Descanso botanical garden and Huntington library and botanical garden in the Los Angeles area. I also added some new flowers to the Flower ID page. Please visit this page if you want to identify or get some information about your flowers.

2007-09-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks, I'd been busy to make a new webpage called Freebeautifulpictures.com. This webpage is devoted to beautiful pictures for your relaxation. If you like any picture, you can download easily and freely for your screen wallpapers or for other personal uses. Many pictures are flowers and sceneries with 2 width sizes 800 and 1200 pixels. I hope that you like this new FreeBeautifulPictures.

2007-09-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

After almost 2 days offline, my flowerpictures.net was up intact, what's a miracle! I don't know what's wrong with the server, but I'm happy that I don't need to reload the whole site!
I'd just finished a new page called Flower Identification. You can use this page to identify an unknown flower or to find more information about a flower that you want to grow. All flowers are listed in alphabetical order of English names. Each flower also has a Latin name which is unique to each flower. You can use the Latin name to search the web for your favorite flowers. You'll get more webpages that have information specific for that flower. I have a link to most of flowers in these Flower ID pages. These are links to reliable non-commercial webpages that have information about that flower.

2007-09-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

The flowerpictures.net is offline because of the server problem. I don't know how long the server Globat will fix it, but I hope that it'll up very soon. I 'm working on a database for identification of flowers. This database will help people to identify and find information about their flower easier. Please check back later. Thanks.

2007-08-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

Last month, we visited many gardens in California and took so many pictures. Pictures of most of the gardens that we visited had been added to the Botanical Garden and Arboretum page in the past sereral weeks. Pictures of the Sherman Library and Gardens were added today. If you love Fuchsia flowers, you should visit this page. Sherman gardens have a large collection of Fuchsia and begonia flowers. If you cannot visit the Sherman gardens, you can get a virtual tour of this garden at this page.

2007-07-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Summer is time for vacation. We took a bus tour to see Yosemite and San Francisco, please come to join us on this virtual tour of California. We also added many flower pages on the Flower gallery page. Click on the slide show if you want to see all pictures without clicking the mouse!

2007-07-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

Slide show of pictures from Vietnam.
My friends complained about using the mouse to click every picture to see it, and it may take hours to go through all pictures that I have! In the past several weeks, I have started to add slide shows to many pages from my flowerpictures.net. Please try the Vietnam page and take a virtual tour of this beautiful country. If you want flower pictures, please go to the flower pictures page. You have option to go to the regular page and get large picture for your screen wallpaper or viewing all pictures as slide show.

2007-07-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

Flower slide show.
In the past several weeks, I tried to find a good software for making slide shows, and I found pretty good one, it's a flash base slide show maker. Please take a look of this slide show and let me know: Columbine flower .
I have a DSL internet connection and it's loaded very fast, if you have a dial connection, it may take longer time to load the slide. If you want see other slide shows of flowers, please visit my Flower Gallery. Please click on the slide show link on each page to see the slide shows.

2007-07-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

The Huntington Botanical garden at San Marino, California.
We spent 3 weeks in California and visiting some well-known botanical garden in the Los Angeles area such as the Huntington Library and Botanical garden, the Descanso Botanical garden. The rose garden at the Huntington garden was in full bloom and so beautiful. The desert garden and the Japanese garden are also great! Please visit my flower site to see the Huntington garden.

2007-06-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

Pictures of Halong bay, Vietnam.

These are pictures from our trip to Vietnam this year. We took a 2-day trip with overnight sleeping on a wooden Junk in the Halong bay. Halong bay is amazing, so beautiful and peaceful. Please take a look at this page and enjoy this natural wonder of the world.

2007-06-01T05:50:00.000-07:00

Azalea and Rhododendron blooms.
Azalea is more popular in Southern States of the US, especially in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee... However, azalea and rhododendron are also very beautiful in the Midwest. There was an unusual warm temperature in March that stimulating flowering, then a freezing temperature (in the 20's F) in the first week of April that caused a lot of damaging azalea blossoms in the Midwest area. Luckily, I'd taken some beautiful azalea images before they were killed. Please visit this new page of azalea and rhododendron.

2007-05-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'd added 2 new pages to flowerpictures.net:

Tulip flowers at St. Louis in Spring 2007.

Sceneries from Ha Giang, a province in the Far North of Vietnam.

I'm so busy this Spring, try to do so many things. Visit the gardens, take pictures, make web pages, gardening, home improvement etc. About gardening, beside taking care of my garden, I also have a big lot of vegetable garden at MABA (Mid America Buddhist Association) in Augusta, Missouri. BTW, MABA has a free meditation section every Sunday morning, please contact MABA for more information if you like to visit this beautiful and peaceful place.

2007-05-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

It's Spring time in Missouri, USA!
We came back to the US in early April, in time for Spring flowers. The Spring flowers were in full bloom everywhere. However, a few days of freezing temperature in the first week of April had killed most of beautiful flowers including dogwoods, cherries, crabapple, azalea....Luckily, I'd taken many beautiful flower pictures before the frost. Please visit my website to see these flower pictures. This is the first page of the many pages about Spring flowers. Please come back again to see them all.

2007-04-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

New pictures about some means of transportation in Vietnam .
During the past several months in Vietnam, we'd traveled a lot around Vietnam and taken many funny pictures of people on the roads with their special, simple transportation. You will see many motorbikes overloaded with everything from chickens, pigs to fruits, vegetables...

2007-04-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

We're back to St. Louis, Missouri, USA, just in time for Spring. But it's still cold in the last 2 weeks with temperature deep below freezing point! Most of spring flowers like crabapple, dogwood, azalea, wisteria...were frozen overnight and gone last week! Fortunately, I took some pictures of them a day before freezing. I'll post them in the near future. Right now, I'm busy to update pictures of the Vietnam trip, thousand of them! You can view the first page of this trip now with pictures from Sapa. Come back to see more of Vietnam pictures in the near future.

2007-03-29T01:58:00.000-07:00

Roses in Vietnam.
Vietnamese loves flowers. They always have a flower bouquet in the house for decoration or on the ancestor altar. In Hanoi, especially during Spring, roses are relatively cheap. You can buy a dozen of good roses for less than 1 US dollar. Roses are sold by street vendors at many street corners in Hanoi. There are many different roses and they are called by their color like red rose, pink rose, carrot-colored roses, etc. They're all beautiful.

2007-03-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

Orchids in Vietnam.
Vietnam, a tropical country, is located in the Southeast Asia. Vietnam is considered one of the best sources of orchids because of its diverse topography and climate. In the past several months, we visited many orchid nurseries in Hanoi, Saigon and Dalat. Most of these orchid nurseries are small and run by the Vietnamese orchid enthusiasts. They have small collection of different orchid species and grow one main orchid species for selling in the local markets. In Saigon area, Mokara is grown in Cu-Chi, a suburb of Saigon. One orchid farm grows Phaplaenopsis at Binh-Quoi near downtown Saigon. Cymbidium is grown in Dalat where the climate is more favorable to this orchid. In Hanoi, I fortunately know Mr. Tuan-Anh, the owner of the Ngoc-Lan Vien. Mr. Tuan-Anh has a large collection of orchids native to Vietnam. He has an ambition to collect and protect the Vietnamese orchids from extinction by poaching.

2007-02-21T01:44:00.000-08:00

Tet flowers in Vietnam.
This year I spent New Year "Tet" in Hanoi, Vietnam. Flowers, especially flowering peach and "Mai" flowers are symbols of Tet in Vietnam. I went to the flower market along the Red River in Hanoi to see vendors selling flowers. The streets (Yen Phu, Nghi Tam, Au Co) were crowded with people selling and buying Tet flowers and kumquat, tangerine trees. Vendors, on their bikes, also sold flowering peach evrywhere in Hanoi. Please visit my Tet flower page to see these beautiful flowers.

2007-02-15T19:25:00.000-08:00

Adenium (desert rose) in Vietnam.
A few weeks ago, I visited an adenium nursery in Saigon with Mr. Khuong Hoang. Khuong is an expert about adenium in Vietnam. I was surprised because of his young age but having a deep knowledge about adenium. Because of the limited time that I had in Saigon, we visited only one nursery near Thanh-Da in Saigon. Adenium thrives in the South Vietnam and has flower freely year round. In the future, I'll go back to Saigon and take pictures of some very old adenium there.

2007-02-04T00:58:00.000-08:00

Busy travelling.
Since retiring at the end of November 06, I'd been too busy travelling, no time to update my website! I 'd been taking thousand of pictures of flowers and sceneries in Vietnam and China. I'll try to post them in the near future.
There are many old Buddish temples in Hanoi and surrounding areas. I already visited several pagodas including: chua Thay, chua Tay-Phuong, chua Tram-gian in Ha-Tay, chua Tran Quoc, chua Sai, chua Vua, chua Vong Thi in Hanoi (chua=pagoda).
Before Christmas, we went to the central Vietnam by car, visiting Ninh-Binh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Hue and Danang, Hoi An. There are many beautiful places along the national road number 1, the Tam-Coc/Bich-Dong at Ninh Binh, Phong-Nha cave at Quang Binh, the tombs of the Nguyen's dynasty at Hue city, the Hai-Van pass, the old city of Hoi-An.
After Christmas, we went to Halong bay. We took a 2-day and 1-night trip so we can watch the sunrise and sunset at Halong. It's so beautiful and peaceful, sleeping on the boat in the middle of sea surrounding by hundreds of small islands.
Few weeks ago, we took a 6-day trip to Kunming in Yunnan province in the Southwest of China. We visited the ancient A' lu cave (the number one cave of Yunnan) and the world famous Stone Forest. Kunming is well known for its flowers, but unfortunately, this is winter time with temperature dipped to near freezing, we did not see much flowers in this city beside pansy.
In the past 3 weeks, we spent time in Saigon, the biggest city of Vietnam. I visited Thanh-Duc village, my birth place in Tayninh province (about 50 miles from Saigon). From Saigon, we went to Nha-Trang, Da-Lat and then Vung-Tau with my brother-in-law's family. Every places are so beautiful. I spent a lot of time visiting many flower plant nurseries in Saigon and Da-Lat, especially orchids. I also visited an Adenium nursery in Saigon with Mr. Khuong Hoang. Khuong is the author of an excellent book about Vietnamese adenium (Ky Thuat Trong & kinh doanh Su Thai, 2006).
Tet (Lunar New Year) is coming, Happy Tet to everyone!

2006-12-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

Vietnamese bonsai. I visited Hanoi during the APEC time. There were many exhibitions to introduce Vietnamese culture to the APEC members and other foreigners. There were several displays of Vietnamese bonsai that is different from the traditional Japanese bonsai. Both Vietnamese and Japanese bonsai were derived from the Chinese. The Vietnamese bonsai (Cay canh) is closed to the Chinese penjing (potted landsacape) than the Japanese bonsai (potted tree). They all require a lot of time and patience. Bonsai is an art of relaxation, try to own one if you can.

2006-11-29T20:02:00.000-08:00

The Fullerton arboretum .
I'm relaxing in Hanoi now. I'm staying at my sister's in-law's house in Ho Tay (West Lake). It's a beautiful house located near Ho Tay. I can see the lake through a window in my room. It's relatively hot last week, but the weather is changing, and becomes cooler now. We'd been visiting some old Buddish pagodas around Hanoi and Ha-Tay province. I'll post their pictures later.
I'd just uploaded the pictures of the Fullerton arboretum in California, USA. I'll post the pictures of the LA arboretum later. I notice that there are many Vietnameses visiting my Flowerpictures site, would you please send me some comments, suggestions about this site (you can write in Vietnamese, if you like).
So long from Hanoi, Vietnam!

2006-11-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

The Quail Botanical Garden.
Last month, we visited four gardens in Southern California, Quail Botanical Garden in North San Diego, LA arboretum, the arboretum at Fullerton and the Japanese garden at Cal State Long Beach. I already posted the pictures of the Japanese garden at CSLB, and today, I'd just up loaded the pictures of the Quail Botanical Garden. Please visit these gardens in my all new page reserving for the pictures of botanical gardens, arboretum and other special gardens in my Flowerpictures.net.
Today is the first day of my retirement. I feel like a normal weekend day! I'll have more time to travel, taking pictures and take care of my webpage. So please come back soon to see pictures of flowers and many interesting places that I'll visit. The first stop will be Vietnam. Vietnam is a tropical country, therefore, January-March is Spring time with plenty of flowers, please visit my website to see Vietnam the beautiful!

2006-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Fall colors.
The Fall (Autumn) in the temperate-climate areas is very nice because of the cool temperature, and most of all, it is the most beautiful and romantic season of the year. The color of leaves start to change in October to create magnificent- colorfull landscapes. Nature's annual autumn color festival is certainly one of the greatest shows on earth. For those who live in the tropicals and have never seen it, please vivit my Fall colors webpage to enjoy this annual show from our Mother Nature.

2006-11-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

Fall flowers.
The Fall color is beautiful this year in Missouri, I have many pictures of colorful sceneries in the St. Louis area (Missouri), and I'll post them later in my website. Beside colorful leaves, Fall flowers are beautiful too, especially the mums. If you drive around, you should notice that mums are everywhere, especially in front of shopping centers, office buildings. If you live in warm areas like California, Florida, you may still enjoy many summer flowers that are still in bloom. Please visit my Fall flower page to see the fall flowers in St. Louis (Missouri) and Southern California.

2006-10-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

The world famous San Diego zoo
There are about 4000 animals at this zoo, and we do not intend to have all of their pictures in my webpage! However, I have pictures of many interesting animals including panda bears, koalas... If you love animals, you should visit this zoo.

2006-10-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

Koi fishes at the California State University Long Beach.
If you love koi fishes and Japanese garden, you should visit this beautiful garden at Long Beach, California. This garden is relatively small compared to other Japanese garden, but it represents all traditional features of a typical Japanese garden. I visited the garden on Wednesday, therefore, we were the only outside visitors at the garden, beside a dozen of art students drawing and painting the garden view. There is no cost to enter the garden, but you need to pay a small fee for parking.

2006-10-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

A trip to California.
Last week, we went to Southern California to attend the wedding of my wife's cousin. We also took a mini vacation to visit some botanical gardens and arboretums in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas. Autumn is not a good time to visit the gardens, because there are not many flowers in blooming. We visited the Quail botanical garden in San Diego, the Japanese garden at Cal State University (Long Beach), the LA arboretum and Cal State unversity at Fullerton. We went to the Hungtington Botanical garden, but we could not get in because it only opens at noon (we got there around 10 AM and could not wait). The LA arboretum is closed by, therefore, we visited the arboretum instead. The Japanese garden at Cal State Long Beach is small but very beautiful. We spent more than 2 hours in there to watch the koi fishes. The koi fishes in this garden are the most beautiful fishes that we'd ever seen. I took more than 500 pictures of all the gardens that we visited, and will select some to post them on my flower site in the next few weeks. We also visited the world-famous San Diego zoo, and took many pictures of the panda bears. The panda bears are smaller then I though, but they are very cute.

2006-09-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Scenery from Saint Louis and some public parks in Missouri.
I have been living in St. Louis for a very long time, but I did not take many pictures of the landscapes in St. Louis, beside the Gateway Arch! But now, it's almost time for me to leave STL, I need to have some pictures of the city that I called home for the past 25 years. So, here are some pictures that I took recently. There are a lot more places in STL and Missouri that I need to visit and take pictures. I'll post these pictures in the future. Please come back! STL is a relatively big city in the Midwest (2nd behind Chicago). It's a lovely city with all the facilities of a big city and the atmosphere of a small town. St. Louis has football (Ram), baseball (Cardinal), hockey (Blues)... and the world headquarter of the biggest beer company of the USA, Anheuser-Busch company.

2006-09-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

Summer flowers (part 2).
I'd uploaded 60 more pictures of Summer flowers to my flower site. These are common flowers that bloom during hot Summer. I had included more pictures of butterflies and bees on flowers. You can find some wild flowers and water lilies in this page. Anyone loving zinnia should check out this page. Beautiful zinnia pictures from a zinnia collection at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri. Left picture is a tropical hibiscus in my garden.

2006-09-11T11:43:00.000-07:00

Summer flowers.
I have been busy taking pictures of flowers this Summer. Can you believe it, the Summer is over! This is the first page of the summer flowers, and many more will be added later. You can find many different flowers blooming in Summer including annuals, perennials, and tropicals. There are always some butterflies or bees around the flowers, therefore, they also included in these pictures. Please come back to my flower site to see more Summer flowers in the next few weeks. In this attached picture, some glass arts by Chihuly displaying at the water lily pond in the Missouri Botanical Garden.

2006-08-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

New pictures of daylily flowers .
I have so many pictures that I want to upload to my website, but I'm too busy to do it in the past 2 weeks. Finally, I decided "just do it" and the pictures of beautiful daylilies had been published last weekend, please take a look of these so beautiful flowers: daylily . Daylily is a hardy perennial that is very easy to grow in any garden. There are so many different flower colors and shapes that you can choose to fit your garden. In the past 100 years, plant hybridizers have been produced thousand different daylilies, they all beautifull. They now even have daylily that blooms at night time and fragrant!
I still have many summer flowers, please come back to see them next time.

2006-08-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Lotus flowers.
July and August are very hot this year! Temperature in St. Louis, Missouri got in the 100's for weeks. However, the lotus seemed not care about the hot weather, they bloom profusely this year. I have a friend who growed lotus and takes care of the lotus pond for a Buddhist temple in Missouri (MABA). The lotus at MABA grew exponentially this year, half of the pond had been covered by lotus. The lotus flowers are exceptionally beautiful. Please visit my newest lotus page to see them.

2006-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Pictures of fruits.
I took many pictures of fruits in the last several years, especially the tropical fruits. In some countries like Vietnam, Thailand..., there are fruit festival every year. The tropical fruits in many different shapes, sizes and tastes are arranged into pieces of art. I have pictures of many tropical fruits like durian, dragonfruit, longan, rumbutan, jackfruit etc. Some temperate fruits are included also, such as peach, pears, apple... Please let me know what do you think about these fruit pictures. Thank.

2006-07-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

Beetles, beetles and beetles!
There are too many beetles this year in my garden, Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles! We bought a Japanese beetle trap, and trapped more than thousands Jap beetles already! But they still eat my roses and hibiscus! The cucumber beetles are another problem, because of the bacterial wilt that they carry. My cucumber leaves are wilted, then the whole branches were wilted. The only way I can do is to cut and throw them away. Is it because of the warm weather last Winter? or hot Summer? Does anyone have the answer?

2006-07-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Rose pictures.
I took these rose pictures in May, but had no time to post them until now! This year, some rose flowers got a little damage by late cold weather in April, however, they are still gorgeous. In my new rose gallery, there are 3 new roses that won the AARS award in 2006, check them out! All pictures in my Flower Gallery had been taken for their beauty, however, I added some infomation about each flower in the 2006 gallery so you know what they are. It's hot in all USA now, please stay cool!!!

2006-07-04T15:06:00.001-07:00

New pictures of orchids and peonies. I took pictures of these orchids and peonies in the early Spring, but don't have time to post them. This July 4th holiday, I stay home, relax and post these beautiful flowers for your enjoyment. My home now is quiet, all children are away. We have an "empty nest"! Four more months to work! I can't wait for the time to retire and travel. Happy Independent Day, USA!

2006-06-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

New pictures of Chicago and Chicago Botanical Garden. We went to Chicago on the Memorial weekend with special interest on visiting the Chicago Botanical garden. The garden is very beautiful and unique, because of its special design. There are many different gardens on many "islands" on a big lake connecting with bridges. The Chicago harbor is very beautiful, but it was too crowded on the Memorial weekend. The view of the downtown Chicago from the Michigan lake is gorgeous with the Sears tower standing out in the sky! The Chinatown is small comparing to San Francisco's, but it is very nice and has good foods. We had very nice weekend in Chicago. Here are the links to Chicago and Chicago Botanical Garden in my website.

2006-06-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Spring flower pictures. I'd just added a new page of Spring flower (Flower gallery, 2006-3), check it out! This page contains pictures of irises and orchids. The orchid pictures were taken at the annual orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Garden in February, 2006. With my new camera and macro lens, I took close-up pictures of many lady slipper orchids, they all very beautiful, enjoy!

2006-05-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Visiting Chicago. We went to Chicago for a visit of this windy city on the Memorial weekend. The weather was very nice, sunny and warm. We visited the Chicago aquarium and took a cruise to go around the lake. The traffic on highway 94 along the Chicago shoreline was very heavy. The public parks along the lakefront were packed with people. This was the first weekend with the temperature up to the 90's in Chicago. The view of Chicago skyline was very beautiful but a little hazy, maybe due to air pollution? We also visited the Chicago China Town, ate dimsum. We also visited the well-known Chicago Botanical Garden at the Northern part of the city. The garden was very nice, but there were not many flowers in bloom at this time. The roses had not bloomed yet. Part of the lake was under rennovation, therefore, the Japanese garden was not beautiful as it should be. Anyway, I took many pictures of the city and the garden, and I'll post them later in my website.

2006-05-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

New flower pictures of this year (Spring 2006). I had 2 pages of flower pictures from the Spring of this year uploaded at my flower site: Flower gallery 2006-1 and gallery 2006-2. All pictures are good for your computer screen wall-papers or screen saver. I took thousands of pictures and selected a few that look good for your enjoyment. I'll post more pictures in the next few weeks including many orchids and roses. I hope you enjoy them. Please give me your comments or suggestion. One person suggested me to send out "flower of the day", but I think that too much work, and I cannot handle it! One thing I can do is to send email to a mailing list when I post new pictures. Anyone interested in receiving this "new flowers" mail, please email me.

2006-05-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

New pictures from Sapa, Vietnam. We went to Sapa in 2004, took a lot of pictures, but didn't have time to post them. Sapa is a beautiful, quiet, peaceful city in the Northeast of Hanoi. Located at nearly 2 miles above sea level, Sapa is always cool during Summer. With many ethnics living there, Sapa is colorful and diversed. Please visit Sapa.
I took many pictures of flowers with my new camera (Nikon D70) this Spring. I'll post them this weekend, please come back and enjoy them, you won't be dissappointed!

2006-05-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

Animal Pictures. My wife has a little niece who now lives in Australia. She loves animals (is that the same for all children?). Therefore, I put together a page containing many pictures of different animals that I have for her and other children around the world. The link of this page is: Zoo Animal Pictures. I think grownup people also loves these pictures!

2006-04-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Trip to Maui, Hawaii. We went to Maui around April last year for vacation. This is our first trip to Hawaii. I booked air ticket and place to stay through internet. We came to Maui late in the afternoon, and took a shuttle at the airport to our rented condo. I didn't know that the condo office only opens during the working hours, when we got to the condo, after 5 PM, the office had been closed! Fortunately, the receptionist was still there at the front door, so she gave us the key to our room and told us to do paper work the next day! We stayed at a condo on the beach in Kihei. The next day, we rented a car to drive around the island. We went snorkeling at Molokini to see colorful fishes, driving to Hana, visited most of botanical gardens in Maui... We took many pictures that I posted in my webpage. We'll be back to Hawaii!

2006-04-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

This is the best time to visit the botanical garden to see Spring flowers in full bloom. The Missouri Botanical garden is the oldest botanical garden inthe US, and it's also one of the most beautiful garden. In the past several years, I has been visiting the garden frequently and took thousand pictures of the garden. From Spring to Summer, Fall and Winter, the garden always has something to show to the public. I selected some of my favorite pictures of the garden from my picture files and put them in the MBG page in my Flower garden website. Please let me know what do you think about this page and MBG.

2006-04-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I added a new page showing pictures of our trip to Vietnam in 2002. Pictures were taken from our trips to Chua Huong (Perfume pagoda) and Halong bay in the Northern Vietnam. We went there around Christmas time, the weather was wet and cold in the North Vietnam (50-60F), but it was relatively hot in the South (in the 90's F).

2006-04-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to the Missouri Botanical Garden to see Japanese cherry blossom. The weather was very beautiful, warm (70F) and sunny. All the flowering cherry trees were in full bloom, they are so beautiful! I took a lot of beautiful pictures that I'll post in my website sometime this year. I added 1 more page in the FreeBeautifulPictures site with 50 pictures of animals from the St. Louis zoo. These pictures were taken last year, please take a look of those beautiful animals. Many of them are engangered and some already extinct from the wild.

2006-03-28T07:11:00.000-08:00

This morning, on the way to work, I listenned to a story on National public Radio about old turtle in Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi. It is very interesting and it also reminds me of my Vietnamese heritage. With more than 4000 years of history, Vietnam has very rich culture that I need to explore more when I retire. You can listen to this story on the NPR site.
Back to my FlowerPictures site, I want to tell you a litle bit about the camera lens that I used to take pictures of flowers. I use a SIGMA 105 mm Macro lens with my SLR Nikon. Taking pictures of flowers likes taking a portrait of people, I need a good telephoto lens to prevent the distortion of the picture when taking picture to close to the camera. For flowers, especially the very small one, I need a macro lens that I can take closeup pictures. With tele-macro lens, I took beautiful closeup pictures of flowers that look naturally and stand out from the blur background without manipulating by Photoshop! The SIGMA 105 mm Macro lens is more expensive than my old Nikon SLR! Because of this lens, I decided to buy the SLR digital Nikon (D70) so I can use this lens with my new digital camera.

2006-03-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

I'm a babyboomer and I'm going to retire this year!!!! I'll have a new beginning. Exciting time!
After more than 30 years working, it's time for me to relax and enjoy life before it's too late!
I'm a scientist, but I have a passion in gardenning, especially flower-garden, and photography. I have a small greenhouse attaching to my house to keep my troipcal plants from freezing winter in St. Louis, Missouri. Around 1999, my epiphyllum flowers were so beautiful and I want to take their pictures to keep. I have a Nikon film camera that I used mostly to take pictures of flowers! The flower pictures are so beautiful, and I want to keep for myself, so the next thing is to publish them on the web. I first published them in some free web servers, moving around many time, and finally, I decided to register a name and placed it in a pay server. A free website is born! It is www.flowerpictures.net . The number of flower pictures keep growing, and my website is very popular now. If you search for flower pictures in Google, my site is at the top of the search list! All pictures in my site are free for personal use, and I want to keep that way.
Beside flower pictures, I've been taken many pictures of scenery, animals, people... and any thing that beautiful to me. Therefore, I added a new site to display these pictures, it is www.freebeautifulpictures.com . This site is part of my old flower pictures site. I hope you enjoy them.