The Sea of Shiny Trees

A sunny spell among the English summer weather (in case you didn't know, that is the nice way of saying it's pissing down each and every day in London) brought me out to do a bit of grocery shopping. Passing a bits and bobs shop in the shopping center at the end of my street a tree gleamed at me. Literally. At about a meter and a half its leaves and flowers were made of electric lights, all transparent white, and if I knew anything about such things I could probably say something about it being LED technology and stuff, but since I have no clue what that means I just leave it at that. And immediately it sends me back to warmer parts of the world.

This is the first time I've seen this kind of tree out here in London. The first time ever that I did see such a tree was in Kuala Lumpur. Near where I was staying some furniture shop had a few out in the front, and they immediately fascinated me with their pink and orange lights. Seriously, what is there not to love? Shiny things! Really really shiny things, glowing in the dark, in a variety of colours. But the best thing was when my friend introduced me to I-City out in Shah Alam. What did they call it? A "lightscape tourism destination". Love this fancy speak... which is to say it's a forest made of these LED trees. And LED flamingos. And LED geese. And deer. And peacocks. But most of all trees. Cherry trees, orange trees, pine trees, and all sorts of indescribable colourful flowers and what-not trees. It looks amazing. You (which means I) walk around at a foot a minute because you take pictures of each and every flower you see, that's how amazing the whole place looks, at first sight, well, and at second and third. I have not yet gotten to the point where I don't find these trees incredibly fascinating and beautiful, in the strange way that artificial things sometimes are. And where I don't pull out the camera on a reflex and start taking pictures like mad. Especially when you are standing in front of hundreds of them...

This one tree today in the shop was safe though. Mainly because I had forgotten my camera at home. But it was interesting to see how an item such as this triggers all those memories of Malaysia, of sitting in the car with my friend and driving past those three or four trees in front of that furniture shop on the way to some nightmarket where wonderful food was waiting for us. Or when we went out to Shah Alam to that shiny tree park, and how we spent hours walking among those trees with hundreds of other people, amazed at the sight, incredulous at the cheap crappy light-up toys they tried to sell on top of that, shooting picture after picture and falling in love with whoever it was who came up with the idea of building this park. 

If I win the lottery I want to have a whole garden like this. Well, next to the one with real plants that is. But first, I suppose, I will have to start buying lottery tickets, right? Electric garden, wait for me!