Parks in China . . . Or just me missing the grass

  I have not been so dedicated this past month with my posts. Sorry to my readers for that, I would assume you would be busy with family gathers and have limited time to read, that is my justification anyway. I arrived today to my desk and found five Christmas Letters from family and friends. Thank you greatly for remembering me. It was nice to sit and open each one, looking at the Christmas pictures and reading the letters. Glad everything is going well back home. No matter where you are in the world you have busy lives and many responsibilities, some more than others.
  This weekend, after the new year, I visited yet another park in China. Since there are so many people land is limited and wide open spaces are not to be found in urban areas. To counteract this Parks have been created for people to gather. Yet, these parks are different from the ones that I am use to in the States. To find a stretch of grass to sit down and have a picnic is actually harder to do then you would think in a city of around 3.5 million. These parks are usually taken extremely good care of and look beautiful but are mostly cement paths surrounded by manicured shrubbery, no taking your shoes off and walking on the grass. If there is grass their is almost a silent understanding that no one can walk on it. However, this weekend I found a park in my city that had a wide patch of grass were people were playing, or their children were playing at least. The park also had a lake where people could take out boats. It was a really nice day and many Chinese had decided to spend it at the park. Below are some pictures of the park.

   I thought the sign's use of English below was rather funny so I had to take a picture and share. I think I know what the sign is saying but not 100% positive on that one.

   This picture is of the large grass area that people were able to walk on. As much as I was missing grass I did not actually walk on the grass. I wanted to take my shoes off and walk on it but it was rather cold and I did not want to be stared at and have people thinking 'weird foreigner.' When the weather warms up I may come back.

   The water of this small lake was the clearest I have seen any body of water since arriving in China.

   The reason the tree have that white patches around them, I was told, was to protect them from getting a disease. I have not looked into it but that was what I was told when I inquired of another Chinese individual.