Cherry Blossom Festival

Happy Cherry Blossom Season, Everyone!

Spring has sprung in Beijing! Our weather has been getting into to 60's by the afternoons and the flowers and trees are beginning to bloom. It was already seriously hot here by the time I arrived last May so I know I must enjoy this "springtime" as much as I can!

Today, I went with some of my friends from school to a beautiful park where they celebrate the cherry blossoms every year. I had never been there before and the park is lovely. There are lots of trees and flowers and a person-made lake that included two ducks! I haven't seen ducks here before! The cherry blossoms are gorgeous and I felt like I was in a story book.

I took the Subway with Cindy and had a bit of time to wait for our other friends. We walked through the first half of the park and then went to take some pictures in a grove of trees. Waiting for us there was a woman with a huge camera who kept on just taking pictures of me. Cindy eventually got annoyed and asked her to stop, but then the lady told Cindy that she was a reporter and that she thought I was an "interesting" subject. Cindy told me to just go along with it and I ended up being the lady's model for awhile! My pictures might be splashed across some Chinese paper or magazine in the future!

We met up with Marie and Sabrina, and Sabrina's sister at a tea house in the park. Sabrina's hometown is lax about the one child policy and so Sabrina's parents had four children! That's a huge family in China! Her sister was lovely even though I wasn't able to talk to her. There was a lot of translation going on all afternoon.

After tea and snacks, we continued to walk and take pictures. I eventually couldn't stand it and decided to buy an awesome plastic crown of yellow and pink cherry blossoms! I had seen so many people walking by with them on and I just couldn't resist. I had fun wearing it around for the weekend, and continued to wear it grocery shopping this evening.

It was a great way to spend a day off!