In the garden

It was warm, but not hot, sunny and not hazy, and generally a beautiful day. We headed out earlier than usual and caught the subway to the end of line 10 and then grabbed a taxi to the botanical gardens. We arrived before 11:00 am, but it was already getting busy.

The gardens are just outside Beijing city limits. The grounds are quite large so we managed to find some peace along smaller pathways and less traveled routes. There were sections of the garden that were very well manicured while other sections were more wild. Although still quite lovely at this time of year, I image that it is truly stunning in the spring. There are areas where peonies, lilacs, roses, and fruit trees would bloom at that time of year, and I imagined the smell would be so sweet.


We found a quiet little spot near a small lake and pulled out of our knapsack fixings for sandwiches. The kids played for a bit before we moved on. We meandered through the pathways until we found a Chinese style gazebo. There we took a break and played Yahtzee for a bit and read our books. After a while we picked up again and took a peak at the Reclining Buddha Temple near the back of the garden.

On our way back through we stopped for some tea at a tea house. I read a little from "The Secret Garden". I've been reading it to the girls in the evenings before bed and we thought it was the perfect place to read a chapter. When Nadim went to go pay for the tea, he was in for a shock. We hadn't asked the price and they had suckered us into getting the most expensive tea, which was $30 Canadian! Nadim argued with them. Kind of hard to do since they don't speak English and we don't speak Chinese. Eventually he payed them the equivalent of $15 Canadian which he thought was more than reasonable.

We made our way back to the city with its honking horns and cars that don't yield to pedestrians, and busy subway trains. We were a little late in meeting the local kids at the park, but they were still waiting for us. It really was a great day, and a much appreciated break from the big city.

CM