Hongmei Park

The other park we hit was Hongmei Park, just down the street.  It is a more popular, and sometimes crowded park.  Probably because it is right next to the Tianning Temple, which we have yet to hit (you have to pay like 80 kuai to visit that temple and its grounds, so we are going to wait for a sunny day when we have more time).  Hongmei Park, though, has a similarly built (but smaller) temple.  And we just so happened to hit the plum blossom festival, so there were blooming pink trees everywhere.  They were gorgeous!

We were able to walk up to the very top of the smaller temple on some seriously steep and narrow stairs, which we shared with the people who were coming down from the top.  Because of that, it took a while to get up there, but the view was so worth it!

The grounds of the park were also beautiful.  There was a reflecting pool and all sorts of classic Chinese architecture.

As always, people were snapping pictures of us as we passed them.  Some people try to be more discreet, and some people wave and smile to get you to look at them for a picture.  An old man and a younger man approached our group, and the younger man said, "my teacher wants to ask if you will model for us".  We agreed to, as long as they'd send the pictures they take to us over WeChat.  They whipped out their nice cameras and started posing us!  Haha Bailey was not so comfortable with it.

The photographers really had a problem with Bailey's posture.  They had him sit up really straight and put his chin down.  This picture cracks me up, Bailey looks so funny!  And I'm not quite sure where I'm looking.

The evening ended with some cotton candy.  It was not very sweet, but I quite liked it.  It was a tasty ending to an amazing day!