Lakes of China

Surprise, surprise! Never have I ever thought that China would have such beautiful lakes. Before I continue, welcome back to the second post of this month long topic on China. Some people have actually asked me if I went China over the weekends. So I just want to clarify that this series is just a bunch of stories about my trip in China during the end of LAST YEAR =)

What is so special about lakes in China? I was there during the beginning of winter season. So the lakes are just beginning to freeze, so most of them are what I would describe as half frozen. So in the lake there would be spots of areas where it would be frozen and some not yet frozen.

This causes the lake to give off this certain random glimmer of light as the sun hits its surface. Besides that, leaves are beginning to drop if it had not already. Those trees turn yellow, lighting up the shorelines of those lakes with such vivid colours.

This is just a picture of a tree beside a lake. Most of the leaves have fallen off already. This picture was taken much later in my journey so winter have progress quite a bit.

Now, these two pictures were taken next to Beijing’s Panda Zoo. It’s a nice place to go if you have never seen pandas before. Other than that I did not find anything special about that place (the zoo). Pandas are really shy animals so putting them up for display in zoos actually cause them to be too shy to mate. And pandas are also facing extinction in China due to this problem.

The lake beside that zoo however is amazing. There was this waterfall. Water just flows down seamlessly and crushes the newly formed ice to bits. And there is this small “island” where lots of birds flock there, birds of every colour. I love places like this that is full of life and characters.

In one of the pictures there was this old man who is paddling a boat. That scene was just picture perfect. Thank goodness that boat was not a tourist boat but instead for the guy to keep the place clean. He certainly did a wonderful job, looking at the number of birds that stop there.

I took this picture at the Summer Palace, the place where royals used to go to every summer. Here I had my first taste of pork sausages! I fell in love with it instantly. The weather was really cold so a nice warm pork sausage was such a nice thing to taste. (I got bored eventually after eating too much along the journey)

This picture here is one of my favourites. I was actually describing this particular lake in the beginning of this post. Notice that the trees are bare on my side but rich yellow on the other? That yellow was spread all along the banks on the other side. A little tinsel and some bells would make that place “Chrismas-sy”

I hope that you’ve enjoyed your journey with me through China so far. Do come back for more, and perhaps discover yourself in the process . (Hahahah….walauwei….talking like “Confucios”!)