The Most Beautiful Park in the World

DC has a lot of parks all throughout it even if you don't count Rock Creek Park, and when I was going to China I had heard that most of the cities have very little green space, but Changzhou has a ton of parks. When you look on a map you can see them doted all throughout the city, the only thing they have more of then parks are canals. I finally found out where exactly the Grand Canal is in Changzhou, and it goes right through the middle of the city, though today it's far too small to be used for any serious commercial use. The other canal I had described, the one back behind the school, is much newer and wider, that's why it can be used in commerce. Today I was going to take the 23 into town again and pick up some more stuff but right when I got outside the school the 38 was pulling up. I hadn't taken the 38 yet and I new it got into some part of downtown so I jumped on board. The 38 takes a little longer to get downtown going on the old beat up road just outside the school. When it finally arrived downtown, I can tell what stop to get off at mostly by watching when the students get off, I wasn't really near the shopping area I knew but I was near a really big park I had seen on the map. I was really hungry by the time I was coming close to the park but I spotted another place selling chicken sandwiches, "Ye ge hambou," aka "One sandwich" is my favorite phrase. "Hambou" is just there pronunciation of hamburger.

I walked down a small road and before long came to the first view of the enormous pagoda that is pictured above. I came to a gate and after some pointing and gesturing I understood that I needed to buy a ticket which was only 20 RMB. Inside the area was a pagoda that must have been somewhere near 15 stories high. Pagodas are tiered towers that usually preforms some religious function that evolved from Indian stupas which were a sort of burial mound. This pagoda towers over the whole park and most of the nearby buildings. I think there was a tour inside but I decided to try to bring a Chinese friend back with me to translate. Outside the pagoda in a small square were a number of amazingly intricate statues and stone carvings, the most amazing of which were pillars 30 feet high completely covered in complex carvings. Besides these there was a huge golden Buddha and a place to burn incense. Next to the square was a temple with a number of other Buddhas and some other statues that towered down over people. I didn't take many pictures of these since I was constantly worried that I had wandered in to an area I shouldn't have been in since I couldn't read any of the signs. Moreover I wasn't sure if the wanted flash photography since some places don't.

After I looked through the temple I realized that all this area was actually separate from the main park, hence the admission. The park it's self was maybe six times the size of the temple and pagoda area. You should really look through all the dozens of pictures I took since the park was as varied as it was large. Each section was a little different then the one before it and they were all amazing. The section nearest the temple had a canal running through it which was filled with people in row boats. There was a beautiful bridge over it and a number of paths along the sides. Besides this was a funny little area with a bunch of tanks filled with goldfish which all the little children loved. Past that were winding paths lined with trees which would occasionally emerge next to the water or some other amazing building. The Chinese really know how to blend water, rocks, and trees to form amazing parks. Every section of the park also had really beautiful vibrant flowers. One place had a field of different colored flowers just producing a stunning effect.

There was a elevated boardwalk section that took you up near the canopies of a lot of the trees. One thing I've noticed about parks in China is that they don't really go in for the open grassy areas that dominate parks in the US and even when they do people just don't really walk on the grass. Instead of playing Frisbee or something I see a lot of the Chinese kids blowing bubble or riding around in boats. There were also a ton of cops there. That's another thing about China there seem to be police everywhere, they don't usually seem to be doing much, the ones at the park seemed particularly bored, but there just everywhere. The park also had it's own smaller pagoda near one side. I kept trying to walk to it but every path would get closer before turning away and leading me some place else. This in turn makes a big park seem truly endless. I'm told that the paths wind around so that you see different aspects of the park from different angles. Maybe the single most interesting thing in the park was a stone carving of the city. At a distance it just looked like a stone pattern on the floor but where I was right next to it I could see it was an intricate carving of the ancient city of Changzhou with canals can city walls. I'm sure I missed a lot of the park also as it was so hard to ever figure out where I was. I'm told there are several other fantastic parks in Changzhou also.