Good Nature Spots

So about two weeks ago I was up in Beijing seeing and visiting a couple neat things.  I won’t be writing about Beijing this post but will save that for later after seeing more and giving it a whole post.  Instead I will be talking about a couple of my other recent trips.  All of these trips do have a common theme of good spring nature locations. 

First spot isn’t that far away and actually is the capital for the providence that I live.  After spending a day in Weifang at a Kite Festival I had one day to explore Jinan.  A friend and I got up early to see everything that we wanted to see.  There were three main things that we wanted to see that day.  Our first stop was called Daming Lake Park.  It is a bigger lake area that has some neat scenic spots along it.  The day was a nice day and so we made our way around the lake getting some good pictures. While going along we did see a lot of couples who were taking wedding photos.  Here in China it is extremely important to take pictures before the wedding while being dressed up in various clothing.  According to my Chinese teachers these pictures are more important than wedding pictures the day of the ceremony.  I think that does depend on the family but either way we lost count how many couples were taking pictures.  Besides those people we also did come across some different people playing instruments.  The friend I was travelling with that day, one of his majors in college was music and so we did usually stop and listen.  He also does have a nice microphone to record better quality material.  We did see typical instruments like a saxophone but also some traditional Chinese instruments as well.  Part of the lake they charge to walk along it and so we didn’t do that, but for the most part we did go around it.

 

Besides the lake our next thing to see was some springs.  Actually Jinan is known as the City of Springs because of all the springs found throughout the city.  We stuck to visiting the bigger well known ones because of proximity to the lake and each other.  These springs are all fresh water springs coming up and actually are a good source of water.  In a few different springs there was a chance to fill up a bottle in order to drink and it was fine tasting water.  These springs had a small admission fee but it wasn’t just the springs themselves but also some various rock formations, gardens, and simply neat looking trees.  The springs themselves were different size and did create a bigger pond of water that did fit well with the surrounding nature.  We ended up visiting three different ones named Baotu Spring Park, Black Tiger Spring, and Five Dragon Pond Spring.  The Baotu Spring Park is the biggest one and most well-known spring in Jinan.

      

The last major thing we visited in Jinan is known as ‘Qian fo Shan’ which translates to “Thousand Buddha Mountain.”  This is a pretty small mountain compared to most of the mountains in China.  We started walking up the mountain and was on our way to the main path to the peak of the mountain when we were pretty surprised with what we found.  We turned onto the path and there was this huge festival going on where a lot of people were trying to sell things.  It was basically a craft sort of fair along the main path leading up to the mountain.  Now China does turn a lot of natural places into huge tourist areas and it does take away from the natural scenery.  This happens all over and is pretty annoying, but this particular set up was the worst we have seen it.  It was really bad and we just wanted to get out of there.  Once we actually started going up (on the nice perfect steps put into most places around China, one of the examples of how China ruins scenic areas) we still heard music and the crowds down below.  We never really did get to a point where we didn’t hear the sound.  Going up this mountain there is a Buddhist temple which we didn’t see much of because it looked like a lot of the other temples we have been inside.  Once on the top there was a nice view of Jinan.  Plus on top we could see another path going down and it did lead to a big golden statue of Buddha.  So we made our way over there and took some more pictures before heading to the train station to make our way back home to Jining.

 

Not long after that trip I headed down south to another good spot in China to take in the spring scenery.  I ended up in the town of Hangzhou and for anyone who has ever heard of Hangzhou the first thing they think about is West Lake.  This was my main reason to head down there and see the area around West Lake.  As the name does imply it is a lake but it also is a big nature area with different things to see.  After getting off the train I took a bus out to the area and ended up at an area known as Lingyin Temple.  This area did include multiple temples but what was also really neat was it had some neat grottoes.  A grotto is a small picturesque cave and these particular grottoes had various Buddhist carvings.  Plus there was a path on the other side of these temple grounds that led up a mountain known as the Northern Peak.  This mountain is one of the bigger mountains right next to West Lake and so it did give a neat view of the lake along with the city in the background.  After making my way down the Northern Peak I walked around a little part of the lake area. 

The next day I rented a bicycle to go around the lake.  Overall it was a good day but the bicycle did have its limitations because the bike wasn’t allowed right next to the lake for majority of the time.  I still was able to get some neat pictures and enjoy the nice warm spring weather.  Of course there were different areas around the lake that had different attractions such as temples and other cultural items.  I think the neatest part of the whole area is that it didn’t seem like I was in a big Chinese city because in fact Hangzhou is a capital city that has a lot of people.  Though in this area it was like I wasn’t in a city and the contrast of the scenic lake area with the tall skyscrapers in the background was a neat scene to see.

 

So that has been a synopsis of some neat natural scenic areas I have been able to see lately.  It is always nice to get out of my city especially to areas of less pollution then here in Jining.  These couple days off I am staying in town relaxing and studying Chinese.  I think next week I will take a trip to a providence a little west of me.  There is a place that has a famous Temple along with some more interesting grottoes nearby.  These grottoes will be bigger and I think more interesting than the little ones I saw down in Hangzhou.  For now though I need to do some studying and figure out what I will be doing for dinner.  Below are some pictures from Jinan and Hangzhou.  I will write later.   

One of many couples spotted

Playing a traditional flute called "Hulusi"

The water in the middle bubbling is the spring water