Chapter 81 - Parks

Chapter 81

Parks

There are many parks in Luoyang. There are four parks that were my favorites; Xi Yuan, Luopu, Sui Tang Botanical Gardens and China National Flower Garden (Zhong Guo Guo Hua Yuan). There are many other parks that have to do with the Peony Festival in Luoyang. These are huge tourist attractions having hundreds of thousands of peony plants and also some have tulips.

I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures and also video of the parks. The pictures of the parks are during different seasons and how the parks changed over time. There are a lot of workers that take care of the parks. In 2003, one of my friends knew the man who was head of Luopu Park and he said there were three hundred workers that took care of the park at that time. It is twelve miles long and covers 4,000 acres.

I loved going to the parks. Even though they are in the city, they are quiet places except when there would be festivals going on. I learned when to go to them so there weren’t many people. I didn’t go on weekends and especially not during a holiday otherwise it is wall to wall people and when you look over all of the people it is a sea of black hair as far as you can see. Tens of thousands of people go to the parks during a holiday. I copied some pictures off of the internet when there was a holiday and it shows places like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City in Beijing and it is unbelievable the numbers of people that are there. We have nothing like it in the US. The numbers of people that go to those places during a holiday would dwarf the numbers that go to a sporting event in the US.

Wangcheng Park was close to where I lived. I didn’t go there much, maybe a couple times a year. When I was first in Luoyang, I went there now and then because friends took me and that was fun going with them. Both times that I lived in Luoyang, it took me about fifteen minutes to walk there. It has amusement rides and a zoo. It also has a lot of peonies during April. It is a very popular park to go to for tourists. During the Peony Festival, there are thousands of Peony plants and that is what made it so famous. It opened in 1955 and is the oldest city park in Luoyang and covers ninety-nine acres. I went there during the Chinese New Year and National Day Festivals. At night the lights were really pretty. I would go the second week of the Chinese New Year because there weren't so many people then and it was easier to take pictures and video.

I didn’t go there during the Peony Festival or other holidays. During the Peony Festival, there are more people than flowers in the park. You have to pay to go to any park, except for Luopu Park, during a festival otherwise the parks are free to go into. It would cost from 30-50 Yuan (RMB) which is about $5-$10.

During the National Day holiday (October 1st), Chinese New Year (It varies year to year. It can start anywhere from January 21st to February 20th and lasts for two weeks.) and the Peony Festival (April 1-May 5) events, it is wall to wall people. Weekends are the busiest of course. On one of the Saturdays in April of 2013, I counted two hundred tour buses within a six block area of the park. The buses usually had fifty people in them so that would be 10,000 people. This was at noon. Besides buses, there would be people that drove cars or stayed in hotels close to that area and walked to the park. This is just one park. You can imagine how many people were in Luoyang at all of the parks during the Peony Festival.

Xi Yuan Park is a smaller park but it is very pretty. I would always walk to this park which took about forty-five minutes. There is one time that it had snowed and I walked there and took pictures, it was so pretty. It was kind of busy on the weekends so I would go during a weekday maybe a couple times a month. There was some water where kids could rent a small boat to ride around in. It was hard to believe there was a big city around it because it was pretty quiet in the park. On one side of the park is a big five star hotel (Luoyang Hua Yang Plaza Hotel) and across from the hotel is the WANDA shopping center. It is beautiful inside. There are many thirty story apartment buildings in that area also. I was told that they were expensive. The amount that I heard is 8800 RMB per square meter ($1466) which would be $205,000. That is a lot of money. They are 140-150 square meters (1400-1500 square feet). None of my friends lived there but I have seen their places and they are very nice. Theirs were much cheaper because they were bought in the past. These apartments by WANDA are so high in price because of the location. I’m sure they are really nice.

 

Luopu Park is a very long park that runs along both sides of the Luo River. The north side is part of the city of Luoyang where many people go to all the time. There are many bridges that go over the park and Luo River. There is a big piece of cement just inside the east entrance to Luopu Park by the Luoyang Bridge that is made to look like an open book. The left page is in Chinese and the right page is in English. In the description of the park, it says that the park is twenty kilometers (12 miles) long and covers 4,000 acres.

People that live close can just walk there or people can drive and find a place to park on the street. There are a lot of grandparents with their grandchildren in the park. It is a nice place for the children to play. There really aren’t any playgrounds with swings and things like that for them, they walk and play on their own or with other children. A lot of people go there in the afternoons and the weekends are very busy also. It is a very nice place to go to. There is a walking bridge in the park over a small body of water. As of 2013, there is a second bridge next to the walking bridge. It’s for cars because they put a road on the north side of the park so now you hear the cars going by while you are walking in the park. It has lost the quietness that it had.

There is a TV tower on the edge of the park. You walk right by it. I have taken so many pictures of that tower from all directions including from across the river. It is a landmark. All you have to do is see that tower from where you are in the city and you know what direction things are. If you lose your way or get lost and if you can see that tower, it will help you find your way. This is another park that I have taken so many pictures and video of from one end to the other and from the South Luopu Park across the river.

South Luopu Park is in the New District, Luolong, and is on the south side of the Luo River. It is lined with weeping willow trees the whole length of the park. It does not have as many things as the north side but it is still beautiful with many plants and flowers. It is very nice to go there to walk or bike.

Sui Tang Botanical Park is 350 acres and beautiful. This is located in the New District south of the Luo River. This is my favorite park. It has all kinds of things to see like a man-made lake, rock piles and all kinds of trees and plants. When I would go there, I would walk for two to three hours or more. One thing that most of the parks in China have are rock piles. No, it is not a rock pile where you pile rocks like farmers do in the US. The ones in China have a little architecture I guess you could say. I don't know how they were held together. I doubt they used super glue. You can climb on them, some have places where there is an opening where you can walk through and there are rocks above you. You will see people taking pictures with these piles all the time. Even me, I would climb on top and take pictures of the area around them. The plants were planted so some had beautiful arrangements and designs.

The workers do a great job of taking care of all the parks. They were out there in all kinds of weather. I usually don't do this but the first week of the Peony Festival in April of 2012, I decided to go to this park. This was on a Friday. I paid fifty yuan, about $8.50. I knew the weekend would be very busy so I decided to go in the morning because the afternoon might be busy. I was so glad that I went. I couldn’t believe it, hardly any people there. I walked all over the park and took pictures and video. I took one hundred fifty pictures, which doesn’t seem like a lot but I took so many pictures of the park whenever I would go there. It didn’t matter that I had already taken pictures, I would take more. I did it at different times of the year. There weren’t any people in the pictures that I took that day, that’s how few people were there. I took video all over the park. I don’t think there were any people in the video but you could hear them talking in the background sometimes.

There were some peonies when I went. When the peony plants are planted in the parks, they are planted at different times so there are peonies blooming all month long so when people come there to see the flowers, there are always some blooming. In this park, there are some tulips also, many different colors. I should say that there are many varieties and colors of peony flowers in all of the parks. I think it is the International Peony Garden, which is the biggest park with the most peonies in Luoyang, which has a huge area of tulips also. It gets bigger every year. There are some peony plants that are taller than I am. They are kind of like a small tree.

 

China National Flower Garden (Zhong Guo Guo Hua Yuan) is on the south side of the Luo River just across the bridge. You can either go on the Peony Bridge (Mudan Qiao), west entrance, or on the Luoyang Bridge, the east entrance, and just as you cross either bridge, going south, that is where the entrances are. This is a very nice park also. A lot quieter than some of the others. Not as many people there, at least not when I went. The park is 255 acres and is a nice place to walk for a couple of hours. There is a very nice man made lake there. It is kind of small with an island where the ducks and geese can go to and there is also a short bridge across it. In the middle of the bridge is a place where you can stop and sit down and watch the small fish that are in the water. There is also one of those rock piles by the lake like there are in other parks. I wish that we had some parks here in the US like there are in Luoyang. I really miss going to those.

Longting Park in Kaifen (Dragon Pavilion Park)
This park, Longting, and the next park, Longtan Valley, are not in Luoyang. Longting Park is in the city of Kaifeng, three hours east of Luoyang. It is 212 acres. Mary and I went with our friend Rinny (Yang Ni) by train one afternoon during the National Day Holiday in October of 2010 and came back the next day. Lots of things to see in Kaifeng and all kinds of food to eat.

Longtan Valley (Dragon Lake Valley)
This park is located thirty-six miles northwest of Luoyang. The valley curves in a U-shape and is seven miles long. It is very beautiful as you walk through it. There are small waterfalls, some of the walkways are kind of steep and there are stepping stones through the water.