Jinhua As the Adventure Continues

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“Jinhua Aiqing Cultural Park”



The next adventure with Terry started on a misstep as we discovered, after a long taxi ride, that the place he planned to show me was closed. Undaunted, we looked at Terry's prepared list for a good alternative site to visit. Within moments taxi was flying back over the route we had came on, our new destination was the Jinhua Aiqing Cultural Park. I must admit we could not visit the entire massive riverside park. Only a section was photographed and explored before crossing one of the many bridges to lead us into a secondary sister park (Jinhua Architecture Park) that sat on the opposing bank of the Yiwu River.



I must believe that my presence had reignited Terry's passion for exploring since he kept saying how he had barely visited most of the places in Jinhua during his one year stay there. The formerly mentioned list was places he wanted himself to visit but never had the drive to do so prior to my arrival. I'm sorry to my dear readers that wish only to see through my words and camera lens a new world waiting to be discovered, but I must speak of the good friend that placed me on this wanderers path. Long before he became “travellingterry”, he was an average person with only the embers of dreams burning in his soul. Misfortune and mistakes closed the door (without locking it) to him continuing farther along the path of his culinary passion. Thus opened the window (teaching English in China) starting a secondary set of passion: photography, writing, and travelling. But even a traveller of his present level sometimes feels the world is too big for one man alone to see. A good friend must always be ready to help. It is one of the reasons I came to China. I am trying to give him a secondary view on what he can still discover on his own. Now I think we can move ahead with what all of you have come here to discover. Thank you for the indulgence.



The sun burned high in the clear blue sky as we set our feet upon one of the many pathways of the Jinhua Aiqing Cultural Park (金华艾青文化公园). I was still amazed by these islands green within the concrete sea that is Jinhua. The major city streets have the same wondrous green banded look and feel to Paris in my eyes. Very few cities in North America have this blending of nature and human construction as in the overseas cities I have seen so far. The massive inner city parks are nature mixed flawlessly into the urban sprawl. It give the citizens a place for peaceful contemplation in nature while still being within their city. These two sister parks did not change this beautiful view in my eyes, mind, or soul. The brilliant multiple shades of green catch the eyes as a breeze flickers them in sunlight. It is followed by the more subtle myriad colours of many flowers and coloured leaves of smaller bushes mixed into a sea of greens. I do regret that my camera is not as high a quality as my friend Terry's. I am only technically starting down this wanderers' path and my strength has always been my words and not my photography skills. As I learn more about this style of writing, I will improve in those weaker areas (I hope).



Jinhua Aiqing Cultural Park is, in a way, a simply design when compared to the many walking bridge design of Hung Bin Park. But the simpler design is complimented by the complexity of groomed nature in this park. These sister parks, like many of the other parks I have visited, line the Yiwu River which runs through the heart of Jinhua. A mix of tree types and flower types surround the multiple snaking pathways of the park making each visit different in a subtle fashion. I am no expert of on flora, or even fauna, making it impossible to list all the variety of plant life found in this great park. I can attest, without doubt, of the beautiful mosaic formed by the flora present. Birds chattered, chirping, and flew between the many trees too fast to be captured by my camera. The flocks of birds hid within the tangled masses of higher branches invisible to sight while their song burst out all around us. A small older looking structure caught my eye spurring my curiosity. Terry waited patiently as I investigated the abandoned looking structure. It was an unused and non-functional public toilet (usually referred to as a “WC” as Terry had told me) that appeared in the process of either being turned into an enclosed rest spot or being dismantled permanently.



I proceeded much slower than my shutter-bug friend Terry and often got photos of his back farther ahead on the pathway we followed. As stated by Terry, “We explore differently.” I often needed to rush a bit, after stopping for a few quick pictures and looking more closely at something new, to catch up to my friend. Not much more can truly be said where pictures scream of the beauty we walked through. It was peaceful with only the songs of the birds predominate in our ears. I could still hear the sounds of the city around us drifting in from time to time in the silent moments. This combination of natural and urban sounds punctuated our long walk down one side of the river to the next bridge. We crossed the bridge that had very little vehicular traffic and even less pedestrian traffic. It was odd when compared to the other main roads and bridges I normally saw in the city of Jinhua.



“Jinhua Architecture Park”



I had already spotted some of the odd structures from across the river and stored this information away in my mind to ask my friend about during a break. It became pointless as we began down the stairwell after the bridge. I do suspect this was all part of my friend's plan to have us visit this second style of park while we were here. The new park still had the wonderful mix of trees, bushes, and flowers, but also held many structures built within it. Architects from different countries were all involved in this international undertaking in Jinhua. Most of these oddly angular, curved, or simply unconventional shapes were nestled along the snaking paths. I remember the spiral-shell like structure I had found in the sister park as we approached the first twisted building. Many have spoken about the emotional (and even physical) reactions some architectural forms can have on humans peering upon them. Jinhua Architecture Park (金华建筑艺术公园) would be a case study on its own because of the sheer differences that can be noted about each individual structure.



Each building showed the architect's flair and thoughts with its individuality when compared to the standard Chinese building styles and with each other. Angles, curves, shapes, and textures combined differently to give uniqueness to each creation. I could not get photos of all of these structures nor could we visit them all personally within our short visit there. Most of the day had drifted away during our long walk through both of these wondrous parks but it still felt as if we had barely seen half of what these places could offer us. It was, in a way, very discouraging to me as we were forced to head “home” as the evening started in earnest. But knowing that I still had many days left to explore and re-explore the places I had only briefly (to my mind) visited gave me hope and encouragement to continue down this wandering adventures' path.



“Jinhua City Revisited Closely”



I did only touch very briefly in my previous blogs about the city of Jinhua itself, but never truly spoke of it directly. My home city (both population and size) would easily disappear without a trace within this much larger city. It is also a little socking to realize just how small the “big cities” of North America are when compared to Chinese cities. The streets of my city would never hold the sheer amount of multiple types of traffic found on the streets of Jinhua. It is not to say that it is the gridlock style found in places like Los Angeles, Toronto, or even New York City. With wide four lane (per direction) main streets (defining the 1 km² Chinese city block) for the larger motorized vehicles, wide bike paths for E-bikes and other smaller self powered vehicles, and broad sidewalks for pedestrians and for people to park, the overall traffic flow is at a constant fast pace.



The nearly reoccurring of similar store signs is both confusing and reassuring, like background of old 50's to 70's cartoons, for most foreigners. This becomes even worse as you enter the smaller streets and lane-ways that riddle each Chinese city block. Between the tented patios of restaurants and barbeque places, food vendors' carts, parked cars, bikes, and E-bikes, the rolling gas and peddle powered carts, and the pedestrians, larger vehicles are force to move at a much slower pace on the smaller inner streets. These massive city blocks could easily fit all of downtown Sudbury, Ontario, Canada without it being a problem while it is barely one-tenth to one-twentieth of what is seen as the downtown of Jinhua. A concentration of small stores of all kind about the size of a cheap one room apartment line these inner block side streets. The major roadways host a mixture of banks, schools, and larger Chinese box stores (and some western fast-food style restaurants). Riddled between this mix of other lower floor commercial places, the entrances of hotels, motels, and apartment complexes can be found that fill the upper floors of the tall buildings that pepper the inner block.



The main streets are not alone in having a tree and/or hedge-line barrier dividing the main road from bike path, and the sidewalks (sometimes). The larger side streets have rows of smaller trees dividing the thinner pedestrian path from the asphalt roadway. It is still preferable to walk in the road to avoid cutting through the tent covered patios of the many small restaurants lining the streets. And with the setting sun comes the myriad of coloured lights and signs which are not only on the building but small electric signposts to draw in customers. This is what lights most of the inner block streets better than most street lights could accomplish. The light along the main roads show themselves from their hiding spots within the tree line. The clothing themselves do not truly change like in Fenghuang since it is not needed within the “modern city”. The same pulse that courses down the streets during the day remains constant in the evening before quickly vanishing between 11:00 pm and midnight. I have been out later but, even with most of the lights still blazing, the calmness is hard to accept after seeing the daylight rush.



This bring us to the Yiwu River with the multiple parks lining both it's banks. Once more, the use of light sticks dangling from trees, light ropes wrapped around other trees, and spotlights shifting slowly through a rainbow spectrum pulse along the riverside and within some of the parks themselves. The pageant of light may not rival Paris but it gives a wondrous unearthly feel to the bands of green turning them into ephemeral phantom lands after dusk. A living ghost of the nature seen during daylight hours. I have mentioned before how a place can change drastically from day to night. The parks and squares of Jinhua would have that aspect while the city itself simply holds back the night temporarily.



My life here has been simple in most respects even with my side trip to Jishou. I spend my days writing or planning out potential future trips and having small adventures with Terry in Jinhua during his days off. Which brings me to a small confession about my unofficial travelling companion. Terry has often mentioned a stuffed bear named “Princess” that travels with him (and a multitude of altering bear partners). I also have a similar but much smaller travelling companion hanging on my adventure bag. It is a small stuffed dog with linked from paws that I affectionately refer to as “Brutus, my guard dog”. It is rare that my readers will ever have the chance to see him in photos since I usually don't take pictures of myself and Brutus is not always present when I'm not carrying that bag with me. Unlike my friend Terry, I do not have younger readers (his many former and present students) to help practice their English with his travel blogs of Princess' adventures. Maybe in the future I may gain other more present travelling companions of a stuffed nature but for now I am happy with the invisible mascot that accompanies me.



I can spend multiple paragraphs describing the different foods that can found in the many places I have visited. But it could fill each entry to an overloaded as it differs from province to province and even from city to city within a province. I will mention for Jinhua the local delicacy: “Jinhua Ham”. Yes, I did try my best to taste it but only succeeded in find one variation of this meat. It is suppose to be a very salty and tough piece of boneless meat with a wonderful flavour. The flavor of what I tried was good but, oddly enough, it had small bones and was in small bite sized chunks. There was only the smallest hint of salt used to preserve this meat (trade mark of the Jinhua Ham). I was slightly disappointed but I am still willing to search and find this mysterious and famous meat (eventually). I leave you with the multiple photos of Jinhua streets, parks, and buildings.

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