Donghu Park

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Another week, another park. This week I had decided to visit Donghu Park as I had read that it was a smaller, older park and not too far from where I live. The subway journey was uneventful and from there it was about a ten minute walk to the park. I flashed my green code at the security guard on the way in and came to a nice circle of palm trees surrounding a grassy area. Since it was still fairly early, it was empty, but I could imagine later on it would fill up as it looked like a nice area to chill and have a picnic on with family or friends. Nearby, there was a path leading to the lake and since the views were nicer, I walked along the side of the lake. It was a pretty overcast day, so the scenery looked a bit more washed out, I wish I’d been there on a bright and sunny day as it would have looked so much better. However there were some trees with bright pink flowers and I liked the long tree branches that extended out over the water. There were a couple of people fishing, but not many. I also spotted a couple of bridges in the distance. One was a traditional arched style bridge and the other was a more modern flat one.

After a while, I headed away from the lake and took the more inland path. I came across a garden, which had some nice flowers on display. The color added some vibrancy to the grey day. There were also some random sculptures dotted about in the grass. There were some apartments blocks right next to the park, which looked a bit old and grotty. I think this is an older area of Shenzhen so not as shiny, bright and new as other places, especially Honghu Park that I had visited previously. This part of the park also had terraces which had pictures and I think texts on them. There were quite a few people resting on the different terraces, so I didn’t get up close for a better look.

The next part of the river seemed to be rather lacking in water and there was a lot of vegetation growing in it. The path I was walking along seemed to come to an end, so I turned around and headed over one of the bridges across the river. I came to more sculptures, these were a bit of an eclectic mix; Mickey Mouse and old Chinese blokes with pointy hats and long beards. Part of the park was also roped off as some kind of event was going on (I later found out it was a flower festival), but as I am so over scanning and registering for stuff, I avoided it. Close to the statues of the traditional Chinese gentlemen, there was a large pond where quite a few people were fishing. The pond was quite nice and had some flowers in it, so I took a short walk around it.

I headed back to the main lake and managed to catch a glimpse of the odd skyscraper in the distance. I thought I had read/seen that there was a temple in the park. I came across some kind of urn and i could see what looked like a temple not too far away. I headed over in that direction and saw a sign cautioning about snakes in the area. I hoped that I wouldn’t see one. The temple was a short walk up hill. I don’t think it was a temple as there was nothing really there, just some nicely painted buildings and a pagoda. There were no views as the area was surrounded by trees. There probably would have been nice views from the top of the pagoda, but of course the stairway was gated and locked. I don’t know why they couldn’t have a security guard there to let people up and down.

I made my way back to the lake and further on in a different direction. I liked this section as there was a platform raised out and above the water, which was filled with old men playing Mahjong. I could also see a few more skyscrapers in the distance. Further on, there were more people fishing and I came to what seemed to be the end of the park. I turned around and walked along the bank passing quite a gnarly iron bridge. It would have been fun to walk along it, but not possible. I kept walking and after a while the view felt familiar and I realised I was back where I started, so I headed to the exit. I quite liked Donghu Park, it wasn’t as nice as Honghu Park, but I feel that better weather would have helped.

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