Beijing's Bloomin' Beautiful(ly)! And How About You?

At a reader's request, a friend has gone around with a camera to show you what is blooming now. Finally we can see some colour in the city. It's also one of the peak seasons for tourists, so I'm busy showing them the blossom as well as everything else in Beijing!




Actually he already went 10 days ago with some friends to the oldest temple in Beijing (even older than the city itself) and saw some beautiful old trees, but not the usual spring blossoms. One small yulan magnolia (indigenous to central and eastern China) tree was just starting to show some flower buds. The temple has both white and the less common purple varieties.

Three other temples also have purple, white or pink lilacs in their grounds, and some are over 200 years old. Then it will be the turn of the peonies in their various colours, including black and green. And the most famous place to view the largest area of lilacs is the Temple of Heaven.






Now, in our area, we can see a whole range of colours, and even more is promised as the weather warms up.

up.

Most of the photos were taken in my neighbourhood, but of course you can see much more in various parks and the botanical gardens - crabapples, and apricot, cherry and peach blossom (70 varieties of these alone in the Beijing Botanical Garden). One photo taken near the Ming City Wall shows the new plants in front of this old historical structure. See if you can spot the artificial trees/flowers, and the one I took before in South Africa (see last December's blog)!

And how about you? Are you ready for Spring? Have you done your Spring cleaning? It's also time to make yourself 'beautiful' too with some body and spirit 'cleansing' according to the earliest ancient Chinese traditional medicine compendium "Yellow Emperor Internal Medicine":

"....Spring is the season of growth, and a new beginning to the year. The movement of the air seems like a rebirth of our mother earth. To get used to the spring, sleep later and wake earlier, take walks with your hair flying in the wind, wear loose clothes, allow an open and joyful outlook to life. Instead of killing, let things grow. Instead of stealing, give abundantly. Instead of punishing, reward by teaching. This is the way of the Dao....."

I think the easiest piece of advice to follow is the first bit about sleeping later. Agree?