Family Night

We added to our weekly routine recently. We've been working on making Monday evenings our "family night." Most of the time we just plan it at the last minute. So, last night we decided to go to Beiling Park. It's a huge park, and during the day you have to pay to get in the park, but it's free in the evenings. Brant and I had grabbed a quick bite to eat before we left, and we brought food for the girls. It was our plan to rent a 4-seater bike to ride around. It was a very interesting evening! Sometimes getting out in the culture here can be difficult, but then there are other times when it's just so fun and so interesting, and that was last night.

At the outside of the main gate, there is a large paved area. We were amazed to see a mob of people at this area doing all sorts of things. Now it's normal for people to congregate like that at parks especially on a nice summer evening, but the amount of people on this night was still just amazing! There was one section of this paved area that was roped off - it was the jump-rope area! There were vendors renting and/or selling jump ropes, and there was music playing with a good constant beat to jump rope to. It almost seemed like it was a jump rope club for how organized and professional some of those people were about their jump roping! It was such a strange sight.

Then we went inside the park and made our way to where one can rent bikes. These aren't normal bikes. They're almost like paddle boats where you sit side by side to peddle, and only one person controls the steering. Some seat 2 adults, some 4 adults, and others are set up for 2 adults and a small bench for children. That's the kind we got. Eden was on the bench right out front, and Brant did most of the peddling as I held Nita and even fed her as we rode. We wanted to explore a part of the park we had never seen before, but we had such a hard time finding the path to that side. We finally did find it though, but by then it was pretty dark out. We had just enough light to see the basic direction of the path and avoid hitting people. Considering how dark it was, and how woodsy of an area we were going through at times, I was surprised that our girls weren't more scared than they were. Eden was fine, but Nita did get a little scared at times. I wished we could have gone further than we did, but the bike was the type where you peddle a LOT but don't get anywhere very fast. Brant sure got a good workout! hehehe... (as if he needed it)

After we returned the bike, we did a little bit of walking among the crowds. The inside of the park wasn't as crowded as the outside gate, but it was still pretty crowded. There was one open section where some vendors were selling these spinning flying top-type things with neon lights on them. You hold a handle with a string attached inside it somehow, and then there's a plastic circle thing that sets on top of it, and it has neon lights in it and a little battery. Then you pull the string, and the neon circle thing goes flying high up into the air. You really had to watch out as you walked through that area so that you didn't get bonked by one of those things! They were really pretty to see up in the dark sky though. (And yes, we bought one for us and two more for certain family members of ours with small children that we call nieces and nephews, but don't tell the little ones! - ha!) There were vendors selling all sorts of other things too, and there were a few games and rides. I promised Eden that she could ride the airplane ride the next time we visit the park, which will be in about two weeks when grandma and my cousin are here for a visit. She's looking forward to that and commented that grandma would love to ride that ride with her...I'm not so sure about that!

The big crowd outside the gate was still there when we exited the park, and we heard what sounded like a choir singing off to one side, so we threaded our way on over that way to see what was going on. I thought maybe it was a stage with a choir, but we found that it was just a singspiration type thing. I don't know who organized it, but it seemed like a woman and a man were sort of in charge of getting the new songs going, and then the crowd all around standing in a circle just joined in the song as it got started! Actually the woman was doing some folk type dancing in the middle of all those people, and I believe the songs were Chinese folk songs. I would love to join in on something like that, but wow would it be difficult to learn all those songs! We guessed that there were atleast 75 people if not 100 or even 150 gathered around that area and singing. I had taken Eden off to one side where we could stand on a step and see things better, but Brant was with Nita in the middle of the crowd, and those two were drawing their own crowd of foreign-baby spectators, so Eden and I headed over to them, and we made our exit - past the choral group, numchuck dudes, the rollerbladers/skaters, the legal vendors and security guard kicking an illegal vendor out, the kiters, the jump rope clubbers, and the ones who like us were just out wandering and observing. There really was an area where guys were doing a fine display of numchuck skills, and yes, some people do kites even at night here because their kites have neon lights on them!

It was such a fine evening with a real taste of a pleasant part of the culture here - a part that I wish we could be a part of more often - especially the sing thing! Maybe we should just make a habit of going there often for family night. I wish we had our camera along, but we'll have another chance in a few weeks when our company comes - can't wait!