Park-ing around again

(Written on 16 August)

This past weekend, on 14 August, we went to yet another park, Si’De Park, and I had prepared a new (actually old – was Marianne’s, just that it was too big for her) hat for her and had left it on the bed in the morning. When she woke up, she did not even change out of her pyjamas before proceeding to put it on and parade happily out of the room. So as we were leaving that morning, she asked for ‘Yueyue 帽 – pink one?’ and slipped it on herself.
It was a pretty hot day, but thank goodness for the shade from the many trees around, and as we walked (and climbed slopes), we also rested on benches and rock. Here she is looking very pleased with the coolness of the rock…
There were many old people singing and dancing in the park, and we also caught a man playing on his harmonica. However, what pleased our girl the most was of course the kiddy rides section. Luckily the prices of the rides were way more affordable than those at Chaoyang Park. At a basic RMB5 a ride (RMB10 for those that can seat two persons), we spent the same hour of money for the two rides at Chaoyang Park and sat on 8 rides ah!

At first we were quite apprehensive about letting her ride alone since adults cannot get on as well (she loves to stand in her high chair despite our warnings/scolding, so who is to say that she won’t suddenly stand up when the ride is in operation – the seatbelts weren’t exactly too tight either…). So we tried with the first one, the caterpillar, where she was the only kid (and she kept looking back, probably wondering why the other caterpillars were following her so closely…).
She was a good girl, very well-behaved and holding on tightly to the steering wheel throughout. However, when she wanted to sit on the aeroplane (flying birds), the kind that can hover around in the air, we actually wanted to stop her, but she quickly climbed up the steps and resisted our efforts to bring her down. So rather than dampen her bravery/enthusiasm, we let her in (again the only person). Wow… she is one brave one, as she stoically held tight onto the steering wheel/railing, and wasn’t afraid of the speed or height of the ride. Nice…
And then we went on to let her ride alone on an elephant, where she had to rest her whole body against the elephant’s head to be able to reach for the handles (guess after the horse ride at the zoo, all else pales in comparison…).
Wayne then took her on a ride to shoot at wild animals, and another to fire water guns at a mountain.
For the next ride, there were fake Sun Wukongs (monkeys) clapping as they pulled the carriage she sat on, but she was probably straining from reaching out to hold onto both sides of the carriage, and didn’t look very comfortable throughout, heh!
Then she indicated she wanted to sit on yet another plane (loves the up-in-the-air experience, I guess), so off she went again…
We ended up at the carousel (RMB5 compared to Chaoyang Park’s RMB40 – I did not even have to pay to accompany her!), where she wanted to sit on the deer. She was quite curious about the contraption and looked upwards to see the lever pulling the deer up, and pushing it down, and upon her request, I had to go up and down as well to keep in tandem…
After we were done with the paid rides, on the way back to the car, we played a bit at the different stations of the free exercise corner.

She particularly liked to climb up (and be carried down) the flight of railing, though her bulky Crocs slippers did get stuck at times in the narrow gaps…
We then went to 陶朱公馆 for a dim sum lunch, and she had a solid nap for 3 hours straight that afternoon. After she woke up, we were getting ready to go out when she saw Nainai and said, ‘奶奶衣服漂亮，奶奶裤子漂亮，玥玥真漂亮’, haha!　(She likes to praise others, and herself at times, these days, spouting such compliments out of the blue.)

And so we headed to Solana, where we had dinner at 将太无二 Japanese restaurant, where she loved to eat the毛豆. We took a walk around the place after, and she requested for me to take a photo of her with the fair-like blue lights.
There was a musical fountain (she wasn’t very keen on it), but she preferred climbing the stairs – that’s her refusing to let Nainai hold her hand, preferring to fold it behind her instead…
As usual, it was yet another late night for our night owl!