When spring rolls around in Beijing, it means more than just the appearance of green  after months of grey and early darkness, more than singing birds and flowers and the occasional rain shower.  To old school Beijinger’s, springtime means the beginning of park time, and Beijing’s many parks begin to show signs of life after barely stirring during the winter months.
There are a million reasons to go to Beijing’s parks for the average city resident, myself included.  Chief among those reasons is the desire to see the color green and to escape the seemingly inescapable hum of the city, blaring of cars, and squash of teeming people so omnipresent throughout the city.   Whether they are free or it’s necessary to pay a few jiao for a ticket, once inside a city park, the atmosphere outside just melts away. It’s no wonder that parks are such a popular place for the elderly, who seem to show up in them at the crack of dawn and don’t leave until past dark.  On a day where it just makes sense to get out of the city – without actually getting out of the city – a retreat to Ritan, Beihai, or Xiangshan seems to make perfect sense.  And seeing the types of activities that go on in the parks in the spring and summer months makes them all the more interesting to visit.
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