Nice Weather, Free Time, and a Trip Back to Childhood

Been listening to a lot of 林峰's music these days, so I thought I would share one of his songs that had been stuck in my head last night.

Happy Saturday!

I had some free time yesterday which was nice considering it's Midterms week. Now, my Fridays usually consist of doing readings for my one afternoon class, then lounging about until I have to go to said class, but since our professor decided not to hold class yesterday to give us time to work on our midterm paper, I had a bit of free time. Now, being the diligent student that I am (not), I lounged about the room for a while before taking care of some business concerning Connecticut College (my home university if you don't know) and my summer internship. Afterwards, I continued to mull about in my room for a bit longer before deciding that I really ought to be getting something to eat (namely brunch, although it was closer to lunchtime at that point).

After a rather filling lunch of a chicken whole wheat sandwich and grapefruit green tea, I decided to take a little walk before heading back to my dorm, seeing as the weather was quite lovely--some sun and a light breeze. So off I went at a leisurely pace with no real destination in mind, only the urge to take advantage of such nice weather and spare time.

After awhile I came across a quaint little park:

大學公園

大學公園 and though the English says Daxue Park, I believe College Park would be more accurate no? It had a pair of lion statues and a nice little pagoda-inspired gazebo for you to relax at, although there were a group of people sitting in there when I passed by.

Okay so maybe it isn't quite a gazebo, but I really don't know what else to call it

The male lion--you can tell he's male since he has the pearl under his right front paw...

...while the female--the mother--will have a cub under her left front paw

Of course, me being me, I did not intend on stopping when I saw the small group of people already occupying the area so I kept going. A little further and I came across the children's playground area of the park.

I would have kept on going too, had it not been for the ducks.

That's right folks, I paused and backtracked for a pair of blue plastic ducks! They are the kinds that stand on a giant spring (as you can see in the pictures below) and rock back and forth.

Now I don't know what kind of childhood you have all had, but parks and plastic ducks were not really a part of mine. Since it was empty and I had never ridden one of those, I decided on a whim that I would embrace my inner child and do exactly that.

I even took a selca for you guys--okay I lied, it was more for my mother, sister, and cousin--but I am not much of a selca person so I hope you are happy ;p

Initially, I was just sitting (more kind of leaning) on the edge of the duck, with my legs stretched out before me, but curiosity soon overcame me and I decided to sit properly on the duck. My legs were long enough to reach the ground so there wasn't much rocking to be done although I did put my feet up on the duck's a few times so I could actually rock. I was mostly taking in the scenery, enjoying the weather, and just having a little quiet time to myself though. I tried to get a selca that included the duck I was on, but alas that just was not working out. So I got a shot with the duck next to mine instead.

Orchids growing in the tree!

The inner botanist in me compelled me to take this picture, haha; actually I just like to take pictures of accompanying labels

And playgrounds aren't just for kids either--they had these interesting workout tools, ramble aids and push chairs they were called--for working out your upper body or your legs.

The push chair, in which you lean back in the chair and, as the name suggests, push the "arms" on the sides, which moves the chair, before slowly bringing the arms back down. It takes a lot more strength than you would expect, or maybe I'm just weak--my arms got tired after a few pushes

Instructions for the push chair

The ramble aid, in which you stand there and mimic walking--I've actually seen kids playing on this and it looks like so much fun, but alas I was not wearing the right shoes for them so had to sit this one out

Who says you need to be a child to enjoy a playground?