Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

Flower expo

Yesterday was the mid-autumn festival, and thankfully I remembered to buy mooncakes.

On Saturday, I visited with my aunt and her family, along with my grand uncle and his wife. Mooncakes or Yue bing are the customary gifts you buy for this holiday. So I'm glad I didn't come empty handed.

To celebrate, we went to the 7th China Flower Expo. This was the first time it had been held in Beijing, in a nearby town called Shunyi.

There weren't so many carnations, roses or daffodils. In fact, it seemed there weren't as many flowers as there were trees and other flora more common and popular in China.

But it wasn't a stroll in some garden. Nearly all the exhibits were overflowing with people. Beijing certainly has a huge population, (at 17.4 million) and yesterday I could feel it, bumping into someone every minute. Long lines trickled out of the bathrooms doors, and large masses of people seemed to pour their way through each entrance.

Throughout the day my aunt and grand uncle said to me: "In America you don't see this many people, do you?"

The funny moment came when while in a crowd of people, a small boy hugged my aunt's husband, thinking it was his father.

"你抱错了!"  the boy's family said. "You're hugging the wrong dad!"