Sha Tin Park

30-Dec-2006

There are many beautiful parks in HK. Nevertheless, they don't seem to be very much appreciated by the public. This is not hard to be understood. KS and I, we seldom stepped foot in any parks the time before Vincent was born. I was talking about the first 4 years we lived in HK, visiting parks was never came across our mind.

Most of the time, the frequent visitors are parents with small kids, the romance young couples , the lonely elderly or the Filipino / Indonesian maids. If anyone want to isolate himself from the crowds, I would suggest those parks that's managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. You got to see it to feel what I mean.

I suddenly prompt up with this idea. I (means the 4 of us) want to "conquer" all the parks in HK. Gosh..that will make every visitation to the park a more adventuruos and missionable one.

Sha Tin Park (沙田公園), formerly known as Sha Tin Central Park (沙田中央公園). This lush eight-hectare park is situated along the Shing Mun River. It consists of six gardens with a wide variety of trees and shrubs. And its only 30 min walking distance, or 5 min driving distance from the place we live.

An eight-meter-high waterfall and two banyan tree bridges located in the South Garden provide great backdrops for photographs.

Fishes, and occasionally, tortoise are habitants of such a pond.

As usual, feeding them is prohibited, but people feed them anyway. They feed them plain bread, ok lah, that's what fishes eat too, right? But obviously, they are too full. From our latest feeding experience, we found that those fishes were not eating our bread at all. Bugger, we bought them the expensive plain bread (more expensive than the one we normally eat), but they didn't even go to smell it. If this continue, I guess the boys will eventually lost their enthusiasm in fish-feeding.

This man-made waterfall looks pretty natural and real.

Totally a peaceful place in the city of crowds.

Running to the playground at the South Garden.

Along the way, these resting huts we saw, have become a popular picnic spot for the Filipino / Indonesian maids.

Everywhere they go..they run.

Yes, the boys will never miss this piece of wonderland...

where they can walk up and down the rocks...go to and fro a bridge...

climb up and down this spider-web...

or, force daddy / mommy to squeeze inside the backseat, so as to satisfy their imaginative play to be a driver, and we, to be their passengers.

or pretend he is the greatest chef on earth that can serve me any foods I like in this imaginary 'kitchen'.

he was busy making something out from there, I forgot what kind of foods I had ordered that time.

later on, it suddenly became the prison they boys wanted to break out.

Why the heck they want to choose the hardest way to get out from there?

I think most adults would not find the children playground an interesting place to go, but got to go somehow. Me too. Most of the time, we either sit there eye-guiding the kids' safely, or find some activities to do, like taking photos every here and there. Sometimes, we find an objective, sometimes, none.

See that little boy in white shirt? He stood there for a long time and admired Vincent when he swing to and fro across the bars.

Excuse me, someone got to back off lah...Luckily, no one ended up crying and screaming.

Oh, I just noticed this is the same little boy (in white shirt) who had appeared in the previous photo.

Oh, the same little boy again (in white shirt).

This playground is indeed a big one. I have to admit that I would feel exhausted and breathless if I kept chasing them from behind. Thank godness it's a very safe place to let them run freely while we just need to keep an eye on them from far.

Only when I didn't see William's appearance in that playground compound for a long time, then I went to check on him. Apparently, he was engaged in some sort of problem solving there...

There is a maze-like pathway inside the wheel, and there is a little ball inside there too. Willaim was so focus to find ways to roll the little ball from one end of the path to another by turning the wheel left and right.

He met some setbacks at certain difficult parts...with my help, finally he made it.

After he played enough with the maze one, he turned to this one. Sigh, this one seems more complicated, I gave up. He didn't figure it out without my 'guidance', so he get bored of this one pretty fast.

Actually, this is only half of the Shatin Park I included here. There is another wing at the other side. But basically the concept is the same, just the scene a bit different.