Day of Gold (金黃一天)

Many photographers in Hong Kong think that if you wish to capture the magic of fields of wavering gold, there's only one place to go in China, viz. Wuyuan County in north-eastern Jiangxi (江西 婺源). Not many however know that there's a place much much nearer to Hong Kong where they can have their first taste of what huge expanses of canola flowers may look like. In fact, it's right across the border, not more than an hours' drive from Shenzhen.

This is one of the fan-shaped concrete screens surrounding the Lotus Lake Park( 蓮湖公園 ), with some 300 acres of parkland with both lotus flowers and canola flowers, the latter  specially introduced there last year from Yunnan (雲南). The park is located at the centre of the suburbs of the residential and hotel district of Bridgehead Town or Qiaotou country town (橋頭鎮), a part of the Dongguan Prefecture (東莞) of Guangdong Province.

Rows and rows of canola flowers, the first to bloom in China because its at the southern part of China.

They don't grow wild, separated by furrows.

At the opposite side of the park, one finds the best houses in the small town of some 200,000.
 

A close up of some of the canola flowers.

More of the same



Canola flowers growing at the side of the pedestrian walkway, the closest we can get to them.

The side of the canola field



The canola field is drained by waterways

Over the waterways are the pedestrian walkways

They lead to the centre of the park from one side to the other, supported by little more than wooden or bamboo poles.

The only sign of what's left of some lotus roots

A boat half filled with water moored near to the side of the wooden bridge



Like other Chinese parks with a pond or a lake, there's a hall at one of its shores.



A close up of the house: the red lanterns under its eaves tell us that it's Chinese New Year.

The name of the park in image form.

Kung Fu in bronze: the spirit of the small town

He means business 

His pupil learns from the master

No lack of concentration either!

 

The only tree in the middle of the canola field

 

The pedestrian walkway

The field of green and gold under the tree

Underneath the tree, purple daisies in all hues

Right behind the main square of the park is a villa style hotel  and behind it, a tower

The new tower

 

Flowers  on the flower beds at one side of stairs leading down pedestrian walkway

Flowers or leaves?

This one I know: a camelia

Leaves in the sun.

More leaves under the sun

a stump overgrown with roots or air roots

The little country town finally stretching its wings

Our temple of food for the day

The happy looking lady chef-cum-boss dressed in red: she has good reason to be happy: she'd probably have to pay three times the normal pay to get any waitress to help her do the serving. If she can do so on her own, why let the cash slip through her fingers. It's not at all easy to get people to work during the Chinese New Year nowadays. With rare exceptions, home is still top priority for most workers around this time of the year.