Picnic in the Camellia Park
Day 737
What a fun day. We met up with many of Dave’s friends today in a delightful Park 20 minutes’ drive away. The group was a mix of ages, from the youngest at five months old to probably me, I think I was the oldest. Families and friends all coming together for a picnic.
What a great day for a picnic. The sun was shining. Kunming is known as "The Spring City". With its high altitude at a subtropical latitude, it has a moderate climate all the year through, even in the depth of winter.
We chatted to the group, cooed at the bonny baby and later I chatted to a lovely lady called Mary (her “English” name) who was learning English. I asked what she studied last week; the subject was “family”. I proceeded to ask her various questions, finding out that she had a married sister and a single brother. She seemed to really appreciate her extra English practice. I really enjoyed spending time with Mary.
We were asked to all get in a circle and Tim and I introduced ourselves to those who hadn’t met us previously. It was then games time.
For the first game, we were instructed to act out an animal. Tim chose a rabbit, and I did a neighing horse. Each person then did “rock, paper, scissors” with a partner, and whoever lost had to go behind the person and take on their animal pose. For a long time, I was in the line of the monkeys, but eventually, a young girl won. I can’t remember her animal.
We then were given a balloon each to blow up and get into two teams; females v males. The aim was to build a train with the balloon as the coupling. It was hilarious, Our frontrunner was going so fast that I could hardly keep up, and my yellow balloon did pop out of line a couple of time. I am glad to say that despite this, the women won.
Next was the copying game. Someone was sent away while we nominated a person to copy. The person returned and had to decipher who was leading, while we all replicated the actions, careful not to focus on the leader and give the game away. I love this game and even remember playing this at my 18th Birthday party, over 40 years ago. The old ones are the best.
Tim then introduced the Magic Rabbit game to the group, an old drinking game, not that there was any alcohol here. We got in a circle with our arms stretched out, waving our hands up and down. One person put their hands by their ears, like a rabbit. The person to their right did the same action with their left hand, and the person on the left used their right hand. The “rabbit” then pointed to another person in the circle, and they, plus their neighbours, took on the “rabbit” stance. However, the “rabbit” could throw a dummy. If they didn’t take their hands off, then the person they pointed to should not change hand positions. Is that all clear? I am glad I didn’t explain this to a group of Chinese who, mostly, couldn’t understand English. Well done, Tim, Dave and Mary, you explained it much better than me! Plus I was one of the last three winners - Yay!
It was picnic time. On the way here we bought dumplings and Dave had hard-boiled some eggs for our offering. Wow- there was so much food, mixed rice, chicken, stuffed flatbread as well as even more dumplings. For me, a carbs overload. Thankfully loads of fruit appeared, so I was glad to wash down my dumplings and rice with some thirst-quenching citrus fruit.
The families started to leave, so while Dave was busy chatting, we wandered around the Park for a short while. The Camellias were just coming into bloom, as well as some Magnolias and other flowers.
We got a lift back and had quite an in-depth psychological discussion in the car with Dave and one of his friends. It certainly taxed Dave’s brain, translating. I am sure his head must hurt for the rest of the day.
Three teenage boys from our picnic came back with us to play Risk with Tim and Dave. I refrained as only five could play, and I had a few things to do. It sounded like they had a lot of fun and two of the boys annihilated Tim and Dave. At least Dave had an excuse with his head hurting from all that translation.
A lovely final evening with Dave. We have had a fabulous time with him, really enjoyed our deep thinking chats, his generosity, kindness and friendship. We really do feel very fortunate.
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