Stone Elephant Lake

This past Sunday we went on a day trip with our friends Asma and Mazhar to Stone Elephant Lake about 100 km from Chengdu. I had heard mixed reviews about this place, but I was amazed with the beauty. It was a huge ecotourist park with thousands of tulips in full bloom. We had a pretty good day as the weather in Chengdu has been very mild here the past 3 weeks. We took a picnic lunch and the kids ran around in the grass.



Gemma was able to fly a kite for the first time. She really loved it. (Please note in the pictures how there are lots of people staring at her!)





Here is Gemma with a fan club. I think there were a least 100 people who asked to have there picture taken with Gemma. Then there were the people who just grabbed her who didn't get their picture taken with her. We are fairly sure that most of the people at the park that day were from the countryside and have never seen a child with strawberry blonde hair, bluish eyes, and pale skin.



Angus had a great time playing in the grass and stealing balls from other kids. Here he is blowing kisses to the camera.



Gemma and Angus enjoying the great grass. We don't see alot of grass in Chengdu.



Our friend Asma. (Sorry Mazhar, I don't have any pictures of you!)







OK, now to a million pictures of tulips. I just love these pictures and wanted to share them with everyone. I loved the contrasting color of the yellow and red tulips.



and the yellow...













Gemma posing for a picture with two Yi minority people. China has 56 different minority groups throughout China. I didn't know this until I moved here and it is very interesting. Most Han Chinese are very racist against the different groups. To me, they look very similar, but not to the Han. I was just so surprised that there was such racism here. Most minority groups practice different religion and seem to have a specialty. I actually don't know much about the Yi, but they dress very colorful.



Where is Gemma???