Tuesday, June 14th - Jifa Park...land of EVERYTHING!

OK, I know that on Monday I said this would be a "work week", but today I had to chance to go to Jifa Park with Toni and Ranier (two international students who attended Medicine Hat College last year). They live in QHD, and as a professional procrastinator, I jumped at the chance to do something (make that anything) other than mark assignments!

About Jifa Park

Jifa Park (I am sure this is spelled wrong, but this is how it sounded to my "non-Chinese" ear) is where the Chinese have combined a plant science lab/producing farm/farmer's market/amusement park/strip mall/fancy restaurant/petting zoo/bungee jumping/live theatre/botanical garden/dog show/sit on a camel or pose with a monkey on your shoulder and get a picture taken type place that we are so use to seeing all over in Canada (again, like many things in China.....it really just seems like a bunch of people sit down, drink a ton of alcohol and throw out random ideas...that actually go forward and get built!). The end result is that you get these stranger than life type places, like Jifa Park, that in all seriousness are completely cool and interesting.

The park is located just outside Bedaihe (about a 30 minutes drive from the college). I am not sure how much it is to enter the park as Ranier took care of everything today (his father is a doctor and the head of the hospital in Bedaihe....and clearly his family is well connected/wealthy. I guess this means he can not fail Finance 255 next year!!!....just kidding, fortunately he is a good student and a hard worker).

Anyway, Jifa is the first place in China to use ocean/salt water to grow crops (if you are wondering how they do this, I do not know, the signs were in Chinese!). They also have a very fancy restaurant right on site that uses all the foods grown at the farm/greenhouses to make absolutely delicious meals (in fact, I would have to rate this as probably the best meal I have had to date here, and that says A LOT, because most of the food here has been fantastic). They have acres of greenhouses, fields and garden plots that grow absolutely everything you can imagine - Chinese herbal medicines, pumpkins, peaches, grapes, lettuce, banana's, zucchini's, melons etc. etc.

As mentioned above, they also have a plant lab that is trying to develop new and interesting kinds of fruit/vegetables plus the petting zoo, amusement rides etc. In fact, the only disappointment of the day was that I could not bungee jump! Seriously, I was all ready to go. I had my money out, emptied my pockets of loose coins and was heading up the tower.....but the Chinese guy said "too fat" (I think he must have meant "to tall"?). This was too bad, as this was likely one of the few chances/times I would ever do this! Again picture enclosed......but it was not crazy high, plus the water looked quite deep/calm in case the bungee broke and probably most importantly, it was only 60 RMB - or $8.57cdn!!!! However, much to my disappointment, the maximum weight said 90kg's and even I know that the ONE time you do not want to lie about your weight is when talking to the bungee jumping guy!

Overall, a great day and fun afternoon!