Sunday, January 29, 2012

Rain, Fog and Snow

January 23 was Chinese New Year and since my boss is Chinese, he gave me the day off. I spent that extra day walking in Central Park. There weren't a lot of people in the park as we had our first snow fall of the year just two days before and there were still a lot of snow not cleared.  The park is beautiful with snow blanketing most of the grounds.

It was already raining a little bit when I entered the park at the northwest part near The Pool.  There were warning signs all over, good thing the ducks can't read :)



The benches look a little lonely with nobody sitting on them.




Passed by the small waterfall on my way to the reservoir.  


By the time I was near the Gothic Bridge, there was fog, too. Here's beautiful Gothic Bridge shrouded in fog ..




A loop around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir is 1.58 miles. In good weather, it is full of people walking, running or just enjoying the view. On this rainy and foggy day, the path was nearly empty.


But the view is beautiful and peaceful.  This is looking at Central Park West, I can see the twin towers of the El Dorado standing tall.



The ducks and geese were enjoying the reservoir, too ..


Saw this family of ducks, don't know what type of ducks they are, though. Anyone?




I can also see the Reservoir fountain where the path curves ..



At the south end of the Reservoir, along the bridle path, are two more bridges. The SE Reservoir Bridge

   
and the SW Reservoir Bridge, too bad its beauty is covered by vehicles.


This was taken along the bridle path, there's a small booth near the East 90th St entrance. In good weather, it is manned by volunteers who can give answers or literature about the park.


The rain has fallen steadily and my hands were already numb from the cold so I decided to head home. Passed by the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater ..


and smiled at the beauty of The Lake as seen from Oak Bridge ..


Took the subway from the Museum of Natural History station, which was right across the park.  The tile mosaics there are beautiful, I guess that would be a blog for another day.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

My First Blog

Two years ago, I read about Matt Green http://imjustwalkin.com/usa/ in an article on Yahoo. He was walking across America from Rockaway Beach, NY to Rockaway Beach, OR. He was taking pictures of the things he saw and people he met along the way.  He inspired me to do the same. I love to walk, especially on weekends when I am free and have taken lots of pics during my walks. Although I've shared some on my public albums, on Facebook and on Twitter, I still have lots of pics in my hard drive. So I thought of doing a blog to share some of my walking pics.

I'd like to start by sharing my day. I took a walk in Central Park today. I love the Park, and even if I walk there every weekend, I will always find something new to marvel at and make me smile. I entered the Park through the Artist's Gate and skirted along the path to the Pond. Last weekend we had our first snow fall and I was able to take a short walk in the park.

This was how the Pond looked like then.



 This was the Pond earlier, taken from almost the same spot.


That's Gapstow Bridge on the picture, one of the Park's 36 bridges.  I went around the other side of the bridge to try to take a pic.  The sun was in front of me and my pic came out like this.


My walk took me past empty ball fields ..



to the Lake where Bow Bridge can be seen like a jewel in the sun ..


the Ramble where I saw some cardinals. I was so happy the cardinal didn't fly as I was taking the pic ..


and up to Belvedere Castle but it was closed today. It still looks as pretty as ever.



The castle had a great view of Turtle Pond.  I didn't see any turtles sunning but there were a lot of ducks and geese around ..


Time to go home now, it was a good three-hour walk. As I was on my way out, I took this pic of the Midtown buildings from the Great Lawn. I don't know what happened but the sun was kind of reflected on my pic ..


Hopped on a bus and dropped by Battery Park to take a pic of the sunset.



All in all I had a good day. How was yours?