In autumn, if you miss the adorable Kochia, you can make up for it with a stunning display of red maple leaves!

After autumn began, I saw many videos online showing the Kochia at Huakai Sea Ecological Park looking super beautiful, so I finally decided to visit in person on a free weekend. Huakai Sea Ecological Park is in Jinshan, a lesser-known suburban park, about an hour’s drive away. There is a fairly large parking lot outside the park. After parking, you walk along a pebble path lined with villagers’ stalls on both sides to reach the main entrance. The main road is decorated with lanterns and oil-paper umbrellas, giving a festive atmosphere. On the right is the rental point for four-wheeled bicycles. The park is large, so renting one is necessary if you want to explore thoroughly, but many paths inside are inaccessible to four-wheeled bikes, which has its pros and cons. Next to the rental point is a small river, and the maple trees 🍁🍁🍁 by the riverbank are bright red and very beautiful. Since we came for the Kochia, we headed straight to the flower fields deep inside. Large fuzzy balls grew in the fields, but their colors were no longer as striking as in the videos. The most beautiful time for Kochia should be when green, red, and purple are interwoven, creating a colorful spectacle from afar. Now most Kochia are brownish, with only a few still faintly showing purple. We came too late and missed its peak beauty, which is such a pity. With the mindset of making the most of the visit, we headed to the Autumn Scenery Garden. Passing a sunflower 🌻🌻🌻 field, what caught our eyes was a sea of red. It turned out the maple trees 🍁🍁🍁 lining the path were at their peak, so red that it was impossible to look away—so stunning and delightful! 💖 The entire Autumn Scenery Garden is filled with red maples in various shades: classic maple red, brick red, dark red, sunset red, vermilion, scarlet... layered and intertwined. The afternoon sunlight at two or three o’clock filters through the maple leaves, making each leaf glow like jade, and the light casts beautiful shadows on the ground. The maple trees by the lake reflect on the water, dyeing the surface a rosy red. Such a beautiful scene is intoxicating and makes the trip worthwhile. Huakai Sea Ecological Park also has a plum garden 🌸, which should be great for plum blossom viewing in winter.