A Cool Summer-day Peach-picking
Published：2014-08-29
Summer is the best time for peach gluttony. Peaches are always regarded as the symbol for happiness, longevity, and auspice, and enjoy the good names of “peaches of longevity” and “peaches of heaven”. Coincidentally, the beauty from the administrative department of our company come from Pinggu District of Beijing, a place long being reputed as the “hometown of peaches”. Out of her zealous invitation, our whole company finally decided to go there together on August 2. After a journey of about 90 minutes, (Since it was a weekend, the road was a little jammed with self-driving travelers.) we arrived at the destination. After alighting, we hit straight the fruit garden. Our eyes were shot with felicity of harvest. Every peach tree was decorated by shiningly red peaches. All sides of this place were skirted by clustered green hills. This place can be compared to the legendary Chinese Arcadia if looked with a bird’s view, leaving us enthralled and exhilarated.
“It is the first time in my life to have eaten such sweet peaches.” Hearing a colleague’s words, I also could not wait to pluck one which turned out to be sweet and succulent. You cannot buy freshness of this kind in the urban area. The colleague’s family has two peach gardens. We tasted the nectarines first, and then the white peaches. Actually, they are both wrapped by dark red peal, only their meat is of different colors. The peach trees were not very tall, so many colleagues climbed up the trees to pick peaches. There were also some colleagues running heartily with children. All these images seemed to bring us back to our childhood when we could run and smile, carefree and mirthful. Despite the fact that the time when all these happened was noon, the heat could not quench our happiness in relishing the beauty of nature and the pleasure of picking. 
After that, the colleague arranged ad hoc for us to dinner in a special rural buffet restaurant which was quite prestigious locally. The inadequacy of parking lot alone could tell how booming their business is. With quite a lot of time and efforts, we finally found a parking lot, but only to find that we still had to queue for a enclosed compartment. To save the situation, we had a peach feast first. It was finally our turn after around 20 minutes. The vegetables there were all planted by themselves without any chemical fertilizers. So they tasted better indeed than those in urban areas. Another major feature was the combination of coarse grain and palatable wild vegetables. It is the most welcome with our modern society, because it’s healthy and fat-free. You don’t need to worry a thing when having such a dinner!
In cities, all you can see is ice-cold steel and cement, bustling people and vehicles, stereotyped streets and avenues, all sucking the vitality away from the city. Therefore, we can, for a moment, bid goodbye to the clamor of the city, go to distant outskirt that is free of crowded skyscrapers, and drive on the countryside roads accompanied by beautiful flowers and picturesque scenery. Run into the embrace of nature and have our bodies and soul pleased!
