When people living outside of Beijing think about the capital, two different sets of images come readily to mind. One consists of historic palaces, temples and buildings - notably the Forbidden City and old hutong alleys. The other images are of the sleek, modern office and apartment towers symbolizing the new Beijing.

In both cases, the picture is dominated by solid and inanimate objects - old Beijing's stone and wood structures and new Beijing's steel and concrete high-rises. In neither instance is there much, if any, evidence of nature.

But those of us who have lived in the capital for some time know that it is filled with surprises. One of the most pleasant surprises awaiting me when I moved here was the amount of green space, even in the center of the city.

Indeed, central Bejing, that is, the area inside the Third Ring Road, boasts more than half a dozen parks. Each one possesses its own distinctive visual charm. Beihai Park has its lake and pagoda-topped hill, while neighboring Jingshan Park's Coal Hill provides an outstanding view of the Forbidden City's rooftops.

On the other side of the Forbidden City, there's Zhongshan Park with its fantastic gnarled ancient cypress pines, especially the "cypress and scholar tree growing intertwined". This park also has a greenhouse, with beautiful floral displays all year round, and a swell bamboo grove. The latter's halls not only showcase interesting botanical displays, but nice calligraphy as well.

And to take in a sweeping 360-degree panorama of new Beijing, namely the CBD skyline, one needs only make the easy climb up the small hill in the center of Ritan Park. This hill's rockery and pool also provide a nice backdrop as one sits and relaxes over a drink in the park's Stone Boat Caf.

April is a special time in Ritan, as well as in Jingshan, Zhongshan and Yuyuantan parks, when each one is ablaze with spring flower blooms. I head first to Ritan Park, for its flowering peach and forsythia and then take in Yuyuantan's cheery blossoms, Jingshan's peonies, and the tulips at Zhongshan Park.

Finally, in addition to the natural beauty, many of these centrally located parks are important cultural heritage sites. Beihai not only has its temples, but the study where Emperor Qianlong did calligraphy, while Zhongshan has a small, but quite good museum on Dr Sun Yat-sen.

There is even more green space outside of the Third Ring Road. This part of Beijing has the lovely Botanical Gardens and Fragrant Hills, as well as a number of large new parks, like Chaoyang, Haidian, and the Olympic Green and Forest parks. The Forest Park is the crown jewel of these new parks: even during the National Day holiday, when the Botanical Gardens and Fragrant Hills are very crowded, one can find solitude on its secluded back paths.

In addition to providing greenery, Beijing's parks are home to numerous cultural and social events. Ditan Park has an annual book festival, Spring Festival Temple Fair, and international music festival (Chaoyang hosted a similar event this fall).

More than that, the parks here are great places to do some people-watching. I particularly enjoy seeing who will make it up Ritan's climbing wall, the badminton games in other parts of that park, painters doing watercolor pictures of Jingshan's peonies and the small groups of amateur musicians playing their erhu there and in other parks.

Indeed, when I lived in Dongzhimen for two years, I often strolled through Nanguan Park at night to observe the couples dancing in its northeast corner, the group singing and dancing to accordion music by the bridge in the middle of the park, and the middle-aged ladies dancing near the main entrance.

I was always impressed by the down-to-earth nature of these ordinary folks, especially the ladies dancing, who were completely unpretentious. Unlike women doing this sort of thing in the West, they were not dressed in fancy spandex outfits, but wore plain street clothes instead.

While China's rising affluence is overall a good thing, this bit of casual "park-level" social observation also suggests that it is making leisure less of a community activity.