Yesterday we went on a 沙滩漫步 Shātān mànbù (beach walk). It was led by Laurie, who volunteered his time to share his knowledge of our local beach with us. We learned so much and discovered some amazing marine life we had just never seen before! We 去沙滩探险 Qù shātān tànxiǎn (explored the beach) and made 海洋生物发现 Hǎiyáng shēngwù fāxiàn (marine life discoveries)!

If you are learning Chinese, you may have learned 散步 sanbu, to go for a walk, 漫步 mànbù is a kind of walk where you wander casually around, the kind you would do exploring the beach!

Do you also notice that many of the characters in the picture above have 氵as part of the character? This is known as the water radical, and seeing this in characters can give you a clue that it is something to do with water! 海洋 （sea, ocean) 沙滩 (beach) . Can you see 漫 in漫步 also has the water radical? This word for rambling around can be used for many other rambling kinds of walk other than near water…eg 书林漫步 （browsing for books, another one of my favorite pastimes!). My guess is that the kind of walk 漫步 is, is more ‘fluid’ than a straight walk…not saying that this is the exact etymology of this character, but it kinda makes sense to me that way! And it’s what makes it a beautiful and apt choice of word for our ‘beach walk’!

The beach walk was supported by ‘Keep Sandgate Beautiful Association’. If you would like to find out more details of when the next Sandgate beach walk will be organised you can call 07 3269 1671. We can highly recommend it!