Cherry blossoms draw crowds to Beijing's Yuyuantan Park

BEIJING, China - Huang Qian (L), a Beijing University student majoring in Japanese, and her dormitory friends pose for photos in front of cherry blossoms at Yuyuantan Park (Jade Lake Park) in Beijing on March 23, 2014. The first 180 cherry trees were planted in the park as a gift from Japan upon the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic ties in 1972, and the tree population has grown to some 2,000 trees including native Chinese species.