Mon, 3/28: Safari Park In Guangzhou

What a long day we had!  The group of us from our agency took a bus and spent the day at  place called Safari Park.  It was a US zoo on steroids.  First we went on the "safari on wheels" where we boarded an open air train type vehicle that drove us through different types of animal habitats.  We saw everything from giraffes, elephants, lions, cheetahs, ostriches (one was in the middle of the road and I think her was about 3 feet away as we drove by) and quite a few other animals a quick jump over a small mote and wall to get to us.  Oh, and all the tour guide narration was in Chinese (and not Cantonese) so we were a bit on our own.

 

We then went to the "walking safari, " thankfully Ella was into our borrowed stroller today because we walked quite a bit and her walking would have slowed down the whole group.  We fed giraffes with big branches we bought, and unlike Miami Metro Zoo, they just gave you a branch and you stood along the fence to the giraffes waving one over to eat it.  I held Ella as I fed one and she wasn't so sure.

 

We moved onto koalas, which they have a ton of, including the only known set of twin koalas, weird since they don't come from anywhere near China, but still cool.   

 

Then onto the white tiger show which I could write pages on.  This show was such an accident waiting to happen and puts Siegfried & Roy to shame.  At one time (and for at least 15 minutes) there were 14 (yes 14) white tigers in the caged stage area with 2 men, and some of the tigers were a bit non-compliant.  Anyway, no one was hurt (human or animal) but I definitely don't think it is anything one would see in the states especially at basically a zoo show that was free with admission.

 

Then onto the pandas. And I mean pandas, 12 to be exact.  Very cool and Ella loved them.  At zoos I have been to there is normally 1 and you can never really seem him, here they were up close and personal and playing and taking bamboo fro each other.  Most were young, but there were a couple elders including Ming Ming who was born in 1974.

 

All in all a great but very long day, Ella napped about an hour in the early afternoon and was out after 2 minutes once in bed tonight :)

 

We are starting to come up with transition plans since we will be home soon (yeah!) but really want to get her to sleep in her own room versus in bed with us as she has been (mainly because then the boys will want to sleep with us too and then no one would sleep).

 

Tomorrow is free day for us until 5pm when we do a red couch picture (all our agencies little ones dressed in traditional garb on a red couch) followed by a Pearl River cruise complete with Papa John's Pizza.  German is feeling a bit like he has a cold type bug so it will likely be me and Ella at the playroom and out shopping tomorrow morning.  Hopefully she will be good with the stroller and if not, it is much easier to carry 1 than 2 and I can fully understand and appreciate that now :)