Sunday April 3 - We're having fun now!!

Today was another fun day in Guangzhou!  We changed our sightseeing itinerary from what we were originally scheduled to do here.  Since we are with a group, one of the other families was requesting to go to the Safari Park and we were scheduled to go somewhere else.  But since we also had heard good things about this Safari Park, we decided to skip seeing another Buddhist temple and go see a really good animal park.  We are so glad we did!  TingTing got to see a LOT of great animals, many of them right up close.  This park was huge.  It had some rides - although we didn't do those, and it had a walking safari as well as a safari on wheels.  The safari on wheels is one of those where you can drive through in your own vehicle and the animals will come right up to your car.  We took the park tram through that safari.  There were animals of all different kinds on both sides of the tram, some up quite close!  Then after the safari on wheels we did the walking part and that was basically like a very nice zoo.  The exhibits were really nice and the animals were again often up quite close.  Here are some pictures from our time there....

Getting ready to enter the safari on wheels

Camels...

...deer of all kinds....

....and more kinds....

There are lots of white tigers at this safari park.  We found out that there are only 300 of these in the world, and 130 of them are here at this safari park!

This shows the curving road and the line of cars that park to wait for animals to come up close

I love this picture of the lions!  They were throwing meat to the lions, so that is why they are all looking in one direction.

This ostrich came up very close!

TingTing LOVED all the animals!

There were several pens of baby bunnies!

A baby monkey - TingTing has the English word "monkey" down very well!

Woah JIM! 

Our cute little tiger!

This part was so cool!  You could feed the giraffes!  TingTing LOVED it!

Note #4.  Too funny!

The koalas were really neat too - although mostly sleeping of course.  This guy was so funny- he looks like he is chilling in his recliner!

The Chinese word for Panda is "Xiong mao" which basically means bear-cat.  TingTing pronounces it Shyo mow.  She says, "Da Shyo mow!" which means big bear-cat!

She loved this panda!  I thought she might scream, but definitely not!

So the giant panda is a big bear-cat...the red panda is a little bear-cat!  Or to TingTing, "Shyow Shyo Mow!"

The elephant habitat was really great.  Two babies, lots of adults, a waterfall...this one was bathing itself!

Lydia rode much of the time in the stroller, but anytime she was walking, she was squeaking with her new squeaky shoes!

Loved this picture of the flamingos with the reflection in the water!

Oh, and the weather here is beautiful!  It was around 80 today I think.  Plenty warm for walking around the safari park!  I think after today it is supposed to cool off a little, but only down to the lower 70's.  Nice!

After the safari park we were pretty worn out so we had some down time in the hotel.  ACtually Lydia fell asleep in the bus on the way back to the hotel and we carried her up to the room and laid her down - still asleep.  So she actually got a bit of a nap while we enjoyed some quiet - and got a start on this post!


For dinner we went to a place nearby the hotel called the Banana Leaf.  It is a Thai style restaurant that turned out to be quite good.  TingTing hasn't had as big of an appetite for the past day or so, but tonight she looked at her food like she hasn't seen a meal this good in a long time!  Guess we've been trying too much American food.  She definitely still loves her Chinese food!  She's gonna have a hard time when we go home - or I'm gonna have to get myself a Wok and learn to stir-fry!  Here are some pictures from dinner.  There was also some singing entertainment as the place got busier with people.

A view of the restaurant environment.  There were big artificial trees everywhere with branches all over the ceiling.

So glad to finally be given what is in her mind a decent meal!

Hey look!  I'm finally getting the hang of these sticks!

The singers entertaining everyone

Here is a cute video from dinner.  Lydia persisted a couple of times with trying to use her chopsticks.  She has used them quite successfully at times, but this video shows her patiently struggling a little more to make them work right.  I love the part where Jim offers her a fork and she waves her hand no!

Three things we are thankful for today....

1.  For the group that we are with here.  It's a fun change of pace to be with other adoptive families.  Plus, they are both families that have adopted from China before.  For one family this is their second adoption, and for the other it is their third.  Fun to glean knowledge from their experience!

2.  For the chance to watch Lydia interact with other kids.  She loves the attention from the two 8 year olds in our group.  Good practice for her eagerly waiting sisters at home!


3.  For the chance to have Lydia see lots of animals today - even more than we could show her at many zoos in the US.








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