January 25th - Chimelong Safari/Zoo

Today was another "off " day so the agency arranged a group trip to the Chimelong Safari Park. This was one of the highlights of our trip in 2012 so we were eager to return.  Our major concern - the weather.  This is a full-day outside event.  Per the forecast?  51 degrees and sun.  We wore multiple layers to keep warm. We even had Drew's original clothing laundered so he could wear them today to ensure he stayed warm.

Before our day began, we enjoyed the wake-up call at 2:30 am from our Bernards Township Board of Ed to let us know that school was closed!  Luckily I fell asleep to be awakened to Derek watching the Broncos and Patriots.  He's so loving being able to watch these games.  We feel very lucky to not be forced to watch James Bond movies.  As a Colts fan, I was very happy for Denver.  This also put Derek in a good mood for the day.

We boarded a bus with fellow Holt families for the day.  On the 40ish minute ride, our guide (Raymond) shared some interesting tidbits about Guangzho.  First topic:  weather.  He shared that yesterday's snow in Guangzhou was record-worthy:  it was only the 9th time in the city's history to record snow.  1st snow was 1246.  Prior to yesterday, the latest snow was in 1929.  Wanted to share since we are missing the NJ blizzard - we didn't full escape cold weather....and it keeps reminding us of our family at home.

Here's a picture of a TV tower.  It is a striking structure.  If you look towards the top, it is sloped slightly.  That is apparently a roller coaster.  Can you imagine?

He also shared that Guangzhou has 15 million people but 2 million cars.  The government wants to limit cars because of the traffic jams.

We arrived to the park that was such a hit when we where here in 2012.  (sorry for the bad photo but I couldn't get a great one because I was shooting into the sun.)

One of the first things we did was wait forever for the "train" ride.  When we finally boarded the tram, she said "this is it?"  :)  You know, when you say train, she assumes train.  She had a point.

I won't bore you with all the pictures of the animals we took.  I'll share only a few highlights.  Most of the best animal shots were on Derek's side of the tram...so he took those.

Fan favorites included:  The sunning kangaroos

and giraffe licking a tree (not sure why)

Unlike our first time to this park when we went by ourselves, we had a guide (Raymond).  Here we are playing "follow the leader" where the leader is holding a red China flag.  If that wasn't obvious that we were tourists, the fact that we were Caucasian was.  We stood out very easily and received many stares (as usual).

Other highlighted animals included the white tiger....

 and of course, the panda.  Where not sure where they all were, as they boasted of 14 pandas, but those that we saw were very cute.  They are most proud of the panda mom and her now 1.5 year old triplet cubs.  They are the only ones in the world.  Here's a panda kicking back chewing on a bamboo stick.

In some exhibits, you had to "look alive" - meaning look above you and stay alert.  This was especially important in the big bird area and monkey area where the animals might give you a little gift from above if you walk under them at the right time.  

For this long walking way, we rented a stroller for Elise to give our backs and arms a break.  The kids seemed to enjoy it.  For the time when he was awake, he seemed happy and taking it all it.  He was a hungry guy.  My back was killing me as I spent most of the park bent over feeding him like a little bird.  We had a late lunch...and this little guy gets cross when he's hungry.

Miss no nap started winding up at the end of they day while the little guy crashed.

He woke up when we boarded the bus.  Here he is modeling his panda hat.  He wasn't much of a fan.

The bus ride back to the hotel took longer because of the traffic, but we finally made it.  This is a picture of the side of our hotel, near the metro station entrance.

For dinner tonight we feasted like kings:  Pappa John's delivered to the hotel.  It was the best meal we've eaten in China.  I hope you can see how much we look forward to healthy non-fast food when we return.  

One funny story:  we grabbed some fruit and drinks at the executive lounge tonight.  We chatted with some nice adopting families. One guy seemed really impressed with Elise's language skills.  He was confused how she learned English so quickly in almost 2 weeks.  He thought we adopted 2 children on this trip.  Earlier in the day, our guide kept speaking Mandarin and Cantonese to Elise.  I explained to him that she doesn't know Chinese - she's been with us since she was 7 months old.  Derek then joked to me later that we should just go along with it - and offer to take their kids for a short boot camp to catch them up to Elise.  :)