Guangzhou Safari

I forgot to mention yesterday that we were joined by 2 other families with BAAS. They both adopted their children in another province, and are in Guangzhou for the last leg of their trip. One family is adding their 5th child, a 2 year old girl,  and the other is adding their 8th child, an 8 year old girl! I love big families!!! The one family has their two oldest children with them, who are 9 and 13. Great kids! There is definitely a connection between other adoptive families, and we have loved our time with them!

Today, we went on a safari. It was awesome. The first half of the day, we were riding an open air tram (think Disney), and the other half we were on foot. It was a long day, but really, it was quite incredible. While on the tram, we saw tons of different animals, none of which were confined. They had beautiful habitats and were obviously well cared for. Giraffes, elephants, wolves, lions, tigers, cheetahs, zebras, camels. They had a fair number of white tigers (we saw about 7), and this safari park has half of the white tigers remaining in the entire world. Very sad fact. They are beautiful creatures.

One really cool fact - this park has the only set of koala twins in the world! Apparently, they bought a koala from another country and shortly after, the koala got pregnant and gave birth to twins! How cool :)

There was one small habitat that was home to chickens, roosters, guinea pigs, and bunnies. All together, just walking around. It was really cute! Marin loved all of this and we had our guide explain to her that we have many of the animals she was seeing (hamsters, squirrels (yes, they had squirrels here!), guinea pigs, iguanas). She seemed very happy. The girl loves animals! And taking pictures. She took over 1000 pictures today on her touch....haha.

We were able to purchase food to feed the giraffes and elephants. For the giraffes, you could buy branches of leaves :),  and for the elephants, bunches of bananas. The kids loved this! So did the animals. One thing they wanted to do but couldn't was hold a baby white tiger. We were ready to do it, but the tiger did not want to be held, and was giving even the handlers a hard time. Clearly, it would not have sat on a child's lap for even a few seconds. I managed to get a picture of him though :) Oh well. Maybe next time :)

Lunch was interesting. We decided to order food one of the little restaurants. Quite an experience. The kids wanted hamburgers, which the cashier said they had. But when we opened it up, it was a very odd combination of food :) On the roll was a piece of chicken in some red sauce, lots of mayo, tomoato, lettuce, half cooked bacon, and a fried egg. Oh, and a cucumber half. All on one roll....pretty funny. Kids didn't think so :) Marin asked for french fries and some chicken on a stick. Fortunately for us, she continues to pass on the Chinese delicacy of chicken feet. Yay for us! Our guide says the Chinese LOVE chicken feet and that many are imported from the US, since we don't eat them. He insists we are missing out. I'm thinking not so much :)

The safari was an all day thing, so when we got back, we had just enough time to go feed the fish before it got dark. And what do you know - ice cream for dinner again :) Marin also insited on more french fries. With ketchup. We have created a monster. She loves them!

Back to Shamian Island tomorrow to have Marin's TB test checked. Then our guide will take us to a local street with lots of vendors. Then hopefully meeting up with the other families for a late lunch.

Happy Sunday :)