Mom:
I am now working from the light of my iPhone to illuminate the iPad, after putting to bed one very over-tired child that was not having any part of going to bed, if Kyle wasn’t going to bed (at 7:45 p.m. either!). Zachary doesn’t want to miss anything, so he has is having a hard time as the day ends, thinking about what he is missing out on.
He loves getting his nightly bath and then getting all powdered up. He is very strong-willed and tries to be very independent (what Lockhead child isn’t!) He grabs his toothbrush as soon as his bath is done, wrestles with the cap of the toothpaste and tries to get it all done by himself. He has learned routines quite quickly and is able to race from my room to Charlie’s (6 doors away) when he gets into the hallway.
Since we are so familiar with this area of China, we do most of our touring and exploring on our own. We only have a driver to get us to/from our destination and then we move out on our own sans guide. Our Sunday was spent on Shamian Island in Guangzhou. The Island looks very different from the rest of Guangzhou, as it resembles a small European village area in terms of tone and feel. We spent several hours wandering the streets, watching the workers plant flowers (for hours by hand), taking pictures with some really neat statues, and visiting the White Swan Hotel (where we stayed when we adopted Kyle and Dylan).
Kyle, AM and Ryan danced with some local seniors who were singing Auld Lang Syne and who loved their American dance partners. The kids played on the Island’s playground and visited one of our favorite Starbucks. The island was filled with so many tourists (Chinese) and locals, including several brides getting their photos taken. Kyle and Ryan also met some local teenagers who were playing games and who invited K & D to participate in their “pass the balloon” game. We were also able to do a little bit of shopping at one of our favorite adoption stores on the Island, which unfortunately is closing this month due to adoptions decreasing so significantly.
Some of the stops on our tour…
Shamian Island is sprinkled with Statues, perfect for Photo Ops:
The White Swan Hotel holds a special place in our hearts as this was our Guangzhou “Home Base” during our trips with Kyle and Dylan. It has changed a great deal, but back in the day, it was Adoption Ground Zero. Adoptive Families were everywhere. The main central atrium of the White Swan has a huge waterfall and is lush with vegetation, and is graced with a large Pagoda at the top of the waterfall.
The Park adjacent to the the White Swan Hotel is a popular spot for locals to gather to sing and dance and socialize. They are very friendly and enjoy each other’s company immensely. They also graciously welcome non-natives who wish to join in the fun.
Once back at the hotel, what else could we do but hit the ice cold pool (and hot tub). Aunt Meg, Uncle Curt and the kids spent their time in the hot tub playing all sorts of games from math quizzes to i-spy, while Zachary nodded off on me. Charlie was busy booking our bus tickets, for Thursday, from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. We could have ridden another Maglev train, but the luggage odyssey was just too daunting for all of us. The bus will also drop us off near the airport, where we are staying for round two of our Hong Kong trip. By the end of this trip, we will have ridden in buses, taxis, boats, gondolas, bullet trains, planes and automobiles!
For last night’s dinner, Aunt Meg and Uncle Curt thought that we should try the local Irish Pub (while in China, why not?!). It was called The Paddy Field. It was a really neat place, that we had never been to before. It was fully decorated for Christmas, and the beer and food were good (and Western to boot!). We could actually decipher the menu without our translation app. After a quick dinner, it was back home to bed for us.
The Chimelong Safari Park
Our Monday adventures started off bright and early again. We were up at 7 a.m. to eat and then get our driver to Chimelong SafarI Park. Charlie and I have been there a few times before, and it is probably one of the best parks/zoos that we have ever been to. It’s close to an hour from our hotel (with traffic, which was crazy this morning).
We arrived shortly after 10:30 a.m. and the entrance areas were already filled with dozens and dozens of school children (all in different color uniforms led by a teacher that used a megaphone and/or mouth and ear piece and flag to guide everyone – very different than the US field trips!). One flag pole even had a pink panther stuffed animal on it; it was hilarious.
Having been there before, we knew that we had to go to the “Safari Wheels” portion of the park first. This is a drive your own car or take the safari tram ride through the animal park, where animals are very close. All of the more dangerous animals, like bears, rhinos, elephants and tigers, are up behind larger moats, but dozens of animals like zebras, giraffes, birds, are allowed to roam freely across the land and roads. Normally, the trams drive quite slowly and stop. Today, I guess they were on a mission, because we went buzzing through the entire trek quickly.
Then, to beat the crowds, we knew that we had to get up to the Panda Enclosure next, so we headed up the big hill and started through the animal kindergarten area where we saw so many cute little baby animals. The boys said that the baby foxes are some sort of animal in the Pokémon games, so they knew all about them. As we headed up towards the Pandas, we saw that the white tigers were getting their meal of the day. The keeper would roll out meat on a trolley contraption and then the tigers would lunge at it and jump into their water pool. It was pretty wild and you could see how incredibly strong they were. We were within feet of them, only protected by glass and a small moat of water. This park allows you to see the animals VERY close, unlike any US park.
Then, of course, we had to do a few hat samples as we wandered through the gift shop waiting for the Panda area to open. Once in the Panda zone, what can you say except that it is such an amazing animal. The Park had several pandas out, including the three triplets that were born back in 2014 (we last saw them in 2016). They are such magnificent animals, and you can see them so closely in this environment. We took lots of cool photos, as you can see. Many of them were eating their bamboo lunches. Because it is still so hot here (it had to be in the 80s today), they have huge slabs of ice to lie in within their enclosures. The park also had lots of decorated pandas (all individually done, probably by different artists) through the panda area, so we had to stop for several poses.
By the end of our panda tour, it was getting extremely hot and humid, so we decided to take the park’s “sky ride” around the top of the park. Of course, because I hate heights, the woman waited for the “special car” for us which had the glass bottom enclosure!! I was not as excited as the kids were, but we really were not super high, so I wasn’t as unnerved as usual. We were able to ride it in a circle around the entire park. Then we caught a few shows (one was a Ukraine dance troupe, which was dressed up as lions and tigers). Another was a band group that played the Chinese versions of Uptown Funk & Walking on Sunshine.
Then we fed elephants strips of some sort of hard grasses and fed giraffes big pieces of tree leaves. One giraffe was drooling, as it was so excited to be fed. We also visited the koala exhibit, where I was ready to take one home. Dylan was not amused that Ryan found out (based on a board of pictures and names) that one of the koalas was named Dylan! Then we decided to end our day walking back through the Dinosaur exhibit that seemed to take you up and down way too many hills. I told Dylan that it was giving me nightmares of Jurassic Park III that I had watched on the plane here.
As the day was ending, we kind of sped through that to hit the gift shop before we left. The kids were quite excited with their purchases. Zachary was funny as he seemed to know just what he wanted and went to the plastic animals in a bag (from long ago) except now they are in a little backpack. He grabbed that right off the shelf and was ready to go. A few more photos to add to our thousands already taken, and we were ready for the driver to take us home. Aunt Meg might have even captured this year’s Christmas card photo for us, too.
Then between Aunt Meg and Kyle (depending on whose watch we used), we walked 7-9 miles again today (and all of our feet felt it!!)
By the time we made it home, we were beat, so because it is China, we had McD’s in the room and then we are all winding down. Tomorrow, we have Zachary’s consulate appointment, where we drop off all of his paperwork so he can become a US citizen when he hits US soil.