We met our guide around 9:30 to head out to the zoo. We were scheduled to go with the other family but our guide told us that their little girl had come down with a fever as well and they wanted to keep her inside today. Their sweet little girl had a liver transplant not too long ago and there is much more to worry about with her getting a fever than we had to worry about. They ended up going to the pediatrician at the hotel and all was well but they still wanted to keep her in the room. We were just glad that it didn't seem to be anything serious! I think the girls picked something up at the medical appointment the day before. Our girls hadn't had any contact with each other at all except for riding in the same van but they had both been at that clinic and been touched by the same people who never appeared to wash their hands between patients or wear gloves. E woke up completely fever free and never showed any other symptom.
So we went off to the zoo with our guide. It was a VERY HOT and super steamy day. Yuck. I asked our guide how many times she's been to the zoo and she looked at me and smiled and said, 'too many times to count. I didn't want to come today!" An American guide would never say that to the person who is paying them but to the Chinese it's totally normal. I thought it was funny but I'm sure there are some who would have taken offense. Honestly I didn't really want to go there today either! I had heard from a few other families that the zoo was pretty sad and unfortunately we found that to be the case. It was very lush with lots of beautiful trees and plants but the living conditions for the animals was not very good at all.
We were quite the sight walking around with our three strollers and six children. I think we may have been the best exhibit of the day for a lot of folks!
We tried to get E to look at a lot of the animals but she didn't really care about it. I don't think she'd ever seen any kind of animal before but she didn't really seem interested in any of them. She doesn't really seem interested in much of anything though besides her cup and whatever toy she's latched onto at the moment.
Another almost smile!
Our sweet guide pushed a stroller almost the whole time so that the kids could take pictures as much as they wanted. She insisted!
I was surprised at how many tigers were in the zoo. I think there's only one, maybe two, at the Dallas Zoo. This one had tons and they were roaring like crazy.
There were the hugest snails I have ever seen all along the sidewalks too. The kids love snails and had to pick them up. Gross.
S eventually got tired of sitting in the stroller and wanted to walk around. Of course he insisted in pushing the stroller he'd just gotten out of. And of course he had to run while pushing it. This kid runs everywhere!
In the center of the zoo is this huge pond, almost like a lake, with lots of ducks and geese and pelicans. M found this cool looking bug and insisted I take a picture of it. It looks like a dragonfly with a red tail.
We stopped to get some ice cream and have some water because we were all so flipping hot! The little girls had some snacks that I brought in. We were all ready to leave by this point but still had to make our way to the exit of the zoo.
We ended up passing some caged lions. One of them fixated on Josh and would not let him out of her sight. It was hilarious! He was running around the fence and she would follow him everywhere without taking her eyes off of him. She couldn't see the stroller so I don't think it was the baby - it was him. He had lots of fun playing with the lion and I eventually had to tell him to move on. He probably would have stayed there all day just to see how who would give up first!
R was a cute attraction too and got his picture taken a few times.
What exactly is an earthquake museum?
One of the last exhibits we saw was some monkeys. There were lots of little baby monkeys out and they were SO cute! We stayed to watch them for quite a while.
We kind of saw one panda. Our guide said he hardly ever comes out of his "house" because his "house" is air conditioned. I don't blame him!
There was a huge giraffe exhibit on our way out where you could feed the giraffes. Pretty cool!
While we were there our guide mentioned that this animal is like the mascot for G's province of Sha'anxi.
It is one strange looking animal.
I don't know how he found this tiny little creature but Josh noticed it and picked it up to show the girls. A teeny little inchworm!
On the way out there was a little park with statues of all the zodiac animals. Every kid (and adult!) had to get pictures with 'their' animal. M is the year of the snake.
R is the year of the horse.
C is the year of the dog (very ironic considering he's deathly afraid of them!)
Daddy is the year of the rabbit. So manly. :D
E and R are the year of the tiger.
I know we got a picture of me with the dragon but I can't seem to find it now. . . Oh well, if you've seen one you've seen them all, right?
As we exited there was a marketplace set up outside the gates. Tons of people selling and cooking food and different fruits. There were several people making some kind of juice or something by pressing these sugar canes (?) through some kind of machine. The expressed liquid did not look appetizing!
We found our driver quickly and were so grateful to be in some air conditioning. It was a VERY steamy and soggy day!
On the way back we asked our guide for a suggestion on where to get some lunch. She mentioned a pizza place that a lot of adoptive families liked so Josh headed over there with M to get some for us. It was SO gross. He ordered a four cheese pizza, which sounds fine, right? Well, apparently the fourth cheese is some kind of bleu cheese because it tasted like feet! YUCK! And it was pretty expensive to boot. It was the first and last time we visited that place.
After lunch we decided to find the pool and got everyone into their suits. E was NOT happy about the bathing suit and kept holding her shoulders. It wasn't too tight on her or anything probably just tighter than anything she'd ever had on before. I was worried about how she would react to the pool seeing as she still doesn't like baths.
We finally found the pool and got outside. The kids were so excited and started splashing and having fun. Except for E who was very wary and not happy at all. I sat with her on the edge of the pool and we just put our feet in and then Daddy picked her up and carried her out a little farther - he was in the water but it wasn't very deep so she was only in it up to her feet still. She still wasn't very happy. She wasn't screaming like it was bath time though so we considered it a success. G was happy as a clam and sat in the very shallow water splashing it up like it was something she did everyday. So cute!
C showed me how he had learned to swim underwater and I was totally shocked! Two weeks ago this kid wouldn't even go under the water and sure enough here he was swimming away! I'll admit that I didn't really believe him when he told me about it before. Then much to the kids' dismay, about 5 minutes after we got to the pool it started raining. :( We didn't wait for it to start pouring and gathered up everyone and everything and headed back inside. The kids were SO bummed. We promised to try again tomorrow.
We had a dinner date later on that night. We had met a couple at breakfast that was adopting their 6th child (the 3rd adoption) and we made some plans to meet them for dinner. We went to The Paddy Field, 'an authentic Irish pub and restaurant,' run by an actual Irishman. The food was pretty good and the company was even better. It was a wonderful thing for me especially to talk with another couple who had been where we are and totally gets it. S was very sleepy and cranky from not getting a nap and it was way past bedtime so he ended up falling asleep on my lap in the restaurant. I think he is starting to come down with the fever too now.
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