A Zoo of a Day

This morning, the group loaded onto a bus—after a 15 minute wait for one couple who shall remain nameless—and headed to the Guangzhou Zoological Garden. Having heard that the Beijing Zoo is not very nice, we did not have high hopes for the venture. However, it turned out to be a great outing.

The animals’ enclosures are much more concrete-based than in most US zoos nowadays but the park itself was very beautiful with lush greenery, manmade lakes and piped-in muzak. We got to see many of the animals at a closer distance than is common in the States. There were full-maned lions, tigers, rhinos, red pandas, monkeys, alligators and turtles. No elephants or giraffes or zebras but the highlight of the tour was supposed to be the giant panda. Unfortunately, there was only one on display and this was the one cage that they kept back a bit from the rail so it was pretty hard to see him.

The highlight for me may have been a concrete pen where there must have been four or five dozen large rats of some type. They looked like they may have been nutria. Several of us speculated that a bunch of rats came up from the sewer and the zookeepers just decided to make an exhibit of them. Interestingly, just to the left of the rats (and to the right of the porcupines) was a clothesline with six or seven articles of clothing hanging on it . . . yes! someone, probably a caretaker of some sort, actually lived in a small home right above the rat pit!

I also got a kick out of the school children again on their field trips. I swear that all 500 million elementary-age kids in the country of China paraded by us as we rested at some picnic tables. For a second, I even thought they must be marching their way around the lake and passing by us over and over. “Heh Heh, look at the stupid Americans. They don’t realize we have walked by them five times already. ‘Hello! Hello!’”

MelodyJoy was a huge hit in her stylish pink sunglasses. Incredibly, she did not mind wearing them at all.

From the zoo, it was on to Pizza Hut for MelodyJoy’s first experience with American chain restaurants. The pizza was okay. We ordered thin crust and it came in a square, the way that Little Caesars does (or used to do) some of their pizzas. While there we got to see a neat thing as Peter and his wife sat at the next table with their new 3-year-old son Joshua. Joshua has a cleft palate and has been quite nervous and serious, with very sad eyes, since being given to them earlier this week. They told us that in their hotel room they had seen a different, brighter side of him but none of us had witnessed it. Suddenly, in Pizza Hut, he broke out with smiles and started giving his mom kisses. It was very special.

This afternoon, a bunch of guys got together at the hotel to play basketball, the first time I have played in years. It took all of three minutes for me to get winded but we had a good time and I even managed to remember a few of my moves from back in the mid-1980s. Lineaker, one of our guides, came to play as well, which was kind of cool. He played barefoot and his offense consisted of shooting ‘most every time he touched the ball. His defense was dubbed the “Woo Defense” because it largely was characterized by him yelling “woo!” at us as we drove by him. I asked him if Chinese players talk trash. We gave him some lessons in trash talking today.

Today we had to review all of the paperwork from the Chinese notary for accuracy (yeah, right, we’re supposed to make sure all the Chinese writing there is correct?) in preparation for getting our kids’ visas this Saturday.

This evening, we went to dinner in one of the hotel restaurants with Kenn and Deb Anderson from the Chicagoland area and their new daughter, Rebecca. It was a very pleasant evening, though there are several things we noted. First, it’s strange how you can order your dinner and it takes 20 minutes for them to figure out that they’re out of what you ordered. Second, Kenn was ready to go through the buffet (which looked phenomenal but was a bit spendy) until he spotted one of the guests at the shellfish display repeatedly sneeze and then dive right back in to grab more food with the tongs he had been holding. Third, a bottle of water costs more than $6 and a can of Coke Light is $5 in this hotel . . . but several of us had entire dinners that cost only $8 or $9.

MelodyJoy became a little more interactive today. Each of the girls is very different, some are physically active or strong while others are very flaccid, some are talkative, some are crawling, some are eating solids, but all seem to be younger than their reported ages. A prime source of conversation is asking one another, “How old do you think she really is?” Amy, one of our guides, says that it’s typical for the ages to be overreported by about two months.

Anyway, a real highlight of the day was after dinner when Jeannette was holding MJ as she stood near Jameson and she held out her arms and reached toward him. Jameson’s face lit up! So Jeannette put Melody in his arms and let him hold her.

At dinner tonight, one of the Andersons asked Jamey what the best part of the trip had been so far. He immediately said the zoo but then he said the zoo was the second best thing. The first was getting his baby sister. It was pretty cool.

By the way, I changed one of the settings on the blog tonight so that fewer of the posts appear on the first page when you open it. I’m hoping this will help the blog load a bit more quickly for you. The older posts will still appear in the Archives, though, if you want to check them out. You can also check out Kenn and Deb's blog and photos at http://360.yahoo.com/profile-bJ0MlFc6fqjr5tRIjU06SbCOIe44kOyT8MDO1E1iJr0-?inv=bq7I2xtpLg--&r.