Lions and Tigers and Bears (and Pandas)!

Jen tells me that I am legally required to blog at least once per adoption trip, so I figured I'd take a day that involves predatory animals.  Today we visited the Safari Park.  We had heard a lot about the park from families on previous trips, but never went.  We figured that Ben and Catherine were too young to be interested in the zoo and never expected to enjoy it ourselves.  Boy were we wrong!  A zoo in China is a totally different experience. 

We started the day at the crack of dawn with breakfast an hour before our 10:30 am departure.  We wanted to get to the safari park well before the animals woke up.

Jothnathan had his usual obscene amount of food and dipped each bite in his orange juice.  I stuck to my typical low calorie diet of fruit, danish, omellete, croissant, dumplings, noodle soup, and sausage.  Jack, you'll be happy to know, is now limiting his bacon consumption to 3-4 slices per day.

Upon arriving at the safari park, we hopped on a guided tour through the open grazing areas.  Its a typical trolley car ride that you find at most amusment parks, but they let most of the animals roam freely.  If you pay extra, you can even drive your own car into the park.  The whole park is full of zoo keepers with long bamboo poles that chase the animals back into position after each car passes.  We should have known things were going to be different when we saw the bears standing up and performing for some of the private cars that passed.  People would throw food out and feed the bears!  Stay tuned because it gets better.

After finishing the safari part of the tour we moved on to the "zoo" part of the experience.  Our guide took us to see the tiger show.  We walked around looking at the various types of tigers in their enclosures.  It turns out that this park has half of the world's captive white tigers and run a very successful breeding program.  We walked in to an enclosure to see 4-5 tiger cubs playing with eachother.  It was very cute.  As we were walking towards the exit, Jen and I both noticed a salesman selling bowls of raw meet.  That's right, for around $2, you can throw raw meet at the tiger cubs.  We quickly bought a bowl of meet and the attendant yelled at the tigers who came running over.  We spent the next fifteen minutes watching Jack feed the tiger cubs.  Now that's what I call a zoo experience!  But wait, it gets better!

That's right, we also got to throw bananas to elephants and got great views of pandas snacking and cooling off.  We were almost able to get close enough to one that we could have reached out and touched it.  This is not like DC, where you might catch a glimpse of the panda if you are lucky.  These guys are front and center and perform for the crowds.  One walked right by us and climbed into a swing.

The tour finished with some amusement park rides.  Johnathan loved the merry-go-round.  As we were leaving we also got to watch some monkeys fishing in a river.  It was fantastic! Prior to this trip, the night zoo in Singapore was hands down my favorite.  Now, I might need to go on safari in Africa to top this.  The three of us could not believe how much we got to see.

We finished the day with dinner at our favorite restaraunt on Shamian Island.  After three adoption trips, we are practically regulars there.  Johnathan enjoyed the plentiful amount of meat on a stick. 

Medical Exam and Home-Away-From-Home

This morning Johnathan finally claimed that spot in his Daddy's heart that he reserves for only the sweetest, most adorable, best behaved children in the world when he was a ROCK STAR at the medical examination. He was happy, smiley, talkative, and relaxed... it was wonderful! He almost seemed like he enjoyed it.  Daddy was SO proud :)

We got his visa photos taken first and while they were printing he demanded (he gets that irritated look on his face, points at the ground, and goes off on you in Chinese... we do not need a translator for that one!) that he get down and climb around like Jack was doing.

Then we were off to the examination building. Johnathan played around with some toys while we waited and then when it was our turn he brought on the charm and wowed the doctors and nurses. He did everything they asked him to and not a whimper could be heard at all. In fact, he was smiling at all of the medical staff and they were talking and joking with him. One guy in particular (I think he was a trainee doctor) enjoyed him so much that he followed us around to the rest of the stations. The doctor who did the main part of the examination was really impressed with Johnathan's cognitive abilities and he spent a long time examining his legs... it seemed to be more out of his own interest than that it was necessary for the visa application. I wanted to ask him what he thought of Johnathan's legs but we were hustled out of there before I had a chance.

Johnathan did not need the vaccinations like Catherine did (thank goodness!) so he only needed a TB test. I was nervous that he would be upset and it would set us back in our bonding. On the contrary, after our guide explained to him what was going to happen he sat on my lap and took it like a big boy... he tensed up but never cried. When it was over he smiled at me, accepted his high praise from every adult in the room, and moved on.

As a reward we took him to my China home-away-from-home... the Starbucks on Shamian Island! I always joke that if you are looking for me in China you should always look there first :) Johnathan enjoyed his first ever hot chocolate very much though he was more excited by the whipped cream on top than actually drinking it.

This is him showing off his TB test battle scar!  Thankfully it has already gone away.  Yippee!  Daddy does not have to pay for x-rays... this, of course, endears him to his father even more!

After leaving Starbucks we visited our old stomping grounds the White Swan Hotel. It is closed for renovations for the next year or so (which is why we are not staying there this time) but for now the main level and restaurants are still open. Johnathan (and Jack for that matter) were amazed by the giant indoor waterfall and the fish. It is a pretty cool place and I miss being there on this trip.

We could not quite get him to sit still for a red couch photo...

... so we tried a little of this action instead!

Xuzhou - Nanjing - Guangzhou

Our guide Lily picked us up from our hotel at 7am (ouch!) and we reluctantly said goodbye to Xuzhou.

(pardon the hair... I told you it was early!)

The train back to Nanjing was uneventful (I am really digging high speed rail!) and we had about 7 hours to kill before our flight to Guangzhou. We drove though downtown Nanjing (I love this city!) to the government office to check the adoption paperwork and get Johnathan's Chinese passport. It's a good thing we double checked because both of our birthdates were wrong. They subtracted 3 years from mine which I thought was incredibly rude... if you are going to subtract then why not take off 10 or so?

We needed to stop and buy a stroller for Johnathan... he is SO heavy that we just cannot go on. Our arms have been crying out! We went to the Carrefour (I am probably spelling that wrong), found a cheapy stroller, saw this interesting sign (not sure what qualifies as an emergency), and let Jack peruse the grocery area which he found highly entertaining.

We had a lunch-about, walk-about, and shop-about in Nanjing before we returned to the government offices to retrieve our corrected paperwork. Jack had been too scared to try the red balls on a stick but Lily assured him that they were not bugs (he reads too much!) so we got one for him and Johnathan. They are actually little sour fruits with a red candy coating (like candy apples) and both boys woofed them down. Jack was very disappointed that he had not "discovered" them earlier in the trip.

We had just enough time to fulfil one of Jay's wishes and we visited the gates to the city wall on our way to the airport. It is actually pretty incredible. The wall itself is the largest preserved city wall in the world and the gate is a series of tunnels and courtyards that the enemy had to break through if they had any hopes of getting into the city. Many tried over the centuries but no one suceeded until the Japanese did in World War II (and, even then, they needed an air assault to do it). Many say that the reason the Japanese were so brutal to the people of Nanjing was because it was so difficult for them to get in.

We made it to the airport with no problems and Johnathan enjoyed his first plane flight. By enjoyed I mean slept through it :) The biggest excitement was when the flight attendant handed me my pepsi and I proceeded to spill it ALL over myself. It ran into the seat and my pants and underwear were soaked for the entire journey. I then had to do the walk of shame when we arrived at Guangzhou Airport. Thankfully our new guide Helen gave me a few minutes to change clothes before we got in the van for the hotel.

(again, pardon the hair... this is not the best picture!)

We are now in our hotel in Guangzhou (it was another LONG day!) and we are anticipating and early morning tomorrow. We have to do Johnathan's medical exam which is always fun :)

Videos from Xuzhou Night 2

These are too good not to share :)

After our super long but awesome day the boys (and by boys I mean ALL the boys!) took a big nap and we stayed inside the hotel for a snacky-dinner instead of going out to a restaurant... I don't think we could have eaten any more food anyway! We went to a bar on the second floor that overlooked the giant indoor pool area for drinks and cashews. It was clearly the first time Johnathan had ever seen a pool (or anyone swimming) and he freaked out. He was screaming "Shui! Shui!" (prounounced schwway, schway... meaning water) and laughing hysterically. He kept yelling at the swimmers to be careful (I told you he likes to worry!).



Johnathan is very helpful and always makes sure his mommy is taken care of. Sometimes he is a little too helpful...

I Love Me Some Xuzhou!

We could barely keep our eyes open at dinner last night so we tuckered out pretty early. Breakfast at this hotel is so-so (it is no J.W. Marriott in Beijing!) but you do get to eat with famous celebrities...

Ms. Tang and the driver picked us up at 9:30... we needed the sleep-in!  The first thing she asked Johnathan was if he missed her.  He said yes and told her that he had been been a good boy this morning (he conveniently left out the part of the story where he threw a water bottle across the room!).  When she said that she had heard about him throwing the bottle he acted like he couldn't hear her.  It was actually too cute :0

We drove across Xuzhou to Yunlong Mountain (Cloud Dragon Mountain).  It is really quite beautiful.  Xuxhou is actually surrounded my mountains and they are treated so reverently...  you can tell that the local people are very proud of their mountains.  Yunlong Mountain has a Buddhist temple on one side where you can worship Buddha (and other Buddhist deities) as you climb up the mountain (so there are different "layers" going up with steep steps in between).  It is a working temple so it was wonderfully enlightening to watch them worship.  The air smelled of incense and there was music playing everywhere... what at atmosphere!

When we reached the highest point of the temple, a 1000 year old giant statue of Buddha, there was a priest who was doing calligraphy.  He called out to Johnathan (who was riding on Jay's shoulders) that he should walk like a big boy (this kind of thing has happened ALL over Nanjing).  Our guide politely told the priest that Johnathan is unable to walk and was just adopted by us.  At this point the priest got super excited and ran over to us.  He asked Jay to put Johnathan down and then he picked him up.  He insisted that he have his picture taken with Johnathan and then with both boys (and then our whole family).  He ran over and got 2 apples that had been given to Buddha and gave them to the boys.  Yes... my kids have eaten divine apples.  They are both now destined for greatness :)

We continued up the mountain (which was much higher than the temple) and Jay and Ms. Tang took turns hauling Johnathan. I think I mentioned it before but he is so HEAVY! What a sack of potatoes! This has been the biggest shock to us. He liked the backpack carrier at first but it started to be too tight (his words to our guide) so we had to carry him everywhere until we were able to buy a stroller (not that a stroller would have helped on the mountain). We kept going up and up (Jack was so jazzed about actually climbing a mountain... he moved off the path that we were walking so he was in the "wilderness". Mr. Bossy Pants alternately kept yelling at him to be careful (he is such a worry-wort for a 4 year old!) and yelling at him that he was a bad boy for disobeying Mama and straying from the path. LOL!

When we got to the top we had a 360 view where we could see the entire city of Xuzhou. It was spectacular (though I was sweaty and out of breath at this point so all I could think about was water). Ms. Tang was super proud of us for making it to the top.

After leaving the mountain we went to a traditional Xuzhou restaurant.  We learned that Xuzhou people are considered northern people and they, like Ben's folk, eat wheat based foods rather than rice based foods.  So, obviously, I could not partake in most.  But, Jay said the breads (which are like flat breads that they stuff and fold like burritos) were out of this world.

We took a walk around the giant lake for a few minutes to digest our lunch.  Johnathan clearly knew that area (it is very near the orphanage and Ms. Tang said that the nannies take the kids on walks around the lake) and it was very peaceful and beautiful.

After our walk we visited a market so that Jack could see how the local people shop for food.  Ms. Tang wanted him to see a vendor making crispy noodles (the thing he loved most during our traditional Xuzhou lunch).  She bought him a whole bunch of noodles, flatbread "pancakes", and sugarcane... he was so happy and I do believe that Ms. Tang is now his very best friend in the whole wide world.  He keeps asking when we can come back and visit Xuzhou again :)

It was a very long and exhausting day (I think we nearly killed our guide!) but such wonderful memories were made by all of us.  We are so blessed to have spent the day with such amazing people!