The kids always want to sit on the back row of the bus, and
this time was no exception. We don’t mind, except there are no seatbelts and
one kid always wants to sit in the middle which would result in imminent death
if the bus stopped short. We arrived at the zoo and were taken on a shuttle bus
tour first so that we could get to know where all the animals were. I sat in
the back row facing backwards with all four kids and held David on my lap.
Matthew kept pointing out which animal exhibits were stinky and Lily enjoyed
telling me about all the mommy and baby animals that she saw. (Mommy and baby
is completely arbitrary and solely based on their size.) My favorite part was
when we drove past the zebras and Lily was beside herself because she was
wearing her zebra shirt! She kept saying “Zebra! Like my shirt! Hi zebra! Look
at me zebra! Look at my shirt! I have zebra, and that is zebra!” If only the
zebras could speak, I’m sure they would have been equally excited about their
appearance on Lily’s clothing. After the shuttle bus ride we were on our own to
explore for a little while. We started with Ocean World because the kids wanted
to see dolphins, but it was completely deserted. Apparently the dolphins don’t
come out in the winter? We did see a wooden sword just like Matthew’s though,
which was a total score because his broke so we were able to replace it. Next
we backtracked to see Matthew’s choice of pythons and Caroline’s choice of
turtles. We are definitely spoiled by the quality of zoo in America. They
operate on a low maintenance standard here, which means that the animals always
have food readily available and the glass is rarely cleaned. We peered in to
see the turtles and the snakes. I’m not sure how many snakes were actually in
the tanks, because we really couldn’t see in very many of them. We were able to
see the pythons though, along with the cute little bunnies that were hopping
around in their cage. (See what I mean about low maintenance?) The girls were
all about the bunnies, and then Matthew tactfully told them that the bunnies
were going to be eaten by the snakes. Moving on! Quickly please! On to the
alligators! Thankfully there wasn’t any visible prey in the alligators habitat.
We came upon more snakes and some lizards, and David discovered two cute fuzzy little
ducklings all snuggled up in the front of one of the tanks hoping to avoid
their demise. I had to drag him away from those. Once the violent death section
of the tour was over, we headed to find the giraffes, elephants, and zebras. We
took a little detour to check out the flamingos and swans and saw quite a few
lions. I don’t like looking at the lions. It depresses me. They are stuck in
these tiny little cages and they just lay there sleeping. I heard that they
actually drug a lot of the animals to keep them docile, and I think that was
the case here. Wow, death and drugs. This is a depressing zoo trip so far!
Nothing like feeding leaves to giraffes to bring a little sunshine into the
day. We paid a few dollars to let each of the kids have a turn feeding the
giraffes. David and Lily didn’t like that the older two got to go first and
were starting to throw mini temper tantrums. We somehow managed to prevent them
from escalating and handed the two younger ones over the fence for their turn.
It was getting close to time for us to go, so we started walking back toward
the front gate. Along the way we checked out the stinky elephants and tried to
see the zebras up close but they were hiding. We did find the tigers, but when
we walked up the male was trying to mate with the female, so we orchestrated
another quick exit as the kids asked what they were doing. Wrestling.
Definitely wrestling. That pretty much concluded our time at the zoo. Then it
was back to the hotel for a few hours to rest.
The kids were all pretty tired so we instituted nap time for
all of them. David was definitely not having it. As soon as I put him in bed
and closed the curtains he started crying and trying to escape. I started the
routine of repeatedly putting him back in bed and using my phone to explain to
him that it was nap time. It’s really funny to go back and look at all of the
things we have translated. You can definitely tell when we are trying to calm
him down from a tantrum! I think I tried every trick in the book for a while,
and finally told him that if he kept crying I was going to leave the room. So I
did. I stood outside the door and listened to him scream for a good long time. Then
I went back in and asked him if he was ready to stop crying and take a nap. I
pulled him into the bed next to me and started playing the twinkle twinkle
little star song I have. The kids love it because it has a little Asian girl
doing all the signs for it. That finally worked. I let him watch it on repeat
for a while, and then told him that it was time for bed. He didn’t like that
and started the crying again, so I started making up lullabies using the little
Mandarin that I’ve learned. The one that stuck basically repeated good night
and I love you over and over again. He kind of fussed and whined a few more
times, but at some point he did voluntarily get under the covers and eventually
fall asleep. I decided to take some time for myself and worked on the blog some
too. Then I went down to the exercise room and rode the bike for about 30
minutes before our next event.
We met our group in the lobby again for the Pearl River
Cruise. We always get there super early and have to wait for our guides to buy
our tickets. We waited upstairs where there were couches. Something else I find
strange is that there are usually stains on all of the furniture. These couches
were no different. I have no idea what people are doing on them, but they are
definitely not neat! Even if they technically are clean, you definitely don’t
feel clean sitting on them. And I am not a neat freak by any means! Miko came
up to give us our tickets. Lily just loves Miko ever since I told her that she
was our guide last time, and she always asks where her friend Miko is. I think
Miko loves Lily too, because she gave her a few snacks while we were waiting.
We all had a taste and they were delicious! It was like a cross between a
cheeto and a churro. It was finally time to board the boat so we went
downstairs and got in line. You totally have to stand your ground in any kind
of line and box people out or they will completely cut in front of you. We got on
the boat and found our table right away. We all wanted to sit together and the
largest tables they had were for six, so we pulled up an extra chair and I had
Lily sit on my lap. Almost the entire time that we were on the boat they were
making some type of announcement really loudly in Chinese. They never
translated them so I have no idea what they were saying, but I think at some
point they announced that dinner was starting because there was a mad dash for
the buffet line. Now most of the time when you have a buffet there is a
definite starting and ending point and everyone travels in the same direction.
Not here. Here you grab a plate and just start doing whatever you want. It
doesn’t matter if the person in front of you was there first or if everyone
else is going in the opposite direction. You just grab the serving spoon and
elbow your way in. I somehow managed to survive getting food for myself and the
girls at the same time. The food was definitely not as good as the hotel
buffet, and it’s also all Chinese. I tried to stick to the safe things like
fried rice, egg rolls, and steamed buns. I definitely did not try the chicken
feet. The kids managed to find enough things that weren’t spicy. The cookies
were for sure the biggest hit. Good thing we got them when we did, because they
were all gone very quickly! All of a sudden the crazy loud announcements
started again, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. Since everyone except David
was done eating, we handed him a roll to go and headed upstairs to escape the
noise. Neon and LED lights are very popular in China, which is also why the
river cruise is so popular. All of the bridges are completely lit up along with
most of the buildings along the shoreline. The views are really very nice. When
we got up to the top deck we walked smack into a line of people waiting to get
their picture taken. The girl told me that you could get a free keychain, but I
didn’t really want to wait in the long line. So instead we walked around it and
took our own pictures right next to them. Both Matthew and Lily have a cold
right now, and Matthew wasn’t really digging the boat ride. After about 10
minutes of standing up there he was ready to go back down. I wanted to wait
until I saw the Skylon tower and so did everyone else so he ended up sitting on
the ground with my mom or Brian most of the time. I could tell David was a
little nervous about being on the boat. I held him in the beginning and he
would kind of whimper when I got too close to the side for his liking. Even
when he wasn’t being held he stayed right next to us and was always holding
someone’s hand. We also eventually decided to get our picture taken because the
line died down. Caroline of course didn’t want to be in it, so instead of
having a picture with a missing kid just Brian and I took one together. Finally
we got to the turnaround point with the tower directly behind us. We took a few
more pictures and then headed back down to see if they had entertainment like
they did previously.
We entered in the middle of a magic act. Or maybe she was an
illusionist. I’m not sure, but the part of her act that we saw consisted of her
swallowing 5 razor blades and a piece of string, and then pulling everything
back out with the razor blades all tied to the string. There were a lot more
hand flourishes and dramatic pauses mixed in there, but that was basically the
gist of it. The boat high tailed it back down the river, and we arrived back at
the dock shortly after 8:00. Right before we got off we asked Aron how to pick
up our keychain and she told us to hurry down to the first floor. It was a
flurry of activity with a “line” if you can call it that with everyone reaching
and talking really loudly. We finally gave our ticket to the guy behind the
table and got to see our pictures. The large photo was only about $3 so we
bought those in addition to our free key chains. We squeezed through the crowd
and made it back to our bus. The kids were all exhausted and I thought we’d
lose some on the drive back, but they all stayed awake. As soon as we got back
it was time for bed! One day hopefully I will be able to stay awake past the
kids’ bedtimes, but it definitely hasn’t happened lately!
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