Our last day in China

Today was our last full day in China. I'm ready to go home. I'm ready for my own home and my own bed. I'm ready to snuggle with my cat. I'm ready for Max to see his new home and meet all of our (his) wonderful family and friends. I'm ready to brush my teeth using water from the faucet. I'm ready for a giant salad. I'm ready for some chips and salsa. I'm ready for a diet coke with lots of ice, or maybe a diet mango limeade with sonic ice. Mmmmmm! But, I'm also going to miss China. It's been a wonderful trip and it's a wonderful country. Most of all, I'll miss the people. I think I'll even miss some things that I'm not sure I like. I think it will be an adjustment to not have constant noise, heat, and the feel of people all around you.

Today, we decided to go to a safari park near Guangzhou. It was a fun trip, but hot and tiring too. We hired a driver who picked us up at the hotel after breakfast. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the park which was actually in a neighboring town. The park was in a beautiful setting with lots of trees, plants, and a lake. We started out on the ride through safari. It was really neat. It was a motorized train that drove through natural settings with tons of animals. As you can see from the pictures we were very close. Also, they didn't just have one lion or one bear. There were probably at least 10-12 of every animal. After the ride through safari there was a whole other area that was more like a typical American zoo with lots of animals in natural settings. Very different from the zoo we had visited in Lanzhou. Interestingly people still through food and plastic wrappers to the animals here. I'm not sure why there is that cultural difference. We didn't make it very far in this area because it was so hot, so we decided to watch the monkey show. I'm not quite sure how to describe the monkey show. There were people dressed up in animal costumes (monkeys, pigs, snakes) and also an assortment of real animals, mostly monkeys. The entire show was in Chinese, so we're not really sure of the plot, but it did seem to have one. Even without hearing the jokes it was hilarious. I've never seen anything like it. Both kids were enthralled and giggling. It really seemed like Max understood the jokes because he would laugh when the rest of the audience would. Notice in the pictures of him how wet he is. No, we didn't just go to the water park. This kid sweats more than anyone I know other than Fieser. That was all we could take of the heat, so we got ice cream and headed back to the hotel to pack.