Where the Wild Thing Are :-)

So this week was Chinese National Holiday. A wonderful time in which we get 7 days off to celebrate communism and explore our surrounding world! It really always comes at a nice time while the weather is still warm, with that slight fall chill to it, perfect for adventuring! We do lack the vibrant fall colors of New England fall, but at least the weather cooperated for the week so we could have fun.

My wonderful sister-in-law obligingly scheduled her C-section during this holiday so we were blessed to have my niece Ella along for all of her adventuring while mommy, daddy, and baby Silas adjusted to the world. It made all of our adventures just that much more fun to have Ella around. Everywhere we went, people assumed Ella&Robbie were twins and Maddie was our accidental 3rd one. We created quite a stir! I did not previously know the Chinese word for twins (shuangbaotai) but I picked it up very quickly this week after figuring out what all the gestures and chatter were around us.

We often feel like a zoo attraction because of all of the attention we draw wherever we go, and this week was even more extreme. So we decided to embrace our fate and visit the real zoo to see if the animals were feeling like we were. We had heard that there was a zoo on the outskirts of our city, but had never been ourselves. So we popped out our map (which is all in Chinese characters) and attempted to navigate our way outside of town. With very little trouble we stumbled across the Animal Park and began our adventure.

I have never been to a zoo in this country before but haven't heard good things so I braced myself for the possibilities. I was pleasantly surprised however with this beautiful place. The park was nestled right in-between several mountains in a quiet out of the way location. It had a great variety of animals, that for the most part had relatively nice habitats (which is the opposite of what I expected). Unlike an American zoo where people and animals are carefully seperated by glass or very large fences which would be impossible to scale, in this rustic Asian zoo the animals and people interact much more closely. At every attraction there was the opportunity to feed the animals. We started off visiting the small farm animals and decided it would be harmless to feed the bunnies and the goats (carrots and cabbage mostly). From there we went to the hippo tank where I felt a bit uncomfortable and decided against feeding the massive fellow. Instead we oppted to feed the giraffe (who I felt would have less teeth or interest in eating my kids fingers). It really was fun to get that close to the giraffe! The kids were nervous but fascinated.

At one point we suddenly found ourselves a few feet away from an uncaged tiger! He was being held on a slender rope by a small man :-) I started snapping pictures and then suddenly realized how insane that was and we decided to move away quickly.

We continued our treck around the park which was built into the side of the mountains so is full of hills and stairs and trails through the woods. My favorite part was the huge walkway suspended high in the sky which allowed you to pass over the habitats of the lions, tigers, bears, leopards, and warthogs. It was the closest I've ever been to those animals plus it provided an amazing view of the surrounding mountains. About every 100 feet on the walkway you also had the opption to feed the wild things. For a mere 30RMB (4.5USD), you could buy a live chicken and throw it down to the lions. If this wasn't good enough for you, you could also purchase either a rabbit for 50RMB or a sheep for 500 to be delivered for all to watch. Thankfully this didn't happen while we were there. Yikes!

Our most ironic moment came near the end when we visited the red panda house. Red pandas are really small, about the size and appearance of a raccoon. As we approached the house, we watched some stellar parents pay 5RMB for their 2 year old daughter to enter the panda cage ALONE to feed the pandas. (No I am not joking). As we stood at the glass in disbelief, the panda keeper who probably was supposed to be watching the little girl ran over to us and tried with all his might to convince me that Maddie should go in too. While this was going on the little Chinese girl became bored with the panda but fascinated with Maddie. So they stood on opposite sides of the glass touching hands while the little girls parents snapped photos. (My daughter is way more amazing to look at than any panda in Asia, she has blonde hair and blue eyes after all!). We of course declined paying 5 RMB to risk our daughters life and decided to move on to a less disturbing exhibit.

All in all it was a really wonderful day. The kids loved seeing the animals and I loved the breathtaking mountain views and the relative peace and quiet of the day.