Guangzhou Zoo

The highlight of today was a trip to the zoo this morning. It was a nice zoo with lots of animals. I think it is actually the largest zoo in southern China. Dexter was still a little too young to get a lot out of it, but he did enjoy seeing some of the larger animals (elephants, giraffes, hippos). Seeing a king panda was probably the highlight for us. We also got a close up view of an alligator.

We were really a highlight for the people at the zoo today. I don't think they get many American visitors. We've had a lot of "looks" from people during our visit here, but today we had quite a conversation (one sided) with an older Chinese woman. She actually called over the rest of her family to come and look at us while we were feeding Dexter. At one point, she took the bottle out of his mouth and held it away from him to see if he actually wanted it back. We have no idea what she was saying to us, but in the end it appeared that she approved of our decision to adopt him and she made a heart symbol with her fingers and gave us a thumbs up.

Our bus ride back to the hotel was longer than it should have been. The main bus entrance to the island was closed because the President of Pakistan is staying at a hotel on the island. Glad we're not staying there! Some of the families in our group are staying in that hotel, and it is also a meeting spot for our group. Couldn't it have been the President of Iceland or something?

After we ate a small lunch we spent some more time at the "local" market across the canal from our hotel. We've heard that there is a "pet" market over there that we thought would be interesting, but we haven't managed to find it yet. We did do some shopping, though. Next on our shopping list is a BIG suitcase for all of our purchases.

Tonight we decided to do a group meal with everyone from our agency. We went to one of the local Cantonese restaurants for some regional food. Our guide called ahead to place the order for us. We had fried rice, beef noodles, tofu, dumplings and a few other items. The main dish was pigeon, which was actually pretty good. We're getting pretty good with chopsticks, but the pigeon was a challenge.

By the time we got done it was getting late so we brought Dexter back for a bath before bed. Jeff made a trip to the Carrefour (Chinese equivalent to Walmart) for some additional supplies. We had been there before, but it was with our whole group and our guide. She wrote out the location information in Chinese for Jeff to give to the cab driver. He made it there and back with no trouble.

We've really such a good time here in China. It seems like it was more than a week ago when we met Dexter. He is such a good natured little guy. We're excited to bring him home in just a few more days. We're anxious to get back to Elliana and Zane, although it sounds like they are having a great time with Grandpa & Grandma.