One of the nice parts of traveling ourselves, and not with a group, is that we have the freedom to plan our own itinerary (around the required adoption events that is). White Cloud Mountain, Lianhua Mountain, and today's visit to the Xiangjiang Safari Park are all things we wanted to do while here.
Xiangjiang Safari Park is THE LARGEST Safari Park in China (in fact, largest in all of Asia!) and is China's leading zoo. It is home to over 20,000 animals including Giant Pandas, Polar Bears and Koalas. It is the only zoo in mainland China to display Koalas and is the only zoo in the world to currently have koala twins, an extremely rare occurance. The zoo also has over 100 white-tigers, half of the worlds population. (For those of you soon to travel, this is NOT the Guangzhou Zoo! This one is about 45 min to an hour from Shamian and is PHENOMENAL. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT.)
Dave (our WONDERFUL driver), picked us up at 8:30 this morning. We arrived at the safari park by 9:15, bought our tickets, had a snack, used restrooms, and were the second family in line for the Safari on Wheels when it made its first run at 10. This is a "train" that takes you through the part of the park you can only drive though. Aaron LOVED it. He was pointing to the animals and knew many of their names in Mandarin. This lasted about 45 minutes, and then we began our tour on foot of the other section of the park. The white tigers were an incredible sight, as were the koalas, and the Pandas just amazing! Rupert fed elephants (bananas) and giraffes. We ate our lunches and then went to an elephant show. It was a WONDERFUL day.
I was quite a celebrity today! There were thousands of schoolchildren at the safari today, in their uniforms. When they saw me (usually while in line with their teachers), they would shout, "Hello!" and I would say "Hello," and wave. Some brave ones (boys mostly) would run up to me and say, "Hello," and when I would reply, "Hello, how are you?" They would giggle and run off, not knowing how to respond. I had fun with one boy by answering, "Ni hao," when he came up to me saying "Hello." When we went to the elephant show, we walked in and there were about 2,000 schoolchildren seated there, eating their lunches, and they were all waving and shouting "Hello!" to me - and again, when we walked out as they sat with their teachers receiving directions after the show, they all waved and yelled, "Goodbye." It was quite something.
Of course we get many stares. I am chuckling thinking that people are probably thinking, oh look you can marry an American woman and your child will look fully Chinese. Oh if they only knew...and if they saw Donovan, now that would really throw them for a loop, since he has very little Asian characteristics.
When we are out and about in Guangzhou, and I see young children (not school age yet), I think the ratio between genders is pretty even. However, today at the park, with kids 8-12 it was about 4 boys for every 1 girl.
We spoke a bit with Dave today about the One Child Policy. He has two older siblings (born in the 1970s before the One Child Policy began). He mentioned there are MANY parts of the law. For example, if two people marry and both the bride and groom are only children, then they are allowed to have two babies. Farmers in his province of Hubei are allowed to try for a second child if the first is a girl...(of course, we very well know what happens to many of those second girls...so the family can try again for a boy...). He also mentioned a minimum age for women to have children EVEN if they are already married...He said there are so many rules that are part of the One Child Policy, and that fines for violating the rules are pretty much impossible for people from his farming area to pay...and so again, we certainly know the consequence of that for the children...
Tonight we at yet another dinner at our favorite hot pot restaurant. Aaron ate noodles (TONS), shrimp, beef, broccoli and is a GREAT eater.
At 7 pm Aaron told us it was time to turn out the lights and go to bed. He's asleep now, and we are soon to turn in, as Dave and our guide, Wenzi are picking us up at 8 tomorrow morning to go to visit the orphanage. It will be an emotional and important day for us!
If I don't post tomorrow night, it is from sheer exhaustion of our long trip.
Love,
Nicole
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