Day 14

We slept hard last night, which is good. We had a later breakfast than we have been, though this really just means it is going to be hard for us to adjust to our timezone when we get back home...

We went to the zoo this morning. We tried to go early, because it was hot. But, I guess if you really want to beat the heat you'd have to go in the middle of the night, because even at 9 am it was still sweltering. The zoo was a nice excursion, but it was pretty sad. It was quite run down and dirty. The standards of animal care are a bit different than in the zoos we've been to in the US. In one of the exhibits, we saw some mice chewing through the fence. I don't believe they were part of the admission price. Still, the mice, the random ducks and the monkeys seemed to be cohabiting nicely. That reminds me that at Ruthie's provincial office last week, we saw a mouse or rat crawling around under a table. I suppose if I were a mouse I'd live in a place where there were a lot of kid snacks being dropped on the floor, too. The standards of cleanliness are just different here. One of the strange things at the zoo was that they had water creatures like penguins and sea lions and such, but the water in their "displays" (I'm using that term loosely) was super dirty. All the water at the zoo was greenish and murky. You could generally make out the fact that there was some kind of animal swimming in the water, but you certainly couldn't see much. Very strange.

Still in all, the zoo wasn't terrible. You could get pretty close to the animals, which is good and bad. There was just a normal piece of glass between us and a very large gorilla, who I'm sure could have broken that glass without a second thought. But, we did get to see some pandas, which doesn't happen often at US zoos. Ruthie had some fun seeing the animals, so that was a treat for us. Seth mostly napped. While at the zoo, we continued to draw a crowd. A little boy asked to take a picture with Calla. We had been warned beforehand that many Chinese are fascinated by blond hair, and certainly this boy was. Later, a man asked our guide if he could exchange some money with us so he could keep an American dollar bill as a souvenir. He seemed very excited to get it, just as our kids have been super excited to see the Chinese currency.

After melting at the zoo, we went back to the hotel. We had bought some ramen style noodles at Wal Mart, and warmed those up for the kids. Ruthie ate a ton of noodles (again). She's really warming up to Kris and let him feed her and even bathe her today. This is good. Anne says she's figured out that he is the fun one, so she's enjoying playing with him.

We took the afternoon easy, just playing and letting the new kids nap. Kris took the other kids down to the pool, which they always enjoy. They got to experience a sauna for the first time, if only for a few minutes. They were underwhelmed.

For dinner, we were told that the Holiday Inn which is right next to our hotel had a more reasonably priced restaurant than our hotel does, so we walked over there. As it turns out, they've recently revamped the restaurant over there, and is all spicy noodles (and pretty expensive). So, not really what we were after. Frankly, it will be a long time before we are really craving noodles again. So, we went back to our hotel and ate there. Our kids who are able to voice their opinions in English wanted pizza, and since they've been adventurous over the last few days we were happy to oblige. We ended the evening relaxing and watching a little TV. There was a travel documentary on, and off all the places they could be visiting, they were exploring China. Still, I think we're having more of an adventure than they are...