Return of the Daddy Blogger (King)
Lord of the Rings nerd points x100! Today was the day we got to visit the safari park! We did not have a chance to visit there during our first to China adoption trips, so we have been looking forward to it. After breakfast, we were greeted by our local driver with a sign with our name on it. That never gets old. We were prepared for a 60 minute ride, but it took about 30 minutes. We got out of the van and went to go buy our tickets. As soon as we got in line I realized I left my phone in the van. Uh, panic much? The driver had driven away to what I assumed was the driver parking lot. More on this later.
We took our pictures by the Kung Fu Panda 3 display and then went to get in line. A bunch of guys in monkey masks twirling baton/staffs and a bunch of ladies in some sort of native (not sure native of where) outfits came out and formed a line and danced to some music. I wish I could make something like that up. But this really happened. Titus wasn't so sure about these guys, and I don't blame him. We eventually got to join the crowd of people shoving to get in through the security check and entrance. We were directed to the wheelchair/stroller entrance. Yay for shorter line! Once we got in we headed straight safari train.
The safari train isn't a train on tracks. It's a bunch of connected cars that seat about 100 people each pulled by a truck painted to look like a train. I considered looking up what officially makes a train a train (does it need tracks?), but in the interest of blogging for you all I will leave my curiosity for another time. Any train nerds out there feel free to let me know. I'll give you train nerd points.
Anyway, the train drives around quite a few animal areas. And most of the animals aren't gated in. Or walled in. Or anything'd in. They are just wandering around. The lions, bears and hippos had a security barrier - but nothing for the zebras, giraffes, kangaroos, ostriches and deer (love it that deer are in zoos here. Wonder what Ian will think when he sees them wondering around our backyard) and various other animals. A short rope blocked off the elephants. Because nothing stops an elephant stampede like a short rope. The kids took a ton of video and pictures. I sat with the boys in the second row of our car with the strollers under the seats of the first row where Bethany and the girls all were. This was super cool. And it was free with admission.
If you have your own vehicle, you can pay 250 RMB to drive your own car through the safari path. I mention this because the brochure we had in mostly Chinese with some English seemed to suggest you could rent a car to drive. When I asked about renting a car at the ticket desk they were confused. It wasn't until after we got on the train and saw the people driving their own cars in that I realized what was going on.
After the train - we headed straight for the panda exhibit. We had to convince the kids to keep going past the various animal exhibits so that we could make sure we could see the pandas. It my previous three visits to zoos in china (twice in Guangzhou and once in Chongqing) - the panda areas get very crowded. So picture crowded and then double that. We got to the area where the panda exhibit is located at about 10:30 and were told that area was closed until 11:00. So we decided to take the long way around, figuring that would get us to the far entrance close to 11:00. Sure enough, we got there at about 11:00. Then we were told that it was closed until 11:30 since the pandas were still sleeping. So we sat by a monkey exhibit for a while. Then the area finally opened and we made our way to the pandas.
To be continued...
Deer at the zoo
HAHA MR ELEPHANT! YOU CAN'T GET US - THERE'S A ROPE!!!
Jemma doesn't want to be left out and so periodically she'd take pictures, too - LOL
Why did the giraffe crossed the road?
Because the zebra did.
Sammy and Jemma - sweet
MONKEYS!!!!
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