Weekend in Guangzhou

Just to warn you, there are too many pictures in this post ;)

We went to the neighboring city of Guangzhou for a little weekend trip. We’d only been there one other time catching the train to Beijing and to be quite honest it was just as crazy as smelly actually visiting it as it was passing through. All in the experience, I suppose. Guangzhou is just an interesting place. The Asian Games are being help here in a hundredish days so the city is getting ready for those but I still just thought it was weird. First of all, black people. All over. And middle-easterners. There was a point where we rode past a handful of people and none of them were Oriental, weird!! That doesn’t happen in China! Also, I’m not kidding when I say that Guangzhou smells bad. I don’t know why but it was freaking nasty. And it’s just fast-paced and the people look meaner and by the end of 2 days we were all very grateful to live in Zhongshan. It’s a good home and we have everything we need here :)

Similarly to Beijing we got to do battle with the metro to make our way between the various destinations. We’re getting pretty good with a week’s worth of practice in Beijing but it’s still just a big crazy mess of Chinese people and metro stops. We caught a rickshaw back to our hotel to save us the trouble of walking after a long day of subwaying across the city.


The little ricksha man. He had a crush on Amanda.

This is how we felt about our hotel..

Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck. I put a shirt over my pillow and slept with no covers. Our bathroom smelt like a septic tank and showering in there was one of my grossest China experiences. And I have had some GROSS experiences, trust me.

The next morning we caught the metro to another district to go to the Safari Park!!!!
It made Guangzhou totally and completely worth it :D I was so excited about everything, I felt like a little kid!







I got to feed a baby tiger!!


SO INSANELY ADORABLE!! I want one!!



I bought some food and fed the monkeys. It was fun to watch em scramble for it.


There was a series of exhibits called Tiger Hill and oh my goodness, dreams were fulfilled here. I love tigers so this was so amazing!

They had so many white tigers here! And reading the story about the couple of tigers here who have 150 family members around the globe, which make up more than half of the white tiger population in the world. Thank you, China, for taking the effort to preserve the white tiger legacy!


I decided on a favorite tiger species! The South China tiger, isn’t that appropriate?

The tiger cubs were so cute! They had so many of them!




Baby tigers! So itty bitty and they don’t even have their stripes yet!


And because one tiger wasn’t enough..


I had to hold the white one too ;)



Hey what’s my class doing at the safari park?? I ran for cover..



Then I got to feed an elephant! He was playful and it was cute.



Koalas are sleepy.


And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better at this extraordinarily out of this world safari park …

I rode an elephant!!



Booyah!


But wait, they had pandas, too!!


This guy was my favorite!


LOOK AT HIS FACE! Isn’t he adorable?? I can totally see why the panda is so loved here, and why they made such cute cartoons.

Yes, my dreams came true. About twelve of them :)

Dear China,
I realize a lot of the things you do bother me (why do so many people throw up here? and your drivers are AWFUL) but for today I am happy you have less rules and restrictions than America when it comes to animal parks. You made me superiorly blissful :)


Then for some shopping which is always an experience.


Here we are trying on swimming suits over our clothes at an outdoor market. Lovely :)

We tried a couple more shopping places and were unsuccessful at finding what we wanted and felt as hungry, tired and irritable as if it were day 5 of Beijing. I’m starting to get burnt out on normal days so this frustrating travel experience was not exempt. One night was quite enough for me, thank you very much.

Oh Guangzhou. Thanks for the zoo but I will not miss you.