DAY 13: Guangzhou Zoo!

In our hotel: the White Swan

For the first time on this trip, I slept a monstrous 9 hours!!:) That felt great to kind-of catch up- and I needed to be well-rested for our trip to the zoo. We met at 10am with the families from Urumqi, plus another family who adopted a 7 year old adorable little boy, Tyler.

On the way to the zoo...

with best buddy Drew..

The zoo was large and had a lot of different types of animals: tons of zebras, giraffes, elephants, wolves, jaguars, lions, tigers, different tyes of deer and elk, brown bears, tons of different monkeys, and our favorite: a panda bear. Zoos in other countries are not always like zoos in the states as far as natural-looking habitats and free space to roam (heck, even in the US some zoos aren't very animal-friendly). This zoo was very green and the lush tropical plants made you feel like you were out of the huge city of Guangzhou. The weather was about 90 degrees with the kind-of humidity that puffs up my curly hair the instant I leave the AC (hence the ponytail and scarf!)

At the zoo

With good buddy Gillian (aka Sha-sha)

All the kids at the zoo!

After the zoo and a nap to recuperate from the sauna, er, zoo, Tonio and I (and the kids) hit the streets of touristy knick-knacks and found some very colorful local art (painting of little kids flying kites and playing with the New Years dragons) for Tonito's room, as well as some other must-haves:). Tonito and Vivi were not happy about shopping, and so we headed back to the hotel and took Tonito for his first time swimming!! The water was ice cold, but he seemed to enjoy jumping around with Vivi and Tonio and I in the baby pool. His little swimming trunks kept falling off, but fortunately there was no one to moon as normal people wouldn't swim in such cold water at night. He didn't want to leave, so we asked the lifeguard to translate to him that if he goes to bed like a good boy he can come swimming again tomorrow- the magical words allowed us to calmly leave with no tantrums!:) After bath, dinner and some songs, the kids are now trying to go to sleep and I think I will too. Here is an adorable picture of the kids looking at the "coches" (cars) on the street below and a spontaneous hug from Vivi: