Saturday-Sunday,
September 8-9, 2007

Lilia has been sleeping through the night, but Friday night (really Saturday morning), she woke up at 3:30 a.m. and devoured 8 oz. of formula. This is good, her appetite is increasing.

We are again doing a twofer post, as the weekend was somewhat uneventful.

Saturday we left the hotel at 9:45 a.m. for a walk through the Qingping market, an open door market with all kinds of dried stuff. It appears business of any kind in Guangzhou doesn’t really start until 10 am. Qingping is essentially a wholesale market where herbalists come to buy the ingredients for their potions. After this was a pet market, with lots of fish, some puppies, kittens, rabbits, turtles and mice. Evidently Saturday and Sunday are pet open market days. We then got to the main shopping street and got some time to shop for baby essentials and DVD’s. The mass of humanity on this shopping street, combined with the heat and humidity were very overwhelming. We had lunch as a group at a famous Cantonese restaurant and the food was excellent. We are gaining new appreciation for Cantonese cuisine. After lunch, the four L’s opted for a taxi back the hotel. Dolores walked back with another family and arrived same time as us since traffic doesn’t seem to wane on the weekends.

Sunday found us heading out early to the Xiangjiang Safari Adventure Park in Panyu. It was about a 40-minute drive from the hotel across the Pearl River. Cici said the government is encouraging more people to live out in this area as the subway now connects to Panyu. The park was actually quite good. Much better than any zoos in the US as they had many animals that you could get very close to. No PETA or US tort law here. We finally got to see giant pandas and “lesser pandas.” Lesser pandas are the red variety. Not to worry though, they all had air conditioned enclosures. It was another steamy day with no breeze to speak of. We were dripping just sitting still in the shade.

Between/during all this fun stuff, we are parenting. Lilia now bathes readily, allows me to wipe her nose and apply oragel without screaming, and plays contentedly. I think she likes having a family of her very own. Luke, however, is having trouble sleeping. He wakes up repeatedly throughout the night and restlessly seeks out a parent before going back to sleep. It will be a relief to get him home and back to a routine.

Tomorrow (Monday) is a big day as we venture out to Yangxi to visit Lilia’s SWI. After much discussion, we decided that our entire travel crew will be making the journey to Lilia’s birthplace. We are taking peanut butter & jelly sandwiches as Cici told us emphatically that we would NOT be eating in Yangxi. Sounds exciting already.


 

At a couple of places in the safari park, they let you take photos with the baby animals. We thought it was so dramatic the way they called the babies young predators.


This photo was taken after lunch, but the pandas were still awake since they live in air conditioned quarters.