Guangzhou - April 1st

This is a post for yesterday - April 1st as it says in the title.

It is very slow internet here so it's a lot harder to blog and I can't get on facebook at all.

Today we went to Safari Park as a big group - all 4 families.  This park is a very nice place.  It is not a place where they crowd the animals into small cages.  It's very open and beautiful.  This place does not give you a bad feeling for the animals.  I think the whole group had a great time. Meikiina enjoyed it and Willem loved it too.  He was so excited seeing the different animals.  He was pointing and talking very excitedly.  Our guide Kathy was with us in our seat on the train we took through part of the park.  Willem was pointing at a bunch of deer and saying (loo loo) and Kathy said, “He is saying deer, deer.”  We bought Willem a panda and he was talking about it and she told us he is saying ‘Panda’ in Chinese. So he is saying a lot, we just don’t understand.  She tries to talk to him a lot but he doesn’t respond to her. I think partly because he doesn’t know her and partly because they spoke a local dialect in his area.  I didn’t think about it, but on the way back, someone made the comment that they wonder how he knows words like deer and Panda.  That is a good question.  Was it from books?  He does love books.  I don’t know, but it sure would be fun to know.

My favorite part of the park was the Pandas.  Meikiina said her favorites were the Cheetahs and the Pandas.  Willem’s – hmmm…for sure not the ride there or back.  He did really good on the ride, but he does not like being in the car.  Well, he does – he loves to look at things out the window, but you can see that he does not feel well. 

When we got back from the Safari Park, we had a half hour of paperwork and Mei watched Da Qiang (Willem) for me.  That was great as he doesn’t really like to sit still.  We do still mostly call him Da Qiang and he for sure knows the name.  He has a very deep, gruff voice and when you say his name he repeats it ‘Da! Chong!’.  Each day we see more and more of his personality coming out and he is more and more happy.  Now when he’s waking up he quite happily puts his arms up for me to take him out of the crib, whereas before he would just look at me with such a sad look.  He is still very sad going to sleep and cries so sadly if I just lay him down.  I’ve been holding him as he falls asleep and he seems a bit better then. 

Ok – I guess that was a Willem tangent.  When we got the paperwork done, Stacy knocked on our door and asked if we want to walk with her so that we could see where they’ve found a pastry shop and several other things so we went and walked down the same street we walked down with Gina ten years ago when I was adopting Meikiina. It was the same, but also different.  Same types of shops with shop people standing in front clapping their hands and hollering to get you to come into their store.  Different, because well for one thing Meikiina was 13 pounds the last time I walked that street.  Now this time, she’s with me helping me out with her brother. Anyway, brings back memories. 

Another note on Willem.  He talks about the people at his orphanage – Ba Ba (like daddy – I believe he called the doctor Ba Ba), Ayi (nanny), Nai Nai (probably spelled that wrong, but grandma).

Well here are some pictures from the Safari Park adventure.  I took almost 200 pictures there so it’ll be hard to decide which ones to post. 

 Kangaroos were fun!

Willem had so much fun!  He loved the animals.

 Some of the animals would come right up to the cars.

 Mama and baby :)

 Babies.

There were a bunch of babies in incubators.

 That's really a panda behind him.

 Here he's saying Xiongmao  ('Shongmow' or 'Panda' in Chinese)

 This is a Red Panda

Meikiina feeding the giraffe.